Why are so many people using out of date Macbooks?

[mectojic]

Lots of bank applications stop working on older versions of iOS or even just older versions of the app itself on current iOS versions. They require that you update to sign in. Email providers do the same. So older devices lose some functionality that many consider basic, simply because they cannot install a more recent OS.

Yes, we've come to expect this now. But it's completely artificial. Developers stop supporting iOS because there are newer versions of iOS.
If they stopped releasing new iOS versions and just focused on minor updates, older devices would last years longer.

 

[kc9hzn]

Why do people still use windows laptops from 2012 that have quad core cpus , ssds and 16GB of ram a that’s still work on windows 11? whole eleven years later?
Cause they work. They are cheap. And the economy isn’t great.
Only people who REQUIRE new Apple silicon or the latest and greatest for actual niche work spaces and upgrade regularly. And even then a lot of those people don’t.
Apples computer shipments have fallen 40% year over year for the last two years because people have less money and most workspace requirements haven’t changed much.
If it works for you, why replace it?
Contrary to what most Apple diehards think you don’t need Apple silicon to get things done. UNLESS you specifically require it. Or have the money.
If you think you NEED Apple silicon while they are still supporting intel machines with new updates. And the existence of Opencore. You’ve been successfully sucked in by apples billion dollar marketing strategy.

No 2012 Windows laptop can run Windows 11, processors that old aren’t supported by Windows 10. Microsoft was pretty ruthless in cutting hardware support this time around.

 

[seek3r]

When a machine in 2012 MacBook Pro came with 8GB of ram and a 2023 STILL comes with 8GB of ram it makes no sense. And no amount of marketing on apples part can justify it. Apple choosing to keep the base model pro device locked in FORVER. At 8GB without a special pre built upgrade it’s made a lot of people mad.
We’re starting to see those 11 year old devices with 8GB of ram and event 16GB FINALLY meet end of life.
But all of those devices had something the new devices don’t.
EXPANDABILITY. They were expandable for a decade to meet the needs of the user over time.
Where as these 8GB device will NOT have the same longevity.
It ate into apples profit margins. People were not upgrading after their apple care ended.
Now they are kinda forced as these newer devices have significantly more points of failure.

My dude, I really hate to break it to you, but most people never upgraded their computers, ever. They dont care about the change because they never have even noticed it. This forum isnt normal consumers

 

[Tyler O'Bannon]

Because their appliance still works for everything they care to do with it.

Most computer users just use them, there’s no reason to upgrade until it doesn’t work anymore.

This hits the nail on the head. Until there is something they cannot do or their machine stops working, the vast majority of peoplr will not upgrade. They don’t even know about release cycles, upgrade cycles, new features, or anything else. Computer works = keep using computer.

 

[seek3r]

No 2012 Windows laptop can run Windows 11, processors that old aren’t supported by Windows 10. Microsoft was pretty ruthless in cutting hardware support this time around.

Not *entirely* accurate in that you can modify the installer slightly to bypass the check and it’ll work, but it’s not officially supported, so as far as official support goes it’s gone for win11 and will probably start breaking over time as MS adds features that depend on things not available on unsupported procs/boards

 

[InvertedGoldfish]

Because it’s just a tool, one that depreciates like crazy

If it works why replace it?

Or until a update cripples it atleast

 

[zach-coleman]

The computer is becoming less and less the primary computing device of the average person, and the needs of the average person really aren't going up that much for a computer. If it can do basic web browsing it's going to be a fine machine for probably over 90% of people. I have an M1 MacBook Pro (Touch Bar model!) and I occasionally dabble in 3D game development. I could probably keep using this thing until the M5 comes out and barely notice an issue.

I'm likely going to upgrade to the 15" M3 MBA, but honestly I don't really need to. The M1 series will probably cease being enough for many due to not getting software updates anymore before the device actually becomes too slow.

Not to mention there's a treadmill with iPhones of major redesigns and new communication standards (5G) as well as carriers enticing you to upgrade. The difference between a 2013 MacBook and a 2023 MacBook is marginal in comparison when you remember the 2013 iPhone was the 5S vs what we have now.

 

[NT1440]

This hits the nail on the head. Until there is something they cannot do or their machine stops working, the vast majority of peoplr will not upgrade. They don’t even know about release cycles, upgrade cycles, new features, or anything else. Computer works = keep using computer.

Most regular people, when discussing tech, conflate “memory” with hard drive space.

What techies fail to recognize is that *we* are the minority in having any deeper understanding of how this stuff works.

So when a regular person buys a computer, they keep it until it doesn’t do the tasks they need it to do anymore. They could care less about chips, memory bandwidth, etc. It’s very much an approach of “I need a box that does x y or z”.

I actually admire people that outright admit they have no understanding of tech. It’s the ignorant that insist they do, then buy a $280 POS laptop with a 1TB spinning hard drive because “number is bigger” that drive me insane. I ran into tons of them way back when working at Best Buy.

 

[GuyDouche]

You need to look into OpenCore. Get some more life out of that machine. Get a newer OS on it

I definitely have! However with both OpenCore & Catalina Patcher by DoDDude, it is not possible to achieve full graphics acceleration under Catalina on machines that use a Radeon HD 5xxx or 6xxx series GPU. I so happen to have the AMD Radeon HD 6750M.

 

[Alex_nowhere]

I walk the streets and see them in cafe's and the parks. I see so many people with MacBooks from 2012 that have the light in the back with an out of day OS yet they are using an iPhone 14 or newer. I just don't understand why they don't at least upgrade to a M1 MacBook Air for $800. If they can afford a new iPhone they can afford to update there out of date, insecure laptop.

Cause porn and checking your spam mail do not require the latest OS just the required HARD-ware😂

 

[JokoWidodo]

Why would i upgrade if i only use them to watch YouTube 😜

 

[spcopsmac21]

My dude, I really hate to break it to you, but most people never upgraded their computers, ever. They dont care about the change because they never have even noticed it. This forum isnt normal consumers

It would be nuts if the owner of an Apple reseller of 31 years were to have just given you that information. But na that guy wouldn’t have ANY idea what normal customers would want.
When hundreds of people come in each week still upgrading their intel early 2010s MacBook pros and poly MacBooks.
Or the fact dozens of people a month get outright upset when their completely integrated intel/Apple silicon Mac’s can’t also be upgraded.
But na I wouldn’t know anyone that would fall into that category.

 

[spcopsmac21]

No 2012 Windows laptop can run Windows 11, processors that old aren’t supported by Windows 10. Microsoft was pretty ruthless in cutting hardware support this time around.

That’s weird. With patcher tools and usb tpms… windows 11 can go weird places. Windows 11 inside edition installs perfectly on older devices along with a DLL modification.
Like OpenCore , older windows devices have a way.

 

[spcopsmac21]

I definitely have! However with both OpenCore & Catalina Patcher by DoDDude, it is not possible to achieve full graphics acceleration under Catalina on machines that use a Radeon HD 5xxx or 6xxx series GPU. I so happen to have the AMD Radeon HD 6750M.

Might be a good time to go the Linux route.

 

[spcopsmac21]

No 2012 Windows laptop can run Windows 11, processors that old aren’t supported by Windows 10. Microsoft was pretty ruthless in cutting hardware support this time around.

Windows 11 insider edition is still installing fine on older devices without a TPM with a single DLL modification.

 

[h.gilbert]

I walk the streets and see them in cafe's and the parks. I see so many people with MacBooks from 2012 that have the light in the back with a out of day OS yet they are using an iPhone 14 or newer. I just don't understand why they don't at least upgrade to a M1 MacBook Air for $800. If they can afford a new iPhone they can afford to update there out of date, insecure laptop.

This is probably the most ignorant post I've seen on here.

 

[tsmith857]

I did think twice. Guess emotions took over.

 

[Shirasaki]

Simple this is the type of consumer companies such as Apple want and foster. Don't critically think or question simply follow their rhetoric and purchase over & over regardless of need. I'd far rather companies returned to the customer model and design products accordingly. If that requires regulation so be it, as sadly it seems the only way to reign in the likes of Apple...

Q-6

Yet when EU and whatnot tries to regulate some folks act like EU hurting their bottom line and endanger their lives. At the same time, they are more than happy to keep their financial status at risk to feed Apple coffers. Truly dual standard people with their twisted love towards Apple.

 

[jeffpeng]

My mother in law inherited my wife's 2014 MBA three years ago. It's still a perfectly good machine to browse the web or do other light office stuff. Frankly it got really hard to justify upgrading your computer a good while ago.

2012 MBP is most likely an Ivy Bridge dual core. Ivy Bridge is fast enough to run relatively modern games today. Many if not most of those machines were already sold with SSDs. Many were sold with 8 GB ram already (which apparently is still enough.... in 2023 🤣). In short: it's still better than a cheap chromebook.

If you still think this comment isn’t Apple’s research team posing a question to get emotional and logical responses from a loyal customer base … maybe pose the question to yourself and follow the rabbit hole.

See, and I was already suspecting the NSA was trying to get my amazing insights. Again. 🤔

 

[tsmith857]

My mother in law inherited my wife's 2014 MBA three years ago. It's still a perfectly good machine to browse the web or do other light office stuff. Frankly it got really hard to justify upgrading your computer a good while ago.

2012 MBP is most likely an Ivy Bridge dual core. Ivy Bridge is fast enough to run relatively modern games today. Many if not most of those machines were already sold with SSDs. Many were sold with 8 GB ram already (which apparently is still enough.... in 2023 🤣). In short: it's still better than a cheap chromebook.


See, and I was already suspecting the NSA was trying to get my amazing insights. Again. 🤔

Should I break that down too PENG? Just kidding 😋

 

[Makisupa Policeman]

I'm guessing, unlike the average MacRumors forum member, these people view a computer as simply an appliance and as long as it still gets the job done for them, they see no reason to update.

Basically this. When I got my wife an M1 MBA to replace her aging 2015 model, I think I was more excited about it than her! She didn’t really quite understand at first why she “needed” a new computer, and tbh she probably didn’t need it just yet, lol.

 

[matsan]

Because the people you see use laptops with proper keyboards so they can use their old computers forever. Apple fixed that in 2015(?) with the introduction of the butterfly keyboard.
Trust me it works fantastic as a way to clear out old hardware running onsolete OSes!
In the last seven years I’ve gone through four MBPs that have all had bad keyboards and two swollen batteries.
My current MBP 16 M1 sports two broken keys in less than a year…

 

[Makisupa Policeman]

I think I’m the only person I know that cares a great deal about having some sort of desktop/laptop solution within my ecosystem as a means of backing up important files. Seems like almost everyone else just has a phone and tends to rely on iCloud as a “backup” when it’s actually not. (Or don’t even think about or consider backups for that matter!)

 

[Aston441]

They all put Windows on their "out of date and insecure hardware" and suddenly it was no longer out of date and insecure.

This. I put Windows on my 2011 MBA, it works great, fully updated. When the updates end, it will be a Linux box. I needed a new desktop three months ago, picked up a fabulous PC for a third of the cost of Apple, and know that worst case, ten years from now it will still work great with Linux. Why spend money on an ARM machine that can’t run Windows or Linux, and Apple can discontinue support for tomorrow, if they feel like it? Apple is back to peak 90s mismanagement, doing the same things that made everyone give up on Apple and move to Windows way back when. Exactly the same BS!

 

[Robert.Walter]

They must not be using many iCloud features because the obsolete software in many cases syncs slowly or not at all. Some newer features in Keychain are completely unsupported.

I pity the person that has sensitive info on their totally unpatched Mac who gets hit by one of the many 0 days that Apple patched years ago.