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Comment by bsaul | Hacker News Reader

Now that apple sees a renewed interest for their laptop thanks to the m1 chip, they may want to start deprecating all the old macs, to "encourage" people to buy the newer ones..

i hope it won't become a habit. Desktops and latops are work environments, not fashion accessories like iphones. Professionals don't like to change their gear if they don't need to.

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> Professionals don't like to change their gear if they don't need to

Speak for yourself :) The reason I got into this business, is that I'm a sucker for tech. And now that it's a business expense, I'm always on the lookout for an excuse to buy new hardware.

Also, I don't think they need to unduly encourage upgrades to the new hardware. M1 Reviews have been almost universally positive.

In all fairness, this sounds more like you consider new tech a perk, a toy. Meanwhile, professionals get gear not to tinker with it, but to meet their mission objectives/business goals, and changing gear is considered unnecessary overhead (unless - as it seems to be in your case - new tech is the mission objective).

Writing this on my trusty T520 Thinkpad. 10 years, still going strong, still the main battle station for my professional life.

It is possible to be professional while still having some fun ;)

In all fairness, one person in either direction doesn't show anything in regards to how a whole class of users use their hardware or what their preferences are.

Who tests new configurations for when things die or for when it's time to upgrade hardware? New cluster configurations?

> changing gear is considered unnecessary overhead

Or being prepared

Having to throw out an iMac bought a year ago (there was at least one model without a T2 chip at that time IIRC) absolutely should count as unnecessary overhead, though.

Lots of professionals in our space enjoy new laptop day. You can't be mission oriented 100% every day.

Well most people can't...

> Meanwhile, professionals get gear not to tinker with it

I really dislike the word "professional". It often is used to gatekeep, which I feel you are doing right now.

You'll be surprised how much you can get away with not staying up-to-date on your software. Desktop software is mostly mature and you aren't losing much anything by using several-year-old versions. In other words, it feels as if updates rarely bring useful features and are more about moving stuff around to keep the developers and designers busy.

- sent from my 2012 macbook running mojave

> Desktops and latops are work environments, not fashion accessories like iphones. Professionals don't like to change their gear if they don't need to.

I think even smartphones are no fashion accessory anymore including the iPhone.

I’m in the market

If they release the perfect system rumored I will totally tolerate mac os 12 and just selectively move some files from my prior machine instead of restoring it and all of its complications on the new device

Big Sur will be EOLed in November 2022. If they really cut off v12 from late-2015, they will have provided 7 years of support by then. Slightly earlier than their usual 8-10 years cycles, but arguably warranted by the significant technological change of T2.

I don't think they'll push hard on replacement; after a bit of (warranted) skepticism, the m1 is selling itself. Besides, what really matters to them is the yearly iPhone cycle; as long as that keeps spinning, they can be generous with the rest of the ecosystem.

Wouldn’t call iPhones fashion accessories. Overpriced - maybe.

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