Mac Pro 2023 = Another Mac Pro 2013 crisis and failure.

[Longplays]

It would be interesting to know if "average" means mean, median, or mode here.

In a corporate environment, "replacement cycle" may also be a misleading term, as many (most?) computers never get replaced. A new employee gets a new computer when they start, and if it doesn't break, they will often continue using it until they switch to another job.

Read the links for their methodology.

 

[bobcomer]

In a corporate environment, "replacement cycle" may also be a misleading term, as many (most?) computers never get replaced. A new employee gets a new computer when they start, and if it doesn't break, they will often continue using it until they switch to another job.

At least in my corporate world, most management laptops get replaced in 3 years, and desktops and other laptops, 5 or 6 years. There's no way we go until they quit, a lot of our employees have been there decades.

 

[VivienM]

Be aware that businesses also cost things out and schedule purchases. So they peg their x86 computers at 5-6 years.

Everything you mentioned about about OCLP, etc just applies to non-corporate or even non-work environments.

- macOS Security Update ends over 9 years later as early as 2007 Macs
- Windows EOL is 122 months since Vista

But the above are not indicative of typical replacement cycle but they're just support time.

People who do OCLP are mostly nerds and hobbyists who want to extend the useful life of their hardware because they may not have the financials to buy a Mac right now.

Users here prefer not to point out the obvious under threat of being Reported/Banned for being disrespectful.

I think you may have misunderstood what I am saying about OCLP.

What I am saying is that the replacement cycle today is driven by artificial OS support/lifecycle decisions. If my mid-2014 MacBook Pro would still be usable and current today running Ventura using OLCP, it means that if Apple felt like it, they could easily support Ventura on it. Hell, I haven't checked some processor benchmarks before saying that, but I suspect that machine would outperform at least the bottom fifth or so of the Windows laptops sold TODAY at Worst Buy. Certainly it would have more RAM than a good chunk of WB's 2023 Windows laptops...

The only reason for that mid-2014 MacBook Pro to be withdrawn from use, fundamentally, is i) Apple's OS support decisions, ii) Apple's battery support decisions, or iii) random hardware failure that is uneconomical to fix. Even if I wanted something faster, that machine could be plenty useful to someone else - this is not exactly a Quadra 630. Two of those things are artificial - Apple could still sell battery replacements today (maybe they do, maybe they don't) if they felt like it, and they could support Ventura and Sonoma on it, if they felt like it.

Look, there's a reason my main Windows desktop is running Windows 10 and not 11, when it would run 11 unsupported just fine - even though it's a home machine, I have my Macs, etc, I don't really want to gamble on Microsoft breaking it. I certainly understand why businesses, etc would not want to run unsupported OSes and/or unsupported configurations. I do the same thing on work machines and on my more important home machines! (I am not sure why you seemed to think I was advocating for OCLP or similar - I'm not.)

But fundamentally, this is going to hit a breaking point - the natural replacement cycle (i.e. when the user feels like they are unable to do what they need to do at acceptable performance with the machine) is getting longer, software developers have struggled to come up with ways to motivate ordinary users to need faster machines for at least a decade, while OS vendors like Microsoft and Apple are shortening software lifecycles.

And in Microsoft's case, especially, I get it - to pick one example, my late aunt had bought a C2Q Dell desktop running Windows 7 in 2009 or so. They aggressively snuck a Windows 10 upgrade on to it, for free... and if my aunt was still alive, that machine would probably still be in use today, and it would run Windows 11 just fine without the arbitrary restrictions, so realistically, she'd have probably gotten 20 years of life out of it! Twenty years out of one OEM license Dell purchased in 2009 is not good for business. I would prefer if Microsoft was still charging the CAD$129 for a retail upgrade every 3 years than them arbitrarily deciding the machine is to be e-wasted so they can get however much Dell pays for an OEM license, though. Microsoft giving away Windows 10 for free at the same time as the machines running Windows 7, especially the desktops, haven't really been getting that obsolete was a colossally bad business decision, I get that - I'm sure they expected most of those machines to hit their replacement cycle quickly enough that the free upgrades didn't have much of an impact on the bottom line, and I just don't think that's been true.

I am very curious to see what happens in Europe, especially - is the EU going to sit by while Microsoft effectively decides that every Windows computer from 2017 or earlier (along with a good number of 2018 models) that connects to the Internet needs to be e-wasted in late 2025? (And yes, I think that's an accurate statement - unless you are going to run 11 unsupported, run Linux, etc, all things most people will not do for the same reason most people won't OCLP, the only reasonable option is to e-waste those machines.)

 

[Longplays]

I think you may have misunderstood what I am saying about OCLP.

What I am saying is that the replacement cycle today is driven by artificial OS support/lifecycle decisions. If my mid-2014 MacBook Pro would still be usable and current today running Ventura using OLCP, it means that if Apple felt like it, they could easily support Ventura on it. Hell, I haven't checked some processor benchmarks before saying that, but I suspect that machine would outperform at least the bottom fifth or so of the Windows laptops sold TODAY at Worst Buy. Certainly it would have more RAM than a good chunk of WB's 2023 Windows laptops...

I looked up your 2014 MBP 22nm and it appears it is still supported by 2020 macOS Big Sur 11.7.7 that was released less than a month ago.

My guess is it would be unsupported by next year.

A nice sold decade.

A decade of paid for support is very nice to have given that it is a decade.

I assumed that Apple budgeted in the support up to that time.

Look, there's a reason my main Windows desktop is running Windows 10 and not 11, when it would run 11 unsupported just fine - even though it's a home machine, I have my Macs, etc, I don't really want to gamble on Microsoft breaking it. I certainly understand why businesses, etc would not want to run unsupported OSes and/or unsupported configurations. I do the same thing on work machines and on my more important home machines! (I am not sure why you seemed to think I was advocating for OCLP or similar - I'm not.)

Personally I'd delay Win11 until Oct 2025 so it gets 4 years of patches and optimizations.

And in Microsoft's case, especially, I get it - to pick one example, my late aunt had bought a C2Q Dell desktop running Windows 7 in 2009 or so. They aggressively snuck a Windows 10 upgrade on to it, for free... and if my aunt was still alive, that machine would probably still be in use today, and it would run Windows 11 just fine without the arbitrary restrictions, so realistically, she'd have probably gotten 20 years of life out of it! Twenty years out of one OEM license Dell purchased in 2009 is not good for business. I would prefer if Microsoft was still charging the CAD$129 for a retail upgrade every 3 years than them arbitrarily deciding the machine is to be e-wasted so they can get however much Dell pays for an OEM license, though. Microsoft giving away Windows 10 for free at the same time as the machines running Windows 7, especially the desktops, haven't really been getting that obsolete was a colossally bad business decision, I get that - I'm sure they expected most of those machines to hit their replacement cycle quickly enough that the free upgrades didn't have much of an impact on the bottom line, and I just don't think that's been true.

I believe MS imposed "forced" 2015 Win10 or 2021 Win11 upgrades to reduce bad press of abandoned Win version being exploited for all manner of malware.

Is it just me but for over half a decade we've yet to see headlines of some attack on say 2009 Win7, 2012 Win8.x & 2001 WinXP?

Over 94.85% of worldwide PCs are Win10 or Win11. Acceptable Windows version fragmentation

As for your late aunt's 2007 C2Q 65nm... as the 1st owner would you even want to use it even if the internals were dusted out, thermal paste was cleand out and reapplied, maxed out its RAM and swapped in a SATA SSD? It's a nice project to do to satisfy the nerd itch but would that be your daily machine until it's 2 decade anniversary? I cannot see that a quality of life improvement.

If a pre-2017 or pre-TPM 14nm Intel PC were to still be running 2015 Win10 by Oct 2025... I'd likely just replace it with a 3nm 2025 AMD laptop with Win11. The Win10 PC would likely be a decade's old by then being used for at least ~8hrs/day use over 3,650 days.

That Ryzen laptop would likely be used for a decade and be replaced by a 0.5nm (A5) AMD laptop with Win12.

I am very curious to see what happens in Europe, especially - is the EU going to sit by while Microsoft effectively decides that every Windows computer from 2017 or earlier (along with a good number of 2018 models) that connects to the Internet needs to be e-wasted in late 2025? (And yes, I think that's an accurate statement - unless you are going to run 11 unsupported, run Linux, etc, all things most people will not do for the same reason most people won't OCLP, the only reasonable option is to e-waste those machines.)

I do not think anyone would complain that a decade old computer would be transferred to collectors, hand me downs, garage sales, donations or even recycling.

E-waste isn't really a thing unless the person is too lazy to repurpose it someone else.

 

[JouniS]

At least in my corporate world, most management laptops get replaced in 3 years, and desktops and other laptops, 5 or 6 years. There's no way we go until they quit, a lot of our employees have been there decades.

Long careers in the same company are no longer that common. I'm fairly sure that the average laptop outlasts the average employee these days. Which should mean that most corporate laptops are new devices for new employees rather than replacement devices for old employees.

 

[VivienM]

Long careers in the same company are no longer that common. I'm fairly sure that the average laptop outlasts the average employee these days. Which should mean that most corporate laptops are new devices for new employees rather than replacement devices for old employees.

In what companies do new employees inherently get new devices? In my world at least, if a former employee returned a device that's <3 years old and in passable cosmetic shape, it's getting reallocated to a new person.

 

[VivienM]

I looked up your 2014 MBP and it appears it is still supported by 2020 macOS Big Sur 11.7.7 that was released less than a month ago.

My guess is it would be unsupported by next year.

A nice sold decade.

A decade of paid for support is very nice to have given that it is a decade.

I assumed that Apple budgeted in the support up to that time.

That's nice - it could have gotten another 3 years if Apple felt like it, at minimal cost I might add. If the OCLP guys managed to get Ventura running on it, I'm sure Apple could have officially offered Ventura if Apple felt like it.

Okay, so... benchmark time. That machine, according to Geekbench 6, gets 1100 single-core and 3800 multi-core.

If I go to www.bestbuy.ca and look for Windows laptops, the cheapest laptop in stock today is an HP with AMD Athlon Silver 7120U/128GB SSD/4GB RAM (https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/produc...r-7120u-128gb-ssd-4gb-ram-windows-11/16982682 ). That's 1/4 the size of SSD of my mid-2014 Mac, 1/4 the RAM, and... let's see what that processor Geekbench 6s at - 1080 single-core, 1800 multi-core.

Please explain to me why you think I should be thankful my mid-2014 MBP got "9 years" as I drop it off in the e-waste pile when, TODAY, Worst Buy is selling a brand new Windows machine with half the multi-core performance, 1/4 the RAM, and 1/4 the SSD... for the price of an Apple battery replacement.

Put another way - ignoring OS support for a second - would you rather spend CAD$279 on a new battery for the mid-2014 MacBook Pro, or would you rather spend $279 on this HP?

The simplistic idea that old is bad and new is good... stopped being true around a decade ago... when Windowsland started peddling absolute junk at the low end.

Now, computers have become somewhat like cars - high-end ones today are better than high-end ones a decade ago, low-end ones today are better than low-end ones a decade ago, and comparing today's low-end ones with a decade ago's high-end ones is tricky. Take a C2Q with 8GB of RAM and a nice GPU from 2008, compare it to that HP laptop from 2023, can you really tell me one is better? The HP laptop will win on single-core performance, power consumption, and faster USB speeds, the C2Q will win on everything else.

I believe MS imposed "forced" 2015 Win10 or 2021 Win11 upgrades to reduce bad press of abandoned Win version being exploited for all manner of malware.

Is it just me but for over half a decade we've yet to see headlines of some attack on say 2009 Win7, 2012 Win8.x & 2001 WinXP.

Over 94.85% of worldwide PCs are Win10 or Win11.

As for your late aunt's 2007 C2Q 65nm... as the 1st owner would you even want to use it even if the internals were dusted out, thermal paste was cleand out and reapplied, maxed out its RAM and swapped in a SATA SSD? It's a nice project to do to satisfy the nerd itch but would that be your daily machine until it's 2 decade anniversary? I cannot see that a quality of life improvement.

They are going to have that bad press problem multiplied by 1000 in 2025.

And my aunt's C2Q was a 45nm. I think a Q8400, but my family had so many 45nm C2D/C2Q's that I forget who had which model.

My aunt, if she was still around, would be 85 this year. Does an 85-year-old really need more than a 45nm C2Q with an adequate amount of RAM, a supported version of Windows, and a supported web browser as her daily machine? And in 5 years, she would have been 90 - unless someone invents something massively processor-hungry in the next couple of years, why would her needs massively increase?

You know, there's a reason "old lady cars" are what they are, potentially 30 years old, low mileage, and in perfect cosmetic condition. No reason "old lady C2Qs" would be that much different.

And while I would rather not use a C2Q as my daily machine, if all my other machines failed tomorrow, I could take a 45nm C2Q with 8 gigs of RAM and an SSD and not lose my mind, especially if I steered clear of Electron apps. Similarly, I could take one of my three 2011 quad-core Windows Sandy Bridge laptops with 16 gigs of RAM and SSDs and... probably have a lot better experience than on that new $279 HP. Screen's probably better too.

I couldn't do that with my G4 MDD - now that is a vintage collectible. And that's what I bought it as so it's all good

I do not think anyone would complain that a decade old computer would be transferred to collectors, hand me downs, garage sales, donations or even recycling.

E-waste isn't really a thing unless the person is too lazy to repurpose it someone else.

First, it's not a "decade old", it's closer to 7 or 8 years.

Second, "hand me downs", "donations", "garage sales", "repurpose", etc are not an option here. What OS are people going to run? An unsupported Windows version full of malware? That's the only option for 99% of people - sure, a few people with "nerd itch" (to use your words) might turn those machines into some cool Linux project or other, but that's not an option for 99%. The options are e-waste, malware, or "nerd itch".

Third, please stop focusing on age. Look at capabilities. I have an i7-7700 Windows machine with 64 gigs of RAM, Geekbench score of 1400 single-core, multicore score around 4600. Even has an on-processor TPM 2.0 so it meets that 'requirement' of theirs. Microsoft says - not good enough for us, throw it into e-waste in 2025.

Meanwhile, I can spend $279CAD TODAY at Worst Buy for that HP laptop with 1/16th the RAM, less than half the multicore performance, 75% of the single-core performance and Microsoft says "that's a great machine, congratulations on your excellent purchase of a system that meets our performance and reliability expectations, we're pleased to support it on Windows 11 and probably even Windows 12".

I don't want to be accused of being rude or dismissive again, but please try to justify that. The only possible reason is that the HP paid for its Windows licence more recently. But if I wave my credit card at Microsoft and say "please, take my money, give me a Windows 11 licence and the promise that you won't brick my machine in a monthly patch", they won't take it. I would rather pay Microsoft CAD$259 (which I think is what they used to charge for a retail XP/Vista/7 Pro upgrade) for a Windows 11 licence for my i7 7700, frankly, then pay $279 to Worst Buy for that HP laptop. Wouldn't you?

It used to be, too, that if you spent bigger money on a "better" computer, you would get more life out of it. If I had bought the equivalent of the $279 HP in 2017, assuming it was still alive and functioning today, Microsoft would be telling me that it's e-waste in 2025 just as much as with my expensive machine. Meanwhile, if I bought the absolute cheapest thing with an 8th-gen i3 a year later, Microsoft would be welcoming me to the warm and fuzzy world of Windows 11.

 

[Longplays]

That's nice - it could have gotten another 3 years if Apple felt like it, at minimal cost I might add. If the OCLP guys managed to get Ventura running on it, I'm sure Apple could have officially offered Ventura if Apple felt like it.

Android support outside of Google Pixel is very short. IIRC it is 2 years? Google phones get at least 3 years?

So a decade's support of macOS & winOS is very extraordinary by comparison.

Android phones have notoriously short support because they compete on cost. So the 1st thing that gets cut is R&D for System Updates as it is assumed and observed that people buying Android will replace after 2-3 years or dont care about software support at all. With so many SKUs to support from each brand it makes it difficult to leverage economies of scale.

No Apple device has that problem hence support for 9+ years on average.

Okay, so... benchmark time. That machine, according to Geekbench 6, gets 1100 single-core and 3800 multi-core.

If I go to www.bestbuy.ca and look for Windows laptops, the cheapest laptop in stock today is an HP with AMD Athlon Silver 7120U/128GB SSD/4GB RAM (https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/produc...r-7120u-128gb-ssd-4gb-ram-windows-11/16982682 ). That's 1/4 the size of SSD of my mid-2014 Mac, 1/4 the RAM, and... let's see what that processor Geekbench 6s at - 1080 single-core, 1800 multi-core.

Please explain to me why you think I should be thankful my mid-2014 MBP got "9 years" as I drop it off in the e-waste pile when, TODAY, Worst Buy is selling a brand new Windows machine with half the multi-core performance, 1/4 the RAM, and 1/4 the SSD... for the price of an Apple battery replacement.

The 6nm Win11 laptop you are complaining about is $280. I cannot recall any Mac sell for that little brand new. That's half the price of an 2022 iPhone SE 64GB.

You could sell your MBP. Someone will buy it. Hand it off to someone who needs it as a gift? Collectors will pick it up for you for $200? Recyclers may buy it from you for the metals.

Also the support Apple provided is part of the price of the Mac. Going beyond that becomes a loss for the company. Software devs are expensive with their 6 digit salaries.

Also by that time how many persons would still be using a decade-old computer? Assuming Apple was a charity would it be worth the time of the software devs to support a device that very few people use after more than a decade?

Put another way - ignoring OS support for a second - would you rather spend CAD$279 on a new battery for the mid-2014 MacBook Pro, or would you rather spend $279 on this HP?

Personally? I'd schedule my cash flow to accommodate a purchase for a 2025 Mac. That's the responsible thing to do.

The simplistic idea that old is bad and new is good... stopped being true around a decade ago... when Windowsland started peddling absolute junk at the low end.

A decade ago were $280 PC laptops much less desktops be as good as those being sold today at the same price point?

Now, computers have become somewhat like cars - high-end ones today are better than high-end ones a decade ago, low-end ones today are better than low-end ones a decade ago, and comparing today's low-end ones with a decade ago's high-end ones is tricky.

Today's car are chock full of electronics and logic boards. Assuming that component stopped production you'd have to resort through junk shops for the part #.

Take a C2Q with 8GB of RAM and a nice GPU from 2008, compare it to that HP laptop from 2023, can you really tell me one is better? The HP laptop will win on single-core performance, power consumption, and faster USB speeds, the C2Q will win on everything else.

C2Q 2008 wouldnt cost $280 back then. It may do so today.

They are going to have that bad press problem multiplied by 1000 in 2025.

And my aunt's C2Q was a 45nm. I think a Q8400, but my family had so many 45nm C2D/C2Q's that I forget who had which model.

My aunt, if she was still around, would be 85 this year. Does an 85-year-old really need more than a 45nm C2Q with an adequate amount of RAM, a supported version of Windows, and a supported web browser as her daily machine? And in 5 years, she would have been 90 - unless someone invents something massively processor-hungry in the next couple of years, why would her needs massively increase?

I think your late aunt would like something she's familiar with. So Win10 would probably not to her liking.

Sadly she'd probably call you to remove any malware from Win7.

You know, there's a reason "old lady cars" are what they are, potentially 30 years old, low mileage, and in perfect cosmetic condition. No reason "old lady C2Qs" would be that much different.

And while I would rather not use a C2Q as my daily machine, if all my other machines failed tomorrow, I could take a 45nm C2Q with 8 gigs of RAM and an SSD and not lose my mind, especially if I steered clear of Electron apps. Similarly, I could take one of my three 2011 quad-core Windows Sandy Bridge laptops with 16 gigs of RAM and SSDs and... probably have a lot better experience than on that new $279 HP. Screen's probably better too.

I couldn't do that with my G4 MDD - now that is a vintage collectible. And that's what I bought it as so it's all good



First, it's not a "decade old", it's closer to 7 or 8 years.

Second, "hand me downs", "donations", "garage sales", "repurpose", etc are not an option here. What OS are people going to run? An unsupported Windows version full of malware? That's the only option for 99% of people - sure, a few people with "nerd itch" (to use your words) might turn those machines into some cool Linux project or other, but that's not an option for 99%. The options are e-waste, malware, or "nerd itch".

Third, please stop focusing on age. Look at capabilities. I have an i7-7700 Windows machine with 64 gigs of RAM, Geekbench score of 1400 single-core, multicore score around 4600. Even has an on-processor TPM 2.0 so it meets that 'requirement' of theirs. Microsoft says - not good enough for us, throw it into e-waste in 2025.

Meanwhile, I can spend $279CAD TODAY at Worst Buy for that HP laptop with 1/16th the RAM, less than half the multicore performance, 75% of the single-core performance and Microsoft says "that's a great machine, congratulations on your excellent purchase of a system that meets our performance and reliability expectations, we're pleased to support it on Windows 11 and probably even Windows 12".

I don't want to be accused of being rude or dismissive again, but please try to justify that. The only possible reason is that the HP paid for its Windows licence more recently. But if I wave my credit card at Microsoft and say "please, take my money, give me a Windows 11 licence and the promise that you won't brick my machine in a monthly patch", they won't take it. I would rather pay Microsoft CAD$259 (which I think is what they used to charge for a retail XP/Vista/7 Pro upgrade) for a Windows 11 licence for my i7 7700, frankly, then pay $279 to Worst Buy for that HP laptop. Wouldn't you?

It used to be, too, that if you spent bigger money on a "better" computer, you would get more life out of it. If I had bought the equivalent of the $279 HP in 2017, assuming it was still alive and functioning today, Microsoft would be telling me that it's e-waste in 2025 just as much as with my expensive machine. Meanwhile, if I bought the absolute cheapest thing with an 8th-gen i3 a year later, Microsoft would be welcoming me to the warm and fuzzy world of Windows 11.

Race to the bottom will always produce a bad experience.

Apple are nice because of the Apple tax that funds R&D.

Now let us say that Apple & Microsoft were generous with support and doubled it.

How will they pay for their operational overhead if it ends up that instead of 4-6 years replace cycle it becomes 24-26 years?

The managers of those companies will lengthen product refreshes, prices will go up to compensate for worsening economies of scale

Support cost a lot. So where to get the funds? Ask for free labor from software devs?

TL;DR: Better question would you want to work for free to support people holding onto 1 decade to 3 decade old computers? There is FOSS of course but would you want to work for free for Apple or Microsoft? That is essentially what OCLP is asking for. Work for us for free until 2028 or even beyond.

 

[bobcomer]

Long careers in the same company are no longer that common. I'm fairly sure that the average laptop outlasts the average employee these days. Which should mean that most corporate laptops are new devices for new employees rather than replacement devices for old employees.

That depends on where you live -- long careers are still common here.

 

[bobcomer]

In what companies do new employees inherently get new devices? In my world at least, if a former employee returned a device that's <3 years old and in passable cosmetic shape, it's getting reallocated to a new person.

Same here.

 

[VivienM]

Android support outside of Google Pixel is very short. IIRC it is 2 years? Google phones get at least 3 years?

So a decade's support of macOS & winOS is very extraordinary by comparison.

Android phones have notoriously short support because they compete on cost. So the 1st thing that gets cut is R&D for System Updates as it is assumed and observed that people buying Android will replace after 2-3 years or dont care about software support at all. With so many SKUs to support from each brand it makes it difficult to leverage economies of scale.

No Apple device has that problem hence support for 9+ years on average.

Again, you're missing my point. My point is this - if the 9 year old Mac is capable of doing everything its owner needs it to do, why should that owner be required, in order to avoid big bad security bugs, to junk it and buy a new system?

Honestly, what this is actually pushing towards is a subscription model. Pay $X/year for your Windows or your macOS, keep your hardware as long as you're happy with it.

The 6nm Win11 laptop you are complaining about is $280. I cannot recall any Mac sell for that little brand new. That's half the price of an 2022 iPhone SE 64GB.

Again, you are missing the point. The point is that I can go out there, TODAY and spend money on something brand new that is less capable than the machine you are telling me to trash.

If Microsoft said "we will not support any machine that doesn't benchmark at score X in Windows 11", I'd be fine with that.

But you are defending the idea that the $279 laptop, by virtue of being newer, should get OS updates while more capable older hardware should get set aside.

You could sell your MBP. Someone will buy it. Hand it off to someone who needs it as a gift? Collectors will pick it up for you for $200? Recyclers may buy it from you for the metals.

As I said, I traded it in when Apple gave me a generous offer when I got my M1 Max. But... if its battery hadn't been swelling, it would still be a capable machine.

Also the support Apple provided is part of the price of the Mac. Going beyond that becomes a loss for the company. Software devs are expensive with their 6 digit salaries.

Also by that time how many persons would still be using a decade-old computer? Assuming Apple was a charity would it be worth the time of the software devs to support a device that very few people use after more than a decade?

I don't think I have ever said that the software support should be free, have I?

In fact, the software support being free is the root of this problem. Because the software support is free, the OS vendor wants to end it when they feel it's time for you to come back and pay for another piece of hardware rather than when you actually have a compelling reason to buy new hardware.

C2Q 2008 wouldnt cost $280 back then. It may do so today.

I think your late aunt would like something she's familiar with. So Win10 would probably not to her liking.

Sadly she'd probably call you to remove any malware from Win7.

She was still alive when Microsoft forcibly rolled out Windows 10 on it. It was weird, actually - I figured I needed to make a trip to see her and update that machine at some point, and... one day, she woke up, and it was running Windows 10. Windows 7 support outlived her, anyways, as it turns out

And again, whether it costs $280 is irrelevant. Why should I throw out something that is equivalent or worse to a $280 computer today because it is old?

How will they pay for their operational overhead if it ends up that instead of 4-6 years replace cycle it becomes 24-26 years?

The managers of those companies will lengthen product refreshes, prices will go up to compensate for worsening economies of scale

Support cost a lot. So where to get the funds? Ask for free labor from software devs?

TL;DR: Better question would you want to work for free to support people holding onto 1 decade to 3 decade old computers? There is FOSS of course but would you want to work for free for Apple or Microsoft? That is essentially what OCLP is asking for. Work for us for free until 2028 or even beyond.

How about they just... take my money?

In Microsoft's case, they used to charge CAD$129 for a home edition upgrade and CAD$259 for a pro edition upgrade.

The only work they need to do to keep supporting the older machines on Windows 11 is making sure that no patches break on the older machines. That's it. Windows 11 currently works just fine on a C2Q, even, and those don't even have UEFI/TPM/etc, so there's zero additional development effort, just making sure you don't break it. Let's say that costs... $2 million a year. I'm sure you can hire at least 5 engineers for that much, maybe more like 10. How big of a team do you need to look over patches and test them on a few older systems? Assuming an average price of US$150 on an upgrade, they need to sell 13300 upgrade licences to pay for one year of those costs.

That's it. Are you really telling me that Microsoft cannot find, say, 100K people willing to pay $150 to extend the life of high-end desktop machines from 2016-2017 for a couple of years? Think about businesses too - I'm sure there are plenty of Haswell and newer desktops in use in business that businesses don't really want to replace; at least some would pay too.

The problem is that they made a monstrous mistake giving people like my late aunt a free upgrade to Windows 10 and way more of those machines than expected are going to reach 16 years without paying Microsoft again. So, instead of going back to charging for upgrades, they've decided to just throw overboard any machine that hasn't paid for its licence in 2018 or newer. Regardless of those machines' actual capabilities, or whether they do what their owners want them to do.

Same with Apple, except Apple makes their money on hardware. If OCLP can run Ventura on a whole bunch of machines, Apple wouldn't need a big engineering team to do the same - if anything, they'd just need to keep their existing engineers away from the delete key. If Apple said "you get 5 versions of macOS free with your Mac, then if you want later versions, hand over US$99", I'm sure that they'd get enough takers to pay for the cost of the labour, at least. I'd hand over that money to get Sonoma on my 12" MacBook... and I might go out and buy a 2017 or so Intel 15" USB-C MacBook Pro and pay to get Sonoma on that as well.

It's worth noting - that's what car companies do with GPS maps. You get a couple free updates with the car, and then if you want current maps after that, you open up your wallet. They don't tell you "oh, you want current maps on your 2016 car, you need to sell the car to someone who doesn't need current maps and buy a new car from us"

And the other thing I would add - the entire point of free OS upgrades is to motivate people to migrate to current OSes so that there is less pressure to support older versions and so the ecosystem can move forward. If you, however, restrict those upgrades to recent machines, you are creating the opposite effect where people who don't need a new machine will just stick to the old OS for as long as they can.

 

[Longplays]

TL;DR: Your idea, though noble, has little commercial value to Apple. In other words it is worse than Apple spending extra R&D for a Mac Pro that has swappable CPU, GPU, RAM, SSD & motherboard.

Why? Too few takers, obligations to keep spare parts of decade+ devices and very high incidents of software piracy similar to OLCP.

Just to satisfy... 2000 worldwide users?

Again, you're missing my point. My point is this - if the 9 year old Mac is capable of doing everything its owner needs it to do, why should that owner be required, in order to avoid big bad security bugs, to junk it and buy a new system?

Because after 9+ years the paid support has ran out.

You can of course run other OS on it that you can pay for like Win10 or even Win 11 or go free like Linux, et al.

Similar, not the same, as car makers halting production of parts for cars they have ceased making years or even decades ago.

In other words it is a niche too small to be worth spending any time & money further.

The specialized skill to maintain it further is very expensive. Each of them meriting 6 figure salary.

So are you willing to work for free for Apple/Microsoft to support 9+ hardware from "e-waste"?

Honestly, what this is actually pushing towards is a subscription model. Pay $X/year for your Windows or your macOS, keep your hardware as long as you're happy with it.

I doubt it is big enough to be self supporting. And the user experience on hardware a decade or 2 older would diminish the brand equity.

Not to mention if the userbase are people on fixed income would they care enough to even update at CAD$129/year?

It would also fragmentize the OS unnecessarily for the sake of security patches of >decade hardware.

Take for example the last modern browser to support PowerPC Macs. The sole dev that worked for free gave up because it wasn't worth his time to support 2,000 users.

Again, you are missing the point. The point is that I can go out there, TODAY and spend money on something brand new that is less capable than the machine you are telling me to trash.

No one's telling you to trash. The metals and glass have value. Hand it down, donate, sell to a collector, use it off line or sell it to a recycler. Let it be the other person's concern.

Personally... I've given away old devices to extended families and even to employees when they have reached a decade+, was replaced with newer hardware or I had no more use for it anymore.

But you are defending the idea that the $279 laptop, by virtue of being newer, should get OS updates while more capable older hardware should get set aside.

Because it is newly paid for and merits support that it has paid for.

Microsoft's brand equity in relation to its user experience is their business and standard.

It isn't a luxury brand like Apple.

As I said, I traded it in when Apple gave me a generous offer when I got my M1 Max. But... if its battery hadn't been swelling, it would still be a capable machine.

Apple's a business and not a charity. A 2014 Mac was budgeted 9+ years of support. To make Apple's life simpler & it would better for them that you trade it in for a M1 and get support for another 9+ years.

I don't think I have ever said that the software support should be free, have I?

Until this post you were not explicit that additional support be on a subscription. I did not even think of that business model for unsupported Macs.

Also, with how easily OCLP was able to hack unsupported macOS onto unsupported hardware it is likely someone would do the same with the subscription of extending macOS support for decade+ Macs.

Why would anyone pay for a sub when there is OCLP?

In countries where torrenting is tolerated the up take of Netflix subs aint that high. Heck Netflix had to lower rates to CAD$3.53/month.

In fact, the software support being free is the root of this problem. Because the software support is free, the OS vendor wants to end it when they feel it's time for you to come back and pay for another piece of hardware rather than when you actually have a compelling reason to buy new hardware.

It isn't "free" it is budgeted into every Mac sold.

She was still alive when Microsoft forcibly rolled out Windows 10 on it. It was weird, actually - I figured I needed to make a trip to see her and update that machine at some point, and... one day, she woke up, and it was running Windows 10.

2009 Win7 is a security hole and Windows version fragmentation. It is cheaper operationally & better PR for Microsoft to have everyone on the public Internet be on Win10 & Win11.

The business model of paid OS updates has been killed by software piracy. Of which OLCP is a symptom of.

IIRC Steve Jobs tried lowering the purchase price of updated OS X from $129(?) to $29(?) vyt piracy and adoption was a problem.

So he pioneered from paid OS to free OS for authorized Macs.

And again, whether it costs $280 is irrelevant. Why should I throw out something that is equivalent or worse to a $280 computer today because it is old?

No one's telling you to buy a $280. I never brought it up. If you were to ask for my opinion I'd suggest you replace your 2014 with a 2024 model in a form factor suitable for your use case for the next decade.

How about they just... take my money?

I doubt you and how many people who have decade+ devices would be worth the time and effort to service with extended security updates. Reason being it wouldn't be enough.

1st would there be enough persons with decade+ devices who'd understand the importance of extended security update?

2nd would these people be in a position to pay regularly for 1-2 decades further.

3rd how would extended support impact sales of that year's Apple devices

4th would this lead to macOS fragmention? Resulting in higher macOS support cost.

In Microsoft's case, they used to charge CAD$129 for a home edition upgrade and CAD$259 for a pro edition upgrade.

The only work they need to do to keep supporting the older machines on Windows 11 is making sure that no patches break on the older machines. That's it. Windows 11 currently works just fine on a C2Q, even, and those don't even have UEFI/TPM/etc, so there's zero additional development effort, just making sure you don't break it. Let's say that costs... $2 million a year. I'm sure you can hire at least 5 engineers for that much, maybe more like 10. How big of a team do you need to look over patches and test them on a few older systems? Assuming an average price of US$150 on an upgrade, they need to sell 13300 upgrade licences to pay for one year of those costs.

US$150 is half the CAD$280 laptop you were putting down?

If you aren't a nerd into benchmarks a typical consumer will opt for a new hardware they can touch.

You also did not account for wear and tear of decade+ hardware. A trackpad or keyboard would be well worn out by now. Would those parts still be sold a decade+ later?

That's it. Are you really telling me that Microsoft cannot find, say, 100K people willing to pay $150 to extend the life of high-end desktop machines from 2016-2017 for a couple of years?

If you are of the market of high-end desktops like say... gamers... why would they be using year 2016-2017 in 2023? Shouldn't they be on the i9 + 4090 by now?

Also since 2007 WinVista, Microsoft has supported Windows for 122 months.

Also... if you are savy enough to run high-end desktops... wouldn't you be savy enough to pirate Windows? Or at the very least use the lower cost wrong license of it? I am not that current on mass site Windows licenses but I know it is a fraction of individual home user keys are worth.

Think about businesses too - I'm sure there are plenty of Haswell and newer desktops in use in business that businesses don't really want to replace; at least some would pay too.

Not enough... simpler to limit new OS to anything newer than a decade's old.

The problem is that they made a monstrous mistake giving people like my late aunt a free upgrade to Windows 10 and way more of those machines than expected are going to reach 16 years without paying Microsoft again.

To Microsoft it would be cheaper & better net PR to reduce Windows version fragmentation to 94+% of Win10 & Win11. The 5+% using something else is not a concern anymore.

Wait, weren't you advocating that Apple offer extended paid macOS Security Updates to decade+ Macs?

Microsoft did it for free... I am confused on what you want to happen.

Same with Apple, except Apple makes their money on hardware. If OCLP can run Ventura on a whole bunch of machines, Apple wouldn't need a big engineering team to do the same - if anything, they'd just need to keep their existing engineers away from the delete key. If Apple said "you get 5 versions of macOS free with your Mac, then if you want later versions, hand over US$99", I'm sure that they'd get enough takers to pay for the cost of the labour, at least.

Steve reduced OS X from $129(?) to $29(?). It appears it did not work as they made it "free".

If it did not work then then why now? How many people like you would step up and pay for it? It would not be sufficient.

It is like Mac Pro users wanting i9 + 4090. Not enough to bother with.

I'd hand over that money to get Sonoma on my 12" MacBook... and I might go out and buy a 2017 or so Intel 15" USB-C MacBook Pro and pay to get Sonoma on that as well.

IIRC your MB 12" has the Butterfly Keyboard problem that Apple will fix for free for a certain period of years.

When say the keyboard break down after that period and Apple does not offer parts because it makes zero commercial sense. Will you still continue paying for your subscription?

If it costs more to support a niche use case then any company will just abandon it.

It's worth noting - that's what car companies do with GPS maps. You get a couple free updates with the car, and then if you want current maps after that, you open up your wallet. They don't tell you "oh, you want current maps on your 2016 car, you need to sell the car to someone who doesn't need current maps and buy a new car from us"

Car companies charge a high sum for this service. No one else has access to this monopoly. Incidents of software piracy is near zero.

Isn't that a definition of a captured market?

And the other thing I would add - the entire point of free OS upgrades is to motivate people to migrate to current OSes so that there is less pressure to support older versions and so the ecosystem can move forward. If you, however, restrict those upgrades to recent machines, you are creating the opposite effect where people who don't need a new machine will just stick to the old OS for as long as they can.

The "free" OS upgrades are built into the purchase price of goods. These are normally planned out in advance.

In the case of your 2014 it appears to be a decade long.

To extend it further would merit the following reactions to many users like

- ridicule that it should be free because they're used to "free" for the past decade
- not paying for it as the end user sees no merit of cashing out as they do not understand what "security update" is
- users understand that "security update" is but their personal and financial data is that worthless because they cant afford the subscription

How many nerds like us understand the importance of security update but want to extend the life of hardware beyond a decade?

Not that many.

I personally appreciate extended support but I see little value to pay for it for decade+ hardware.

Due to natural wear and tear and as a form of preventitive maintenance it would be better that a 3,650 day old Mac that probably was used ~8hrs/day for 5-7 days/week to be replaced outright with a 2023 Mac that has a fresh new decade-long support.

User experience improves and all features works.

Security Updates just provides bug fixes. It does not provide seemless iCloud integration. So say Calendar data on a iO17 iPhone would not sync with macOS Mojave.

 

[mcnallym]

VivienM, you can summarise Windows vs Mac OS very simply.

Microsoft traditionally sells software to make money. Yes they have the surface range but quite small compared to the overall windows pc market.
Apple sells Hardware to make money.

apples model is on people replacing their Mac and buying new hardware. Supporting older hardware is not profitable enough and they make more when you buy a new laptop.

Microsoft’s model is on selling software licenses so there is not the requirement as such for people to be buying new laptops.
support for windows/office 365 is the same if using 1 laptop over 9 years or 3 laptops over 3 years.

it is a different business model for the two companies.

same as everything else, is a market economy and if you don’t like apples model then don’t buy Apple products. Alternatives are available.

clearly enough people happy with apples business model as shown by there finances.

 

[VivienM]

VivienM, you can summarise Windows vs Mac OS very simply.

Microsoft traditionally sells software to make money. Yes they have the surface range but quite small compared to the overall windows pc market.
Apple sells Hardware to make money.

apples model is on people replacing their Mac and buying new hardware. Supporting older hardware is not profitable enough and they make more when you buy a new laptop.

Microsoft’s model is on selling software licenses so there is not the requirement as such for people to be buying new laptops.
support for windows/office 365 is the same if using 1 laptop over 9 years or 3 laptops over 3 years.

it is a different business model for the two companies.

same as everything else, is a market economy and if you don’t like apples model then don’t buy Apple products. Alternatives are available.

clearly enough people happy with apples business model as shown by there finances.

Two things:
1) Microsoft no longer sells upgrade licences for operating systems. That's what has led to the Windows 11 tragedy - because they don't make money on upgrades anymore, they've decided to impose an arbitrary processor age restriction so that computers that bought their Windows 10 licence "too long ago" need to be replaced by new machines that will have paid Microsoft for a new licence.

Even if those older machines are dramatically more capable than some machine available today, Microsoft says, too bad, so sad, no security updates for you after October 2025, hello malware. (That was the point of my CAD$280 laptop example)

This is a change from Microsoft's traditional business model, which is how you described - they used to put a lot of R&D into enabling upgrades from, say, Win3.1 to Win95 because, well, they made money selling you that upgrade copy of Windows. In fact they probably made more money selling boxed upgrades than selling IBM/Compaq/AST/Packard Hell/Dell/Gateway/etc an OEM licence of Windows 95, so it wasn't really in their interest to piss you off by sending you to the computer store sooner than you wanted to get new hardware. And they/their developers/etc could make more money selling you new versions of software once you were on the new OS - if they had to wait 3-4 years for everybody to buy new machines with the new OS, application software would have stagnated a lot more.

If you bought a really high-end DOS/Windows 3.1 machine in early 1995, Microsoft would have been happy to take your money for a Windows 95 licence, then take your money again for a Windows 98 license. And, if you were insane enough to try Windows 2000 on that machine (min. requirements a Pentium 133, which was released two months before Windows 95, so it's possible to run Win2000 on a machine that came preloaded with DOS/Win3.1), Microsoft would have happily taken your money again. And chances are, all three of those operating systems would have been functional on your early-1995 Pentium system - they would have thrown drivers for all the common clone parts on the OS CD, etc.

If you bought a really high-end Windows machines in 2017, Microsoft tells you that you will not get any security updates after October 2025 and that you can't get the new OS released in 2021. They won't take your money for an upgrade licence, they don't care that your machine will outbenchmark half of the inventory at Worst Buy in 2023, your 4-year-old machine is too old for the new OS, so it's going to go into security-updates-only track in 2021 and those security updates end in 2025. Or, you can run the new OS unsupported, in which case you will discover that it runs just great (a lot better than Win98 on a 3 year old system or Win2000 on a 5 year old system, that's for sure)... but they reserve the right to brick you in any monthly patch which is a gamble no one will take on a primary system.

So, actually, Microsoft is now worse than Apple even though Apple's business is to sell hardware. Microsoft put 4-year-old systems (which may have been purchased more like three years earlier - many people probably bought 7xxx Intels in 2018) on a security-updates-only track; Apple has not yet done anything near comparable to that, even with the Apple Silicon transition.

2) WHY is everybody assuming that I have a problem with Apple's model?

We were talking about replacement cycles. What I said was that, unlike 20-30 years ago, replacement cycles TODAY tend to be dictated by hardware failure, battery availability and operating system support rather than by the device no longer being able to do what the user wants to do with it.

In other words, Apple doesn't want to sell me a battery for my mid-2014 MacBook Pro anymore, Apple doesn't want to offer operating systems newer than Big Sur for my mid-2014 MacBook Pro, therefore, I am going to go into the Apple Store and get an M2 MacBook Pro. It doesn't matter whether the mid-2014 MacBook Pro could run Ventura just fine (which the OCLP folks have proven it can), whether the mid-2014 MacBook Pro still does what I want it to do acceptably - if I don't want a fire hazard with a swollen battery and I don't want an unsupported OS that could be filled with malware and can't run a modern web browser, I need to go to the Apple store and buy a new machine.

It would not have been so 25 years ago. If you had a PowerBook 180 in 1997, you didn't care whether Apple still supplied batteries or whether MacOS 8 could run on it. Unless you were a seriously cash-strapped writer typing away in Word 5.1a, your biggest problem with the 180 was that it could not run any software newer than about 1994-1995 at passable performance. I doubt anyone would have engaged in an OCLP-type effort to run MacOS 8 on a PowerBook 180 - what would have been the point? If anything, the problem was the opposite - MacOS 8 "officially" ran on a whole bunch of machines where it was, if anything, too slow to be usable. In 1997 everybody knew that if your hardware just met the "minimal requirements" on a box of software, that software would be almost unusably slow.

To pick an example, look at Word. You had the much hated Word 6 for Mac. Needed a very recent/high end machine. Word 98 required a PowerPC, so, if you had bought yourself a lovely PowerBook 190 in 1996, you were out of luck two years later. The oldest Mac capable of running Word 98 was four years old at the time of Word 98's release - if you had bought, say, a Quadra 840av a month before the launch of the Power Macs, too bad, so sad, no Word 98 for you, not even slowly. Today, Word for Mac's requirements are "any Mac that supports the versions of macOS that it will run on" - no one is going to run to the Apple store and get a new Mac to run the current version of Word unless Apple dropped support for that machine on the required macOS version.

So, to recap, what I am saying is this: because most software doesn't require ever-newer hardware the way it did in the 1980s/1990s, the main factor driving replacement cycles for many people (other than serious gamers, people crunching serious data/video/etc, obviously) is not "my 3-year-old computer can't run software X fast enough, need to buy a new one" but rather i) my X-year-old computer broke and is uneconomical to fix, ii) my X-year-old computer needs a new battery and they don't sell any anymore, or iii) my X-year-old computer no longer gets a new enough operating support with at least security updates.

And two of those three scenarios, at least, directly reflect a choice by Apple. Apple had nothing to do with a Quadra 840av being unable to run Word 98. (If anything, Apple might have offered you a PPC upgrade card for your 840av, so they might have a solution for a lower price than a full machine replacement) Apple has everything to do with a late-2013 iMac not being able to run the current version of Word - Microsoft has set Big Sur as a minimum requirement, Apple has decided not to support Big Sur on the late-2013 iMac, ergo, no current version of Word on the late-2013 iMac.

And so... you replace your Quadra 840av with a Power Mac G3 because you need a PowerPC to run Word 98. You replace your late-2013 iMac with a 24" iMac or a Mac Studio to run the current version of Word because Apple decided not to offer Big Sur for the late-2013 iMac. If Apple wakes up tomorrow and ships Big Sur or Ventura for the late-2013 iMac or you decide to gamble on OCLP, you don't need that Mac Studio to run Word anymore. And, if you compare the performance of Big Sur-capable machines with non-Big Sur capable machines, I am sure you will find that some Big Sur-capable machines are slower than non-Big-Sur-capable machines e.g. compare an Intel 4570R or 4770S in a late-2013 iMac with a i5-5Y31 in a 12" MacBook. If you can shoehorn Big Sur onto a late-2013 iMac, it would run Word better than a 2015 12" MacBook, but Apple decided no Big Sur for the late-2013 iMac and yes Big Sur for the 2015 12" MacBook, so... the end. You either run an older version of Word, you go into crazy OCLP world, or you go down and buy a new Mac.

Are you disagreeing with those observations?

Whether Apple's decisions on operating system lifecycles or parts/battery availability are good/bad/justified/greedy/unreasonable/generous/etc is a completely different question. Can we at least agree that those decisions will dictate the replacement cycle of a good chunk of hardware used by less demanding users, in a way that they did not in the past?

 

[bobcomer]

1) Microsoft no longer sells upgrade licences for operating systems. That's what has led to the Windows 11 tragedy - because they don't make money on upgrades anymore, they've decided to impose an arbitrary processor age restriction so that computers that bought their Windows 10 licence "too long ago" need to be replaced by new machines that will have paid Microsoft for a new licence.

They still sell licenses! And they can be used to upgrade a Windows 10 PC to Windows 11 if the hardware is compatible.

Buy and Download Windows 11 Pro | Microsoft

Buy the Windows 11 Pro download from Microsoft Store. Work anywhere with Windows 11 Professional tools, designed for productivity, focus, and security.

www.microsoft.com

The have Win11 Home licenses for sale as well. And the OEM sales. They probably still make most of their money from Windows license sales. And btw, the main criteria is having a TPM, not processor age, and if you have an expandable PC, a TPM can be added to an older machine to make it compliant.

 

[Longplays]

Market has changed. In the same way PC workstation has changed due to user use case.

Not profitable to provide extended support. Resources better used to create Apple HYSA or Vision Pro where there is higher growth potential. They're a for profit company and not a charity.

Both companies want to limit the hardware their OSes need to support. This lowers overhead cost for that code base.

Even Intel wants to reduce x86 legacy support by introducing x86-S.

 

[VivienM]

They still sell licenses! And they can be used to upgrade a Windows 10 PC to Windows 11 if the hardware is compatible.

Buy and Download Windows 11 Pro | Microsoft

Buy the Windows 11 Pro download from Microsoft Store. Work anywhere with Windows 11 Professional tools, designed for productivity, focus, and security.

www.microsoft.com

The have Win11 Home licenses for sale as well. And the OEM sales. They probably still make most of their money from Windows license sales. And btw, the main criteria is having a TPM, not processor age, and if you have an expandable PC, a TPM can be added to an older machine to make it compliant.

It's not about the TPMs! Everybody thinks it is because of the TPMs because that's what the tech media reported the first 24 hours after the announcement, but it's not. The 7xxx processors ALL have built-in TPMs anyways, you can just go into the BIOS and enable it.

They have a very simple rule that was added very late in the beta cycle and not clearly explained in the initial set of press materials: if your processor is older than an 8th-gen Intel, it is unsupported. If you override the CPU check, it will run just fine, even the fancy security features if you have a TPM, but it is unsupported, so they reserve the right to brick you in any monthly patch.

Do you want me to post a screenshot of their "PC Health Check" utility on my i7-7700, showing the TPM on, all the other criteria met, and a big fail next to CPU?

 

[VivienM]

Market has changed. In the same way PC workstation has changed due to user use case.

Not profitable to provide extended support. Resources better used to create Apple HYSA or Vision Pro where there is higher growth potential. They're a for profit company and not a charity.

Both companies want to limit the hardware their OSes need to support. This lowers overhead cost for that code base.

Sure. But let's talk about the underlying business realities - for 20 years, they had people buying new machines every 4 years because, well, you basically had to. New software did important new things and was needed to communicate with others you needed to communicate, new software didn't run on old hardware, so you bought new machines.

Today, the primary non-work computing device for many people (not us here, obviously) is the smartphone. Many people got a laptop for, say, university/college/graduate school and then, once they have graduated, barely turn it on. They might want to use it for an hour or two of web browsing here and there, preparing some resumes or filing their taxes, but otherwise they don't really need a laptop/desktop much anymore. And they sure don't want to open up their wallets for a new one that would get used that little.

This is dreadful for business, especially if you are Microsoft and don't get a piece of the smartphone pie. So... unsurprisingly, both Apple and Microsoft are putting in place and tightening rules that try to motivate people who might use their home computer 2 hours/week that they need a new one. They want to find some way to motivate people with barely-used older machines that they need to go back to the store and buy a new one even for their 2 hours/week or less of use. Certainly, they don't want to spend any money on supporting those machines - much better to create a situation where the tech-savvy friend/nephew/uncle/whatever says "sorry, but that machine's not getting security updates anymore, you NEED to replace it with a new one or malware will invade" and does their sales job for them.

Same problem on the business side - there are a LOT of business tasks that can be done just fine with a 7-10 year old machine. So, again, they need to motivate those businesses to open the wallet and buy newer hardware.

And, to come back to the point I was replying to, this is why I think some of those covid-era purchases will not be replaced on a 4-5 year lifecycle. If you didn't need a (current) home computer since you graduated from school until covid made you work from home, then... chances are, you're not going to be eager to replace that computer 4-5 years later.

 

[sunny5]

If anyone expecting M2 Extreme or a chip with 4x Max, the truth is, it's way more expensive and risky to manufacture them. The die itself is extremely big and yet Ultrafusion require another silicon packaging which means double the price and double the risk. 4 chips at once? You name it. Whenever they make Ultra or Extreme, you still need to remake them on a wafer with Ultrafusion and the die itself is 2x or 4x times bigger than Max series.

SoC is not a good idea and they really need to start consider separate CPU and GPU as M1,2 Max series itself is expensive to mass produce and Ultra is way more expensive. This is why Apple can NOT make M2 Extreme or a chip with 4x M2 Max because it's way more expensive and yet highly risky to create one. If you know how the silicone packaging works, that's a huge problem.

 

[Longplays]

Sure. But let's talk about the underlying business realities - for 20 years, they had people buying new machines every 4 years because, well, you basically had to. New software did important new things and was needed to communicate with others you needed to communicate, new software didn't run on old hardware, so you bought new machines.

Today, the primary non-work computing device for many people (not us here, obviously) is the smartphone. Many people got a laptop for, say, university/college/graduate school and then, once they have graduated, barely turn it on. They might want to use it for an hour or two of web browsing here and there, preparing some resumes or filing their taxes, but otherwise they don't really need a laptop/desktop much anymore. And they sure don't want to open up their wallets for a new one that would get used that little.

This is dreadful for business, especially if you are Microsoft and don't get a piece of the smartphone pie. So... unsurprisingly, both Apple and Microsoft are putting in place and tightening rules that try to motivate people who might use their home computer 2 hours/week that they need a new one. They want to find some way to motivate people with barely-used older machines that they need to go back to the store and buy a new one even for their 2 hours/week or less of use. Certainly, they don't want to spend any money on supporting those machines - much better to create a situation where the tech-savvy friend/nephew/uncle/whatever says "sorry, but that machine's not getting security updates anymore, you NEED to replace it with a new one or malware will invade" and does their sales job for them.

Same problem on the business side - there are a LOT of business tasks that can be done just fine with a 7-10 year old machine. So, again, they need to motivate those businesses to open the wallet and buy newer hardware.

And, to come back to the point I was replying to, this is why I think some of those covid-era purchases will not be replaced on a 4-5 year lifecycle. If you didn't need a (current) home computer since you graduated from school until covid made you work from home, then... chances are, you're not going to be eager to replace that computer 4-5 years later.

Apple and Microsoft are doing fine with what they're doing. They know better than 99% of anyone here.

If anyone's using hardware that old then they're not a current customer anymore whether the hardware can physically run the software or not.

Suggestion I give anyone faced with an vintage Mac is replace the ~10yo relic with something that would work reliably worry-free for the next decade.

If you're a nerd do OCLP or install Win10. Remember... you're trading your time for saved money.

 

[VivienM]

SoC is not a good idea and they really need to start consider separate CPU and GPU as M1,2 Max series itself is expensive to mass produce and Ultra is way more expensive. This is why Apple can NOT make M2 Extreme or a chip with 4x M2 Max because it's way more expensive and yet highly risky to create one. If you know how the silicone packaging works, that's a huge problem.

But SoC is the only way the Apple Silicon project makes any economic sense.

What makes Apple Silicon different from PowerPC, other than the fact that more Macs are sold today than in 2005? In 2005, PowerPC had effectively turned into a quasi-bespoke CPU architecture with quasi-bespoke supporting chips.

What's changed is the economies of scale from the iPhone/iPad platform. Take the building blocks of those chips, make some relatively minor changes, and boom, you have custom chips for the Mac (which already runs essentially the same software stack).

iPhones, iPads, etc need the SoC architecture. If you start to do something different for the Mac, your R&D costs are going to rocket through the roof and you now have PowerPC 2.0. The simple reality is that it makes no economic sense to accomodate anything requiring too much divergence from the iPhone/iPad designs...

 

[sunny5]

But SoC is the only way the Apple Silicon project makes any economic sense.

What makes Apple Silicon different from PowerPC, other than the fact that more Macs are sold today than in 2005? In 2005, PowerPC had effectively turned into a quasi-bespoke CPU architecture with quasi-bespoke supporting chips.

What's changed is the economies of scale from the iPhone/iPad platform. Take the building blocks of those chips, make some relatively minor changes, and boom, you have custom chips for the Mac (which already runs essentially the same software stack).

iPhones, iPads, etc need the SoC architecture. If you start to do something different for the Mac, your R&D costs are going to rocket through the roof and you now have PowerPC 2.0. The simple reality is that it makes no economic sense to accomodate anything requiring too much divergence from the iPhone/iPad designs...

Then how are they gonna make high end chips when Ultra chips are already expensive and yet low production? They can not afford to make M2 Extreme as M2 Ultra itself is already expensive as hell. There were rumors about M2 Extreme chips being canceled and I believe Apple can't make it. It's not just about connecting each Max chips, it's way more than that and people don't understand that.

At this point, SoC is totally wrong especially for Mac Pro itself. They can just make CPU and GPU separately as M series are already different from A series in terms of die design. Otherwise, why not return to x86 just for Mac Pro? I don't see any hopeful situations for Mac Pro or workstation with SoC.

 

[Longplays]

But SoC is the only way the Apple Silicon project makes any economic sense.

What makes Apple Silicon different from PowerPC, other than the fact that more Macs are sold today than in 2005? In 2005, PowerPC had effectively turned into a quasi-bespoke CPU architecture with quasi-bespoke supporting chips.

What's changed is the economies of scale from the iPhone/iPad platform. Take the building blocks of those chips, make some relatively minor changes, and boom, you have custom chips for the Mac (which already runs essentially the same software stack).

iPhones, iPads, etc need the SoC architecture. If you start to do something different for the Mac, your R&D costs are going to rocket through the roof and you now have PowerPC 2.0. The simple reality is that it makes no economic sense to accomodate anything requiring too much divergence from the iPhone/iPad designs...

Intel/AMD workstation chips shipped 7.5 million in 2022.

Mac Pro/Studio shipped ~75,000 in the same year.

It makes zero sense to not do it via SoC or even maintain macOS x86 further.

But given the performance improvements of the 2023 over the 2019 then it is "good enough" and not "perfect".

Over time Ultra/Extreme chips will improve with other Mac chips.

 

[VivienM]

Apple and Microsoft are doing fine with what they're doing. They know better than 99% of anyone here.

If anyone's using hardware that old then they're not a current customer anymore whether the hardware can physically run the software or not.

Sure, and please explain to me how you convince someone who has a 2012 non-retina MacBook Air that they might want to use 1-2 hours/week that they should buy a new M2 MacBook Air, a new copy of MS Office because their 2011 is 32-bit, etc. I have been trying, and I can't come up with a persuasive pitch. At the same time, there aren't exactly many versions of macOS left that still run 32-bit software and current web browsers (technically, High Sierra and Mojave, though I think the browsers are dropping High Sierra soon).

The fact that Apple and Microsoft do not care about someone whose needs are low enough that they don't feel like opening their wallets in a decade is... obvious enough.

But you seem to be disagreeing that there is a problem here.

In most countries, if you have, say, a 1995-era car that you drive 500km/year, that's fine. Parts (or at least any of the major wear items) should still be available, insurers will insure them, governments won't hold them to emissions/safety rules they weren't designed for, etc. It won't have the latest technology/safety/etc, but if all you're doing is 500km of driving and you don't think those things justify buying a new car, so be it.

You are basically saying that, for anybody whose computing needs are the equivalent of the 500km/year car, too bad so sad. Open your wallet every 5-8 years to replace hardware that meets your needs just fine, take your chances on the malware on the unsupported OS, or just go 100% smartphone. Does that not seem unfair and hard to explain to someone not versed in the importance of vendor security patches?

 

[VivienM]

Then how are they gonna make high end chips when Ultra chips are already expensive and yet low production? They can not afford to make M2 Extreme as M2 Ultra itself is already expensive as hell. There were rumors about M2 Extreme chips being canceled and I believe Apple can't make it. It's not just about connecting each Max chips, it's way more than that and people don't understand that.

At this point, SoC is totally wrong especially for Mac Pro itself. They can just make CPU and GPU separately as M series are already different from A series in terms of die design. Otherwise, why not return to x86 just for Mac Pro? I don't see any hopeful situations for Mac Pro or workstation with SoC.

Why do they need higher-end chips than the Ultra? It's... not clear... that there is a business case for it.

And as for a Mac Pro staying x86, they don't want to support two architectures for the low volumes of the Mac Pro. Developers probably don't really want to support two architectures either - do you think Adobe really wants to support two architectures if 95% of the installed base is Apple Silicon?

Spend some time looking at benchmarks. Pick a year in the 2000s and compare processor benchmarks for, say, the MacBook Pros of that year vs the iMac vs the Mac Pro of that year. Then repeat the exercise for the mid-2010s and for the Apple Silicon era.

What you'll see is that the raw performance difference between high-end workstation hardware and other things is shrinking, and that today's Apple Silicon chips will beat most high-end workstation chips of a few years ago. A plain vanilla M2 beats the 12-core 2019 Mac Pro at Geekbench, for example.

The other piece you might want to add in there is the cloud - I'm sure there are at least SOME heavy workloads that can be done just fine in a bunch of AWS instances that are controlled from a MacBook Pro.

The market for people who need better performance than the 2019 Mac Pro, more expandability than a Mac studio, can't work on a remote server, etc is... not that huge. Sure, there are some people whose needs would be better met with a big NVIDIA GPU rather than Apple's many-core-mobile-based GPU architecture. There are some people whose needs would be better met by some quirk or other of the Xeon platform, e.g. the ability to have one with gazillions of cores. There are some people whose needs require more than 192GB of RAM (although it's worth noting, Apple did not offer anything with 192GB of RAM or more until 2019). Etc. And Apple is not going to redesign most of their Apple Silicon stack in order to accommodate those niches.

Sad reality is, Apple seems to have decided that scaled-up smartphone chips could do a better job for 99% of their customer base and too bad so sad for the remaining 1%.