Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I like "vintage". My desktops (iMac 20" 2009 and iMac 21.5" 2011) and laptop (MacBook Air 13" 2011) are on this list. Still plugging along/no plans to upgrade until something dies. CS5 or CS6 and Fusion happily running on all of them as is.
 
Yes, because Windows PC's are a staple of quality. :rolleyes:

Yeah and if they're worried about not getting a Mac serviced from 6 years of last purchased, they should try the Windows world.

Most OEMs stop manufacturing parts for their mid range or lower notebooks within a couple of years because they have so many different small variants of the same and just throw so many at the wall without any standardisation. There's simply too much for them to support. Try to order the parts and they'll be either ludicrously expensive or simply be out of stock/on permanent back order.

We're talking stupid changes too. A Lenovo keyboard that looks identical and is just as crap as the last model, but has a slightly different placing of the ribbon cable so it's not interchangeable with other models. Different motherboard holes, awkward heatsink designs, or three different makes of trackpads (ELAN/Synaptics/some other crap one I can't remember) for the same damn model.

If OEMs just standardised a decent design over a number of years like Apple do, they'd cut down on manufacturing costs and improve product quality. Unfortunately in the world of Windows laptops, it's a race to the bottom - even with the premium laptops.
 
Obsolete and vintage, I must say, is a marketing tactic to make people feel that their computers are old and not usable any more. Its "obsolete" its "vintage".

The truth is, computers last a good long time, some collectors still have functioning computers from the 90's or maybe 80s. Only Apple will be dropping support, but 3rd parties are there to sell your spare parts and repair solutions.

That being said, 5 years is a very fair time to upgrade your computer. If you do some calculations, using computers only costs $33/month for 5 years or $1 a day. Very fair. (calculated at$2000 price)
 
  • Like
Reactions: trifid
6 year old 'obsolete' machine has only about 30% cpu difference with 2017 model:

https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks
JifOdOw.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: Ener Ji
Incredible how the time passes...

It's a 6 year old model and it's still modern.
There must have been a huge bump between the Early 2011 model and the Mid 2012 because mine is by no means “modern”. My Early 2011 and my sister’s 2010 model are basically paper weights right now. The lag on these computers are so bad they’re almost unusable.
 
There must have been a huge bump between the Early 2011 model and the Mid 2012 because mine is by no means “modern”. My Early 2011 and my sister’s 2010 model are basically paper weights right now. The lag on these computers are so bad they’re almost unusable.

Try swapping the old mechanical drive with an SSD, it'll be night and day difference, you'll have a new mac.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FrankeeD
6 year old 'obsolete' machine has only about 30% cpu difference with 2017 model:

https://browser.geekbench.com/mac-benchmarks
JifOdOw.png


It's pretty incredible how little progress Intel has made here. My 2015 is in the range of 7% and 10% to the 2017

2015 Geekbench.png

and I wondered how Apple's Ax had progressed over the same period. I chose the phone processors. These are passively cooled SOCs sitting in a phone form factor against air cooled i7's.

Ax vs i7.png

Geekbench isn't the be all and end all of performance measurement by any means but that's still pretty damning.
 
  • Like
Reactions: trifid
Yes. Historically Apple service goes from 6 years from the product last being sold, rather than 6 years from first manufactured. In this instance it's a little less than 6 but this is the general rule of thumb.

This is why the 2012 13" MBP will likely be supported until 2020-2021 after only recently being discontinued. The 15" 2012 rMBP was discontinued in Feb 2013 but the 15" cMBP was discontinued in October 2013.

What about the mid-2012 15" non-retina MBP with hi-res matte screen? This is my daily machine and I love the screen [much more than the retina screens, though i know i am in the minority - the matte finish is easier on my eyes, and the high resolution screen is great for photography].

I have a hardware issue with it, though it is not critical. I guess mine is supported until the end of the year? Or 2020?
 
  • Like
Reactions: FrankeeD
Yes and no. There's not a lot that a current MacBook Pro can do that my mid-2012 model cannot. Other than Touch ID and better 4K external monitor support, everything else is evolutionary, not revolutionary.

The only concern I have now is whether my current machine will survive long enough to see another revolutionary new model. I was hoping that this year would be that release, despite seeing little evidence to support such a dream. If this machine dies tomorrow then I might replace it with a new MBP, but it won't be the same amazing experience that getting this machine was back in 2012. Or maybe it's time to look elsewhere altogether, as that new Asus ZenBook with the Screen Pad looks intriguing.
That's why I think 6 yrs seems to be fair as technology changes during that time span, your needs changes and/or no longer meets the requirements or maybe your laptop is no longer functional and it makes sense to buy new rather than repair.
[doublepost=1531935683][/doublepost]
It's been six years and we're still stuck with 256GB of storage on the base 15" model.
I know, it's all about the dollars. In this case, Apple shaking more dollars out of your wallet.
 
What about the mid-2012 15" non-retina MBP with hi-res matte screen? This is my daily machine and I love the screen [much more than the retina screens, though i know i am in the minority - the matte finish is easier on my eyes, and the high resolution screen is great for photography].

I have a hardware issue with it, though it is not critical. I guess mine is supported until the end of the year? Or 2020?

If I had to guess I’d say October 2019 based on when it was discontinued, the hi res matte screen was a BTO on the 15” cMBP which stopped selling in Oct 2013.
 
  • Like
Reactions: vjl323
I guess it's time for me to replace the battery in my 2012 rMBP then. This machine is still going strong so I don't have a need to replace it with a newer (and less usable/more expensive) mbp. Love this thing and will use it until it no longer works.
 
Mine works just fine - although Apple did have to replace the retina display once and the motherboard once, and I changed the battery after 700 cycles myself using an iFixit kit. Other than thermal issues (fan starts working hard when you push the machine to do a lot of tasks) the laptop still does very well.
 
Thank Intel and the rest of the industry for the slow pace of innovation.

Back in the 90's, if you had bought a computer in 1992, it would be ridiculously in need for an update in 1998.

I mean, in 1992, there was no such thing as 3D graphics cards in the market, and in 1998, there were Voodoo 2's running Unreal.

In 1992 a sound card were crappy and totally optional, in 1998 it was a given in any computer and they were PCM based.

In 1998 you got your fancy 3.5" floppy in 1998, some more expensive builds had DVDs, and Steve Jobs wanted to take your floppies away.

In 1992 some people were insisting (still) that you only could do real work on text user interfaces, and in 1998 GUI was not a question, and Java was a thing.

In 1992 you had thy centronics and RS232 on PCs or SCSI on Macs, in 1998 the iMac had USB and FireWire and Ethernet as standard.

In fact, a mundane PC in 1998 like the iMac G3 could emulate a 1992 PC purely in software.


More like thank physics. That pace has slowed because modern computing is nearly at the limits of what's physically possible on silicon. Current technology has hit a wall shrinking transistors down much further on silicon, we need a giant leap forward like switching to graphene or something, which I don't think anyone one is really that close to yet.

That's why a current CPU is no longer orders of magnitude faster than one from a few years ago like they were in the '90s.

And there are several aspects of modern computers that you're ignoring that are vastly better than computers from 6 years ago:

-Displays have improved enormously from 2012
-Modern PCIE-based SSDs are vastly faster than 2012-based SSD storage.
-802.11ac is far superior to 802.11n you were stuck with in 2012.
-GPUs are significantly faster than 2012-era ones.
-Thunderbolt 3 is an enormous game changer; in 2012 the thought of a 40Gbps port that could charge your computer while outputting 4k video to multiple displays was pure fantasy.
 
More like thank physics. That pace has slowed because modern computing is nearly at the limits of what's physically possible on silicon. Current technology has hit a wall shrinking transistors down much further on silicon, we need a giant leap forward like switching to graphene or something, which I don't think anyone one is really that close to yet.

Sorry, it's not the truth.

Thing is that much more money is invested in mobile than in desktops.
 
Sorry, it's not the truth.

Thing is that much more money is invested in mobile than in desktops.

It is the truth.

Obviously if there were no such thing as smart phones and all the R&D stayed in desktop computing it would be further along than it is, maybe we'd be closer to replacing silicon and/or finding other workarounds etc. But if you're seriously trying to claim that's not true that we're unable to shrink transistors much more on silicon, then you're mistaken. It's why Moore's law fizzled out a few years ago, that has nothing to do with changing R&D focus to phones.
 
It is the truth.

Obviously if there were no such thing as smart phones and all the R&D stayed in desktop computing it would be further along than it is, maybe we'd be closer to replacing silicon and/or finding other workarounds etc. But if you're seriously trying to claim that's not true that we're unable to shrink transistors much more on silicon, then you're mistaken. It's why Moore's law fizzled out a few years ago, that has nothing to do with changing R&D focus to phones.

It is not.

But you can say what you want, this is just a forum.
 
Imagine if Apple made a car and said after 6 years you could no longer get parts.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.