Apple Obsoletes Select Early 2008 to Late 2009 Macs

[B4U]

No SSD, I'm assuming? I think Mavericks and later are all horribly optimized for HDDs or something. A fast Mac gets bottlenecked at disk access when you update.

I don't think they offered the upgrade when I bought mine. If they did, it must be outrageously priced that I skipped it.
And an aftermarket one is just simply too much work and the cost involved to upgrade is simply illogical for a 6 year old computer...

 

[Phrequensi]

Don't despair if you're new to the obsolete list. My iMac (my main computer) has been labeled "Obsolete" by Apple for nearly a year now and it still runs current software acceptably well. It's running OS X 10.11 El Capitan without problems.

The 2008 MacBook Air started feeling pretty useless sometime around 2012... it's just not capable of running current software anymore. It still runs old software okay, but I'm using it less and less and my iPhone more with each passing year... probably going to replace it with a new rMBP once Apple refreshes it next year.



Here I thought I was the sole person still using a mid-2007 iMac as their main computer.

I have a mid-2007 in the living room. It's a trooper.
Put a 500GB SSD, Trim Enabler/Disk Sensei, in it and jacked up the ram past spec
and it's running the latest Yosemite, like a real champ.
Got a totally separate issue with a diminished backlight, but
the upgrades, as you could imagine, have worked wonders on that machine.

 

[SeattleMoose]

I am waiting for the day when WE are added to a list like this. Please report to your local government processing station!!! SOYLENT GREEN!!!

 

[grahamperrin]

… I think Mavericks and later are all horribly optimized for HDDs or something. …

Mavericks included file system-related enhancements that should have been good for both rotational and solid state media.

 

[Ebenezum]

Mavericks included file system-related enhancements that should have been good for both rotational and solid state media.

I'm curious, are those changes documented somewhere in Apple developer site or elsewhere?

In my experience Mavericks works better on hard drive when compared to later OS versions but nowhere as fast as Snow Leopard.

 

[grahamperrin]

I'm curious, are those changes documented somewhere in Apple developer site or elsewhere? …

com.apple.iconServicesAgent comes to mind. http://www.opensource.apple.com/sou...ultLocalDB/Default/groups/_iconservices.plist in open source but I can't describe icon services as documented by Apple.

There was thought of metadata in a 2013 tweet about the OS: https://twitter.com/DonJBrady/status/393036251114119168

HFS Plus aside, metadata isolation is mentioned in Metadata Allocation Class (Don Brady, Intel Corp, OpenZFS Developer Summit 2015) – "Standard practice for distributed file systems" and so on.

 

[Ebenezum]

com.apple.iconServicesAgent comes to mind. http://www.opensource.apple.com/sou...ultLocalDB/Default/groups/_iconservices.plist in open source but I can't describe icon services as documented by Apple.

There was thought of metadata in a 2013 tweet about the OS: https://twitter.com/DonJBrady/status/393036251114119168

HFS Plus aside, metadata isolation is mentioned in Metadata Allocation Class (Don Brady, Intel Corp, OpenZFS Developer Summit 2015) – "Standard practice for distributed file systems" and so on.

Thanks.

Based on those links I wonder why Apple made changes to iconServicesAgent? While it works for me I know several people who had to disable Spotlight indexing to prevent it using insane amounts of RAM.

Unfortunately other changes are less well documented, metadata changes seem interesting but its hard to get a good overview without more information. Apples developer site isn't much better...

 

[grahamperrin]

… wonder why Apple made changes to iconServicesAgent? While it works for me I know several people who had to disable Spotlight indexing to prevent it using insane amounts of RAM.

Icon services was a new technology, I don't know whether Yosemite or El Capitan made changes.

http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/113552/8546 answers a question about icon services and memory; please note, it's unrelated to Spotlight.

 

[melendezest]

Yeah, you're on your own there mate. I can't imagine using my G5 now, 14 years later, when i've got retina screens, USB 3, Thunderbolt 2 and 32gb of ram all used on a daily basis. Not only that, but upgrading is almost a hobby in itself, you only live once!

I never actually looked at it that way!

You're absolutely correct. This may explain why people defend Apple regardless of their more recent dumbass decisions.

That said, I'm looking to get a higher-end 2012 Mac Pro to use as my "last" real Mac, and turn it into a server/storage repository for the 18+ years of family photos, videos, music and movies I have.

Those machines are so powerful still and so easy to work on and access that I can see I wouldn't need anything else for the next 10-12 years, at least.

Neither Ethernet nor PCI cards nor desktop-class hard drives are going anywhere anytime soon, so I can spend the next decade maxing it out and still be "in the game", as it were.

Alas, they still command a premium (because they were so good).

Hobbies, man!!
[doublepost=1452029074][/doublepost]

They have totally stomped on the brakes on my 09 iMac with the i7 and 32GB of RAM as soon as I put Yosemite on her...
So I am very reluctant to go to El Capitan...
Especially I did see how the iPad 3's fate with iOS 7 comparing to iOS 6...

I hear ya. I'm taking my 2011 iMac back to Mountain Lion.

I like many of EC's features, particularly the Dark mode and the ability to minimize the finder bar and such.

Buuuut, it broke 3 out of 5 USB ports on my machine, it stutters and hangs and is generally much less stable than ML on both of my 2011 machines (maxed out iMac 27 and 17" MBP with RAID 0 drives) and my 2012 15" MBP.

More importantly, I can live without any of it's specific features, as I don't like iOS (7 and up) devices and I don't use them at all, so integration and "continuity" are not indispensable.

After ML everything seems so..."Playskool". I enjoy ML's aesthetics.

Thus, I thrive in my fragmented, (Apple) unsupported, third-party-app-heavy ecosystem.

Keep your .dmg files locally!!

 

[T Coma]

On the laptops, does that also include installing new batteries ?

According to the Lincoln Park Chicago Apple store it does.

I inquired about a battery replacement on an '09 MBP, and I was told that since it was a "vintage" product, that it was not supported.

For a battery replacement.

But Apple customer service, being the helpful folks that they are, suggested I try out ifixit.com.

 

[Macdctr]

Those machines are so powerful still and so easy to work on and access that I can see I wouldn't need anything else for the next 10-12 years, at least.

Yes the 2012's still command a premium price because they're still supported by Apple. The Early 2009's dropped in pricing because Apple stopped supporting them but that does not mean they are not still awesome computers. Getting parts for these computers inexpensively are still easy if you know where to source the parts. With that said you can do the firmware upgrade to make them essentially 5,1's and upgrade the memory and processors to keep them more current.

I spent less than $600 for my Early 2009 MacPro, did the firmware update to 5,1, USB 3.0, wifi 802.11an, and Bluetooth 4.0 without any issues. I have recently upgraded to 32GB PC3-10600 ECC DDR3 1333 MHz RAM and installed a 500GB Samsung SSD for my boot drive and a few 2TB hard drives. The RAM upgrade cost me $80, the wifi/bluetooth upgrade another $80 and the rest I had laying around so overall cost was not too bad. The computer is relatively fast for a quad core 2.66GHZ system but I plan to upgrade to a hex-core 5690 processor soon. I expect to see improvements in speed and know I can use this computer for another 10 years.

I agree "upgrading" is a hobby but what fun it is being able to keep such an awesome computer platform running for years to come. I realize no matter how much I put into this desktop computer, it won't be nearly as fast as "cutting edge" desktops currently being sold but for my use what I'm using is plenty fast and I'm not throwing thousands buying technology that will soon be outdated... from my viewpoint, I'm not using my computer for any business application so I have a platform that will be more than adequate for my needs

 

[phrehdd]

The only thing I see obsolete is Apple making products that can last for many years and be upgraded. The new improved Apple of the last few years is about making artsy fartsy statements of form over function and being sure that everyone is forced to get new hardware every 3-4 years. Damn near reminds me of Micro$haft trying to force people to upgrade to a new (beta) OS even if they prefer the greater stability of the one they were on.

 

[Plutonius]

I just got a new battery put in my mid 2010 Macbook Pro so they will replace batteries in laptops that aren't obsolete yet. The technician claimed that my MBP would be obsoleted soon so it was good that I came in when I did.

The cost was $129, it took 3 hours (I came back for it), and I would recommend it if your 2010 Macbook Pro battery is not working well and you want to keep it for a few more years.

 

[Richdmoore]

I just got a new battery put in my mid 2010 Macbook Pro so they will replace batteries in laptops that aren't obsolete yet. The technician claimed that my MBP would be obsoleted soon so it was good that I came in when I did.

The cost was $129, it took 3 hours (I came back for it), and I would recommend it if your 2010 Macbook Pro battery is not working well and you want to keep it for a few more years.

That is what I reciommend to people as well with aging but serviceable models, replace with a genuine battery while they can to avoid having to play the 3rd party laptop battery lottery.

 

[iShater]

I totally missed this last year. My workhorse is a 2008 MBP, and I guess when the GPU goes out, I will have to replace parts myself.

I will be trying out an OS upgrade this weekend, should be interesting to see if it is usable with whichever one Apple is supporting this machine under.

 

[StarlightSun]

I totally missed this last year. My workhorse is a 2008 MBP, and I guess when the GPU goes out, I will have to replace parts myself.

I will be trying out an OS upgrade this weekend, should be interesting to see if it is usable with whichever one Apple is supporting this machine under.

It can run El Capitan

 

[iShater]

It can run El Capitan

But will it run it "well" ... that is my fear ...
I need to start saving up for a new Mac, i tried to get into an i5 based Thinkpad, and it is not doing it for me.

 

[Ebenezum]

But will it run it "well" ... that is my fear ...
I need to start saving up for a new Mac, i tried to get into an i5 based Thinkpad, and it is not doing it for me.

That depends on your definition of "works well".

Speed wise it depends on your current OS. If you are using Snow Leopard I am fairly certain El Capitan will be clearly slower. (Based on my iMac 2007 with hard drive and 6 Gb of RAM, El Capitan works but Snow Leopard is much faster).

If you are using newer OS then the difference in speed is likely much less.

I wouldn't try El Capitan without upgrading RAM to at least 4 Gb and even then it might be too slow for your needs...
If you can wait a few weeks its likely that .4 update will released by the end of this month so it could be worth waiting for it...

 

[grahamperrin]

… Give it a new lease of life, whether it will be obsolete, vintage or decrepid

+1

… late 2009 21" iMac. … Also Windows 10 is great on it.
Only thing coming to an end is the hard drive, going a bit too clunky for my liking. …

A few days ago I began testing PC-BSD 11.0-CURRENTMAR2016 on an early 2011 MacBookPro8,2 with 4 GB memory. No support for FireWire but the modern OS, all ZFS, performs well when booted from the internal hard disk drive (5,400 RPM, Serial ATA).

For occasional test purpose, I have OS X 10.9.5 and El Capitan on a Seagate GoFlex Desk™. I'll put PC-BSD on a slightly more modern Backup Plus Desktop drive and then:

• compare boot times of the different operating systems, over USB 2.0, with the MacBookPro8,2 and/or an early 2009 MacBookPro5,2 with more memory (8 GB).

Also to one side, an iMac G5 with 64-bit FreeBSD 10.0, with which I couldn't make a working desktop environment a few months ago. I expect things to be better with 10.2 or greater; I'll post notes to the PowerPC Macs area here and/or The FreeBSD Forums.

 

[extrachrispy]

That depends on your definition of "works well".

I wouldn't try El Capitan without upgrading RAM to at least 4 Gb and even then it might be too slow for your needs...
If you can wait a few weeks its likely that .4 update will released by the end of this month so it could be worth waiting for it...

El Cap runs better on my 2009 MBA (2GB RAM) than did Yosemite. Ditto on my 2009 Mini (8GB RAM).

 

[Ebenezum]

El Cap runs better on my 2009 MBA (2GB RAM) than did Yosemite. Ditto on my 2009 Mini (8GB RAM).

I don't doubt that since Yosemite is slow on old Macs. OP didn't say which OS he/she is using so its hard to make comparisons.

 

[Jpoon]

I basically ran two startup advertisement agencies off of Mac Minis and old imac 27" / Mac Pro 4,1 / 5,1 with very little help as a principle engineer. We get no credit in Hollywoo due to the magic of the 'NDA' and 'Lawyers.' You all would be surprised how much storage can be served up with off the shelf kit and a Mac Mini / Mac Pro and aftermarket networking equipment. Pretty sure we were running at least 10.10.5 at the time and looking towards El Capitan as vendors were marching on.

For instance, I technically produced the Hulu Originals Open and Close (that you'd see before and after 'Hand Maiden's Tale') with just two 2012 Mac Minis (best), two Super Micro Render class 1U Super Servers running Windows 2012 R2 / CentOS6/7, and the last 27" iMacs to include a CTO option for Nvidia GPUs (four of them). We had to final render in the cloud of course. Maxon C4D, After Effects, and Chaos Group V-Ray all used. What a ******** producing that project was (budget budget budget as always in advertisements).

 

[Th3odor3]

I just received a Apple Cinema Display (30-inch DVI) as a gift and read in this forum post it is obsolete. I would like to know if there are any apps enhancing this display still available.

 

[superiormacintosh]

I still use my MacBook 2008 everyday. Runs CS6 like a charm!

False! In fact i TRY to run league of legends, a popular moba strategy game, and nothing I do works! Unreal. I expected much better from Apple. I've been a fan for the decades passing and I just don't know what to do. Apple just lost a faithful customer today. Neither I nor my family will be continuing further relations with said company. Good day.