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Comment by somerandomness | Hacker News Reader

Macs considered obsolete after 7 years https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

One important difference to note. Google's policy is 6.5 years after "first device on the platform is released". Apple's policy is after last manufactured.

The Apple policy also only explicitly applies to hardware (repair parts), although software often falls not far behind (maybe supported for a year or two longer)

Yeah this. I bought a Nexus 6p on sale, just over a year after it was released. This meant it was less than two years before it was no longer supported. The battery was replaced twice and was junk anyway. Good riddance.

My Nexus 6p worked pretty well except had to do a battery replacement once after which the battery life remained excellent. After nearly 3 years of usage, dropped it and shattered the glass. Tried several places for a replacement screen but the feedback everywhere was "parts no longer available". The phone works perfectly otherwise and I had no intention of getting a new one soon. Finally gave up and bought a Oneplus 6.

This kind of forced phasing out of devices is really unfortunate.

This is eerily similar to my experience. I absolutely love my OnePlus 6. 8 GB of RAM and 256 GB storage is phenomenal, and double the resources of the pixel 3

Random question about OnePlus since I'm seeing it in a Linux conversation... do you happen to use Termux? If so do you happen to know how to run a daemon (e.g. SSH) without getting choked by BgDetect every few minutes?

Yeah I do run termux, but I don't run an SSH daemon anymore (mostly because of issues like that). I just plug in the USB cable and run `adb shell` whenever I need a shell on the phone.

Performance for file transfers is also way faster and more reliable using `adb pull /sdcard/DCIM ./` than with `scp -r phone:/sdcard/DCIM/ ./`

I use termux mostly just run my own ruby scripts or SSH to cloud servers and stuff.

Mind if I ask where the conversation is? (if it's public). That sounds like something I'd enjoy :-)

Oh, I was just referring to this post, which is about putting Linux on devices meant for other OSes. :-)

Ah I see. Yeah I use USB when I need to, but I neither always have enough data to warrant the speed (often just a handful of pics...), nor is it true that I only want SSH for file transfer. =P

Your question was not directed towards me but would like to add that for synhing media between phone and computer, Syncthing[0] has been great for me. Once setup, no manual steps are required anymore - everything syncs automatically.

[0]: https://syncthing.net/

The only good deal I got on Amazon was for 8GB/128GB storage - still have about 70GB left after having copied all my media over from the Nexus 6p. I think I'll be ready for a replacement by the time I get near filling that 70GB up.

You can still find parts on ebay for the 6p. And there are youtube videos on how to do the replacement, but it's not something I'd do myself.

Still rocking my Nexus 5X and will continue to do so until it physically dies. LineageOS works spectacularly and I still get Android updates faster than most flagships.

I still use a Nexus 5.

I think I like the Nokia 6 (not the more recent models) as a replacement.

It will sadly have to be replaced at some point.

And it is worth noting that the 2012 13" MacBook Pro (non-retina, the last upgradeable MacBook) was sold by Apple at least until 2017, so it should be supported until 2024.

Sold? Or manufactured?

Another important difference: you can still install linux on a macbook after it is EOL'd by Apple. HArdware support is poor but the machine can still have an OS patched on a regular basis.

Those vintage macbook pros are still getting OS and software updates. Hardly "software-defined garbage". I have a 2012 retina that's still chugging along perfectly. Battery life is down from when I bought it, sure, but there's still enough juice for a few hours of unplugged work.

The 2012 retina was released mid-2012, and the 7 year rule starts when it was last produced. So it hasn't reached obsolete/vintage status yet.

(I used the same MacBook, replaced the battery a couple of months ago, and have no plans to replace it anytime soon.)

Macbook Pros cost far more than Chromebooks. MBPs are 4x to 10x the price. They shouldn't be compared apples to apples.

Getting downvoted here, would love to know why.

I did not downvote you nor do I know why you are downvoted and I do understand your frustration.

That said, it is against the Hacker News guidelines to comment about voting/down-voting and generally only results in further down-votes.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading."

People don't like puns?

Because your post was utterly irrelevant in every possible way. A lot of things a lot more expensive than Macs get EOL on a much more regular basis.

Have fun running brand new Android on a seven year old tablet.

End of Life does not mean it no longer works.

Also, you are still within your 7 years :)

Not receiving security updates on a modern computer intended to be connected to the internet effectively means it stops being useful/reliable.

My 2012 iMac was not supported by the osx release last year.

Did Apple lock down your iMac preventing you from installing/booting updated versions of Windows or Linux?

The newer Macs with T2 chips do prevent you from installing Linux, actually.

There appears to be some debate online as to whether turning off secure boot on T2 Macs allows Linux to work. It should, but there are some reports online that it does not, at least if you want to use the computer's internal storage. https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/a4thsc/the_actual_fu....

I would have expected this to be sorted out by now, but that doesn't appear to be the case. If anyone knows more, please share...

Do you have a 2011 iMac? The 2012 iMacs do support last year’s macOS, Mojave.

I have a 2011 non-retina that's chugging along pretty well, the battery life is good enough to stream a 3 1/2 hour NFL game without a charge. Haven't upgraded the os since 10.12, but it still works well enough.

That's impressive, I can't say the same thing about my 2013 retina.

It wasn't until the last ~6 months that I noticed a drop-off in battery performance. Not sure if it was from streaming football/hockey games or my tendency to throw it into sleep mode thinking "I'll have time later tonight" while keeping my server/db/container processes still running.

I use a mid 2009 Core 2 Duo. I replaced the battery on it ~6 months ago. I also installed Mojave on it, and with the exception of a weird quirk where apps that do not live in the Dock do not disappear from it when you close the app, it runs fine.

It is essentially a Hackintosh, albeit a legal one, as the hardware is Apple hardware.

I do dev work on it, though it is ruby and/or javascript, not a lot of true compiling happening. But it works well.

I'd love it to be officially supported, but I mean you have to draw the line somewhere.

Edit: I forgot to mention the SSD I put in it, or the RAM I maxed out. (I did the upgrade work, I was not about to pay the premium for Apple to do it.)

What did you need to do to make Mojave compatible? I've seen a few installer patches around[0] but wasn't sure if you rolled your own solution. Thanks.

Edit: added link

[0] https://github.com/rmc-team/macos-patcher

http://dosdude1.com/mojave/, maybe?

This is the one I used.

> I also installed Mojave on it, and with the exception of a weird quirk where apps that do not live in the Dock do not disappear from it when you close the app, it runs fine.

If you’re talking about what I think you’re talking about, this is a feature and you can turn it off by disabling “Recent Apps” in System Preferences.

Thanks for this, I will check that out.

> I replaced the battery on it ~6 months ago.

Where did you purchase the battery from, and how is the performance, if you do not mind me asking?

I also use a mid 2009 Core 2 duo, but lately I have struggled to find a source for a battery that will last more that 1.5 hours in typical usage. I assume the issue is that any authentic Apple battery must have been manufactured so long ago that its capacity is severely degraded after having been stored (at non-ideal temperature) for so long, and it seems like even many third party batteries available are old and had inferior capacity to begin with.

I assumed the same.

I bought the battery from iFixit[1], and I am back to the original of 4ish-5ish hours.

[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Store/Mac/MacBook-Pro-15-Inch-Unibody...

I have a 2009 Mac Pro that can no longer be updated because they dropped support for a ton of NVIDIA cards in Mojave.

The Chromebook updates are not the same as the updates you get from Apple. Chrome gets security updates every 2-3 weeks and full OS updates around every 6 weeks. Apple's OS is updated much less frequently.

macOS gets updates every 4-6 weeks.

Vintage you mean. Had a coworker point out that Apple calls really old Apple products vintage, it can't be called old or obsolete for whatever reason.

Yeah that sounds like something apple would do, they love their orwellian language.

Quoting from the Apple page linked: “Obsolete products are those that were discontinued more than 7 years ago.“

Quoting from the Apple page linked that you responded to: “Obsolete products are those that were discontinued more than 7 years ago.“

Vintage and obsolete are two different categories. Vintage = 5-7 years after last manufacture vs 7+ for obsolete. Service is generally not available for vintage or obsolete products, however some places like California have service for vintage products available. Further details on Apple’s website: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201624

Ha! I remember buying a mac with a disk drive right after the Apple started offering macs with solid state drives. After upgrading the OS, it mac became super sluggish--Apple didn't support the computer for more than a few years.

No it was supported but it was obsolete which is two different things. But also why I don't have mac hardware any longer. One of my favorite machines is still my SamsunNC10, tiny (for it's day) 32 bit machine that runs a *nix. For what I do, which involves writing software, managing servers and browsing the web, it's great, though At some point, it will not have os support any longer for 32 bit.

EoL Macs can be converted to Linux, for what it's worth.

Except if they have a T2 chip and you don’t want to chug along external hdd/storage for your main OS.

All EOL Chromebooks can easily be converted to Linux.

I was replying to someone saying the same about MacBooks, but that’s clearly no longer the case.

This is mostly true, but you'll never get as good an experience with Linux on a Mac as on a Lenovo or Dell. There's just too much proprietary stuff. Even little things like the fan sometimes don't work

YMMV.

https://www.cultofmac.com/162823/linux-creator-linus-torvald...

Apple doesn't always make things easy, but they do have a highly-uniform component set, which can simplify configuration so long as all elements are supported, and senior Linux devs running kit is an incentive to solve hardware issues.

I'm not implying either that all devices are supported (I don't know which are/aren't, though I've had success on Apple kit myself), or that Linus still uses an Apple laptop (he seems to have moved on). But some well-established Linux users have turned to those devices and ben satisfied.

Well, for Apple support.

I’ve installed OpenBSD on a 2007 MbPro and works like a charm. (I put an ssd like 8 years ago though).

This is why I will eventually switch to Linux as my primary work/personal OS.

Unfortunately, my Mac Pro 5,1 refuses to die!

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