Lamborghini offers a standard three-year, unlimited-mileage bumper-to-bumper warranty on all new vehicles.
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Just saying.
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Only 7 years of support from release date is unacceptable for a $2000+ personal computer.
- Thread starter staypuftforums
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Apple should support their devices for at least 7–10 years to match their premium pricing, reduce e-waste, and give users better value.
if you were so concerned with longevity, then buying a computer that was already officially discontinued (as of April 2021) may not have been the right move
Looks like they're actively working on implementing support. You may be able to install it on the M4, not sure, since I don't have a M4 Mac
That's great news.
The last I remember hearing development had stopped altogether due to some personnel conflicts or something?
don't remember exactly
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Apple already supports their devices for 7 years. I wouldn’t be against extending that for three more years.
However, this won’t help people that buy Apple computers after they are discontinued from third-party sellers or buy them used.
I don’t agree with the argument that because of the price they should do that. those two are not connected to my knowledge ever. You can buy a $6000 gaming PC or a $400 laptop and they generally will have the same period of manufacturer support.
How much longer?
Where should they increase prices to cover the cost of developing security updates for hardware they're no longer making any money from?
What exactly do you mean by "support"?
I haven't read every post in this entire thread, so apologies if someone else has already mentioned this...for me what is more infuriating than software compatibility with these machines is that you can no longer work on them yourself with any reasonable degree of ease. I realize the technology and engineering has changed, but man is is frustrating to me that I can't open my $2000 laptop to replace the battery myself or upgrade the memory and/or storage (things that might help prolong its useable lifespan).
The same goes for other Apple devices like iPads (which I know is apples to oranges here). I have a 2016 iPad Pro that runs perfectly fine, no lag and the apps I need have no issues. However the battery won't hold a charge and Apple no longer will work on them. I tried a 3rd party repair company and they wanted $140 for the battery swap, but advised that there was a better than average change the screen would be broken during the battery replacement, and that would cost me another $150-160. So instead of being to get another couple years out of it, I was forced to buy a new iPad instead. That to me is incredibly wasteful.
The same goes for other Apple devices like iPads (which I know is apples to oranges here). I have a 2016 iPad Pro that runs perfectly fine, no lag and the apps I need have no issues. However the battery won't hold a charge and Apple no longer will work on them. I tried a 3rd party repair company and they wanted $140 for the battery swap, but advised that there was a better than average change the screen would be broken during the battery replacement, and that would cost me another $150-160. So instead of being to get another couple years out of it, I was forced to buy a new iPad instead. That to me is incredibly wasteful.
My 2014 Mac Mini is currently unsupported, but it's been used 24/7 for 11 years.
What else should I expect it to be able to do?
Anything that prolongs the useful life of the computer will benefit those who buy used or from third-parties more than anyone.
In my situation, I’d be getting 4 more years of support, instead of only 2.
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This is a ridiculous assertion.
The hardware still works well beyond this threshold.
You feel safe knowing the machine may be riddled with software vulnerabilities? Safari cannot be safely used, or can it? I’d hope you wouldn’t be banking on that machine.
Taking the 2014 Mini as a case since I have a couple, the last officially supported OS version was Monterey.
They stopped selling the 2014 in 2018. Monterey came out in 2021 and was fully supported until '22, then had the usual two years of security updates ending last fall. So that is four plus two. I don't have much complaint about the four, (what can you do with a dual core now? Quite a lot, but not the video-centric workflow Apple is targeting) but the two could be much better.
For comparison, Linux Mint 21, came out in July 2022 and is supported until April 2027. Call it five years.
Mint 22 came out last summer (2024) and is supported until April 2029, five years.
Linux Mint 22 runs quite nicely on a 2012 Mac mini. (I have one of those too. Apple dropped it at Catalina.)
So if Apple was to add a two more years of security updates it would be fairly competitive. The new features in the new OS versions wouldn't run, but that's fair. The 2010 Mac Pro can't run modern video editors on Linux or on Monterey (via OCLP) because it does not have AVX instructions and the OS can't fix that.
The other option is to go to a Long Term Support model. Some OS versions would get longer term support presumably when a large number of machines are going to drop off support (Mohave and Monterey?) and others would stay with the current model.
maybe Apple could start charging for older hardware to be updated for security that might be a workable solution.
not a terrible idea
though I'd imaging that for the number of people that would pay for such they would have to charge a fortune to make it worth the effort
good point
my 2012 Mac mini only just started crashing occasionally after 12 years of solid use and the past 8 or so running 24/7 as a home server
I have absolutely no complaint with that life span, and its still fine for web surfing, email and such
I sold it off and replaced it with a 2018
Windows 10 LTSC IoT is not your normal version of Windows though. I get what you mean but your average person is not going to pick W10 IoT because Microsoft doesn't advertise it as an option and the only way to buy keys are through the grey market. I believe there is a PowerShell command you can run to license any version of Windows, but I couldn't tell you that off the top of my head.
Software support with Apple products is not quite apples to apples compared to Microsoft Windows. Windows is a general purpose OS designed to run on a vast swath of hardware. Microsoft also makes money off Enterprise and OEMs. macOS is designed to run on Apple hardware only. You could easily argue that the OS should then perform better, have zero bugs, and be supported for longer but ~7 years of security updates it quite good in my opinion. Keep in mind though we are also still assuming timelines based on Intel Macs. The M1 came out in 2020 so this WWDC may be the one where Apple drops the M1. I find the M1 still feels as performant with macOS Sequoia as it did with Big Sur or Monterey so I wouldn't be surprised if Apple supported the M-series SOCs for longer than they did with Intel chips. We'll have to wait and see.
Work issued me a Windows PC in 2010 and it was still fully supported in 2018 when I left. I bought a second hand 3 GHz Core 2 Duo windows box from HP that was about the same vintage and is still supported since it auto-upgraded itself to Windows 10 once day. Until recently Microsoft was much better at supporting old hardware. Those days are gone though.
"Came out" doesn't matter. Stopped selling does. They stopped selling the M1 last year, so I should think 4 years after that, or 2028. Since the last version of the OS that came on the last M1s was released in 2023, the four years might start then, so 2027 for the last OS upgrade and 2029 for the end of support.
Now they very well might start cutting features, by which I mean admit that 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage is not enough for real AI, or that something requires M2 or better, but that's pretty normal.
That comment is not how the market works. Microsoft does not have a monopoly on the hardware required to operate Windows. Apple has an absolute monopoly on the hardware required to operate macOS. Apple can obsolete its hardware and you are SOL. Microsoft can obsolete its own hardware offerings and no others. Other manufacturers can offer workarounds and put pressure on Microsoft to keep support for this or that.
I don’t think anything will be cut off due to RAM requirements, seeing as even the M3 had a version with 8 GB of RAM for a time, and even the M4 iPad Pro ships with 8 GB by default.
Maybe a year from now when all the iPhones have 12 GB by default and all the iPads have 16 GB by default, but I think this year the 8 GB products are in the clear when it comes to new operating system features.
Microsoft can absolutely obsolete hardware for the purpose of running the most recent version of windows by not supporting it
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So many people are missing the point here.
Apple can support their hardware and OS for as long as they want to do that, but customers should know what they are buying when they buy it. If I buy a brand new Mac Pro today, I have no way to know how long it will have hardware and OS support. I can make educated guesses, based upon history, but I have no way to actually know. That is shameful.
Any company that sells to enterprise customers will specifically state the lifecycle of its products. If I buy a computer from Lenovo, for example, it will have an "end of service life" date (typically 5-6 years after introduction). Up to that point, parts and service are guaranteed to be available. MS has been pretty good about this, but really needs to put an EOL date on Windows 11 at this point. Red Hat is actually really good about this for its Linux distribution, as is IBM for AIX and its mainframe products.
We can argue about how long support should be offered, but none of that really matters until customers know what they are buying. They can then decide for themselves what lifecycle for hardware and OS will work for them. Customers should vote with their wallets, but they need to have the information necessary in order to do this.
Apple can support their hardware and OS for as long as they want to do that, but customers should know what they are buying when they buy it. If I buy a brand new Mac Pro today, I have no way to know how long it will have hardware and OS support. I can make educated guesses, based upon history, but I have no way to actually know. That is shameful.
Any company that sells to enterprise customers will specifically state the lifecycle of its products. If I buy a computer from Lenovo, for example, it will have an "end of service life" date (typically 5-6 years after introduction). Up to that point, parts and service are guaranteed to be available. MS has been pretty good about this, but really needs to put an EOL date on Windows 11 at this point. Red Hat is actually really good about this for its Linux distribution, as is IBM for AIX and its mainframe products.
We can argue about how long support should be offered, but none of that really matters until customers know what they are buying. They can then decide for themselves what lifecycle for hardware and OS will work for them. Customers should vote with their wallets, but they need to have the information necessary in order to do this.