Will M3 Macs lose macOS support later than M2 Macs?

[macrumor2018]

Will M3 Macs lose macOS support later than all M2-based Macs?
And will the base M1 Macs (excluding Pro, Max, Ultra) get dropped before anything else?

It seems like since the M-series chips began, there have been three actual generations (in terms of tech specs and chip features, not necessarily the M-number) of Silicon Macs. Unlike M1 the M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra, M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra all came with increased memory bandwidth and ProRes support. Then, M3 came along with AV1 decode and hardware-accelerated ray tracing (which even M2 Ultra is missing).

1. M1
2. M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra,
   M2, M2 Pro, M2 Max, M2 Ultra
3. M3, M3 Pro, M3 Max and beyond

This is my theory anyway. What are your thoughts?

 

[thenewperson]

Likely. With new CPU, GPU, NPU architectures I'd be very surprised if it even lost support at the same time.

 

[GMShadow]

I expect M1 to get support for a good while, M2 will probably get 1 year more than M1, then M3 will be the floor for a bit.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

Of course they will. Newer machines will be supported for longer. None of this comes down to memory bandwidth. It just comes down to how old models are.

If you're asking if M3 will be supported for a longer total time than M2 then possibly. Possibly more than M1 as well. That's typical of Apple, where gen 1 products don't get supported for long as they're effectively 'beta' products and they only get the kinks worked out in the second generation but generational improvements have been much smaller for M1->M2->M3 than there was for iPad 1->2, iPhone->iPhone 3G, Apple Watch->Apple Watch Gen 1 etc so maybe it won't be the same this time around.

 

[deconstruct60]

Will M3 Macs lose macOS support later than all M2-based Macs?
And will the base M1 Macs (excluding Pro, Max, Ultra) get dropped before anything else?

Not sure why there is doubt and uncertainty about Apple’s support policies. The policy has been consistent for 2well over a decade.

Vitangec and Obsolete Policy

“ … Products are considered vintage when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and less than 7 years ago. …”

Use your iMac as a display with target display mode - Apple Support

Target display mode is a feature available with certain older Mac models.

support.apple.com

there is usually some hand waving about ” oh that is just hardware “ . That notion is completely detached from Apple approach of supporting products as holistic systems ( software + hardware ) rather than just some silo .

if look they overwhelming majority of all Mac products with M1 series are already actively on their Vintage/Obsolete countdown clock ( I.e., no longer for sale… replaced. ) . The only dangling Mac product with a M1 is a comatose MBA Air M1. That product probably is closer to gettin 5 years of countdown as opposed to 7 once it stops. If Apple were to continue selling it past 4-5 years old even the supposed minimal 5 is suspect . ( e.g., Mac Pro 2013 ran for a ‘Rip van Winkle‘ 9 years and was chopped off ahead of schedule ).


The M3 is going to ‘kill of ‘ the M2 almost everywhere in the line up in the next 12 months . The Mini and MBA is likely only wanting for quantities of SoC supply. The Studio isn’t going to wait forever for a M3 Max . The Mac Pro probably wishes it had a M3 Max now ( Apple will probably move at a snails pace for this product as usual while while Threadipper 7000 and upcoming Zen5 products wail on it in workstation space 1H24 . )

depends if Apple desperate to hold onto the discount old screen MBA 13” if they replace the M1 there with a M2 and keep the “more than paid for chassis” to keep margins at the discounted price or not. That might ‘save’ the M2 a while longer on macOS support .

Not sure. The gap between MBA15” and MBP 14” M3 is awkwardly narrow. It would make sense for Apple to move the modern MBA 13” down in price a bit and lower the 15” and just drop the “really old” chassis at the bottom. ( depends upon how deep into Chromebook space they want to go ).


The Ultra/max/pro models are all dying off right away with the updates Of their cohorts …that does bode well for extra long long term support.

 

[macrumor2018]

Except I find it hard to believe their base M3 MacBook Pro and iMac would receive MacOS updates for longer than the Mac Studio and Pro released just a few months ago.

 

[ondioline]

It’s 5 years of the latest OS, if iOS is any indication (for “Apple silicon” specifically) and then 2 years of patches after that. There’s no reason to believe they’d do it longer or shorter than that for most things.

The big exception is the 2013 Mac Pro which is ultimately getting like 10 years of support, but that’s only because they sold it until 2019 lol

 

[parseckadet]

I really think some people are oversimplifying Apple's approach. It's not that there's a formula of "After X years you're out." There have been events which have driven dropping support for specific hardware. First it was the Intel transition. Then it was the 64-bit transition. Yes, Apple maintained support for machines for at least 5 years after the start of those transitions, but if you look at supported systems for various versions you'll find ones that were supported for longer than 5-7 years.

Looking forward, it's going to depend on whether there is another transition in the offing. Obviously we're not going to transition away from Apple silicon any time soon, and I really don't think we're going to go 128-bit for quite awhile as well.