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In other words 'a paper weight", unless you DIY. I wish i still had my 2012 :)
Maybe I am misunderstanding your post, but just because a Mac is considered obsoleted by Apple hardly makes it a paper weight.
 
Maybe Apple should leave this legacy design in its product line up and just upgrading accordingly since its so popular...
A testament to the fact that it's never a good investment buying any of their higher spec models.

A testament to the fact that their so called environmental friendliness is utter BS. To the landfill it all goes in a few short years

To be fair, the more you make use of a product the more its environment friendly, if it was modular, its use can be lengthened much longer. With new battery and HDD you can donate the millions of MBP sold to developed countries where kids can use it to learn all sort of stuff like CAD, programming, languages, web design, you name it. Since its all glued together...to the landfill it goes.

Your mac made you $10 million? Nice
Well... If he built a successful start up on it say like Shopify...then yes it did!
 
the damn thing is a fossil at this point. no one else would support something so old lol
It’s not a fossile. Install Linux on it and use it for another 8 years.

Who said that Laptops must be replaced every 8 years or 5 years? Government agencies have been running their mainframes for 40 years now. Why can’t we run our home computers for 15-20 years?
 
I think the same about my mid-2104 13" MBP - now vintage, but still going strong and rejuvinated with a replacement battery from OWC a couple of weeks ago.

I've got no intention of retiring mine.....

I have the same model, and no intention to give it up for a few more years yet (I also can't afford it). It's the Core i7 3.0GHz model with 16Gb RAM, so should be more than capable for a while yet. I've just bought a 512Gb NVMe SSD to replace the stock 256Gb one (half the cost of an Apple one in the same capacity). Battery is still ok at 84% and 466 cycles, I might need to replace it in a year or two, will see how it goes.

It's a great machine.
 
The 2012 MBP Retina was one of the best devices Apple ever made and is still in use. Really love this thing - typing still feels awesome.
 
Why is everyone saying "if Apple says it's obsolete, it's time to upgrade"? If it does what you need today, run that MF till the wheels fall off. No?

Well, hardware-wise, yeah, but once Apple stops delivering security updates, you should definitely move on. It's risky and irresponsible to use an OS that doesn't receive security updates.

But, as far as I can tell, this model still receives Catalina, even, so that's probably still a few years away — you typically get security updates for one or two previous major releases.
 
Is there anyone else besides Apple that will replace the battery ?

You can do it yourself - it isn't difficult. I replaced the battery in my mid-2014 13" MBP with a replacement purchased from OWC (manufactured by Newer Tech). The video instructions supplied by OWC are very clear, although I would recommend using dental floss, instead of solvent, to cut through the adhesive holding the battery to the case.
 
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I have a maxed out 2012 retina, and its definitely been slowing down, and struggling with intensive tasks or multitasking. Looking at options to upgrade, I know multi-core has increased significantly but I'm surprised the single core geekbench hasn't even doubled in performance in these last 8 years, even compared to the most powerful macs out there today. I use software that basically only uses a single core, so I'm worried even a hefty upgrade would feel underwhelming performance wise. Is this correct or am I missing something?
 
I have a maxed out 2012 retina, and its definitely been slowing down, and struggling with intensive tasks or multitasking.

Getting the accumulated dust blown out would likely help a lot with the slowdown issues you've been experiencing. I had that done at a local computer repair shop on my 2012 Retina MB Pro. Cost me $20 and the machine ran like a top after that: cooler, quieter, and faster. Was like new again, and LOTS more affordable than getting a replacement.

Steve
 
Why are you referencing an "internal memo?"

Apple's vintage/obsolete policy is very public. Just mark your Calendar for the date five years after the model goes out of production. Or rely on websites like this to report the same as if it's some kind of scoop.
 
The last of the great Macbook Pro's, still have mine and sometimes forget how old it is. There was nothing that needed changing on them except a CPU and SSD change.
 
For instance the old version of iTunes would convert your tunes to MP3 something new versions of iTunes will not do.
Every iTunes and Music app version I've ever used up until now is able to convert non-DRM tracks to MP3. Which version doesn't?
 
This was my favorite apple laptop (and before that it was the original bondi blue iBook clamshell). I brought it in for a battery replacement a few years back and got offered a free upgrade to a 2017 Macbook pro instead. wow do i miss having a real keyboard.
 
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Looks like its time to retire my 2012 MBP, it had a good run.

This was the best MBP Apple ever produced imo

[edit]
Clarification, I'm retiring the machine, not because of the announcement but its not able to run the apps that my daughter needs. We came to that conclusion this weekend, not due to this news story

1000% agree, the best MBP Apple ever produced. Never getting rid of it, even if I don't use it.
 
Awesome machine, sad to see it marked "obsolete" with no more support but I understand... Used it for all my 4 years in college (IT/Web major, while doing graphics on the side) and used it 2 years after I graduated, then I gave it to my sister who is now using it in her 2nd year of doing video game design in college and it's still working great. She has no complains till this day. Not bad for an 8 year old machine. Hope the newer laptops will have that kind of lifespan as well.
 
I just reset my Early 2015 MBP because it was running slow (didn't have much space left and had lots of sketchy programs) and now it's running as smooth as a baby's bottom, but when I restored it and reinstalled MacOS, it gave me Yosemite. At first I was iffy about it, but now it's sent me on a nostalgia trip from when I got it (July 2015) even though there isn't much that has changed, and now I don't want to update it. Tried to install Adobe programs for college but discovered that Creative Cloud doesn't support under OS X 10.13.x, it made me wonder if there are any Macs that can't run High Sierra and what would happen to people who have those Macs, software companies are just completely abandoning them, and then I found this article and discovered that Apple does this.

I'm a little sad, honestly, to discover that Apple itself just completely abandons the people with Macs incompatible with latest OS. Not everyone can afford new computers, and everyone (including schools and colleges) just expect people to be able to. I'm scared of very soon my Mac will be considered obsolete soon and if something goes wrong, I'm going to have no computer because I won't be able to get it fixed (I've tried DIYs before and I do not trust myself).
 
I'm still working of this sexy beast, 2.6 GHZ , 16GB SOLDERED RAM and 516GB SSD that cost a huge amount back in June 2012, ordered the first day.

BUT:
1-it took 3 months from Apple to deliver my customized machine to Spain, 3 months of lost warranty time as it starts when you pay…
2-I had 1 battery replacement while in warranty in just 9 months, and it went malfunctioned also at 18 months old (no warranty left…). 2 batteries died in 24 motnhs
3-I got the awful "ghosting problem" they refuse to change the screen, no matter how I cried, it was a real real problem.
4-some days before the warranty expired the motherboard died, something related to GPU, it was covered with the Apple warranty so they exchanged it free of charge, and an Apple Genius super hero acceded to included the screen so I got a real super nice retina display at least!!
5-I was suffering the WIFI/bluetooth low coverage problem for few years (BT ON= no WIFI signal), until they released a fix with some major OSX upgrade (cant remember) 2 years of real shame for low WIFI coverage and many discussions. Apple refused to agree this problem officially but Genius were very aware of this issue.
6-now a days, some macs are suffering freeze for seconds to minutes due to something related to GPU in 10.14.6, of course mine, though isn't in the list, is suffering this problem, disabling hardware accelerated graphics helps for specific apps, but not for the system.

I can say of my 5 macs this has been the most problematic, but also the most beloved overall and long lasting.
 
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I just replaced the battery in my mid 2012. Was my daily driver until i picked up a refurbished m2 mini, now im struggling to figure out what to do with the old girl.
 
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I just replaced the battery in my mid 2012. Was my daily driver until i picked up a refurbished m2 mini, now im struggling to figure out what to do with the old girl.
Sell it. Once you get used to an M1 or M2 mac, Intel macbooks become intolerable.

In 2020 i purchased a 16 inch MBP. A year later I started a new job and got an M1 13inch MBP.

10h battery life, super fast and it doesn't sound like a private jet under moderate load. It made me hate 2020 MBP that I had purchased for £2,200. In 2022 i took the plunge and traded in the intel MBP whilst trade in values were unjustifiably high. :D
 
I just replaced the battery in my mid 2012. Was my daily driver until i picked up a refurbished m2 mini, now im struggling to figure out what to do with the old girl.
I kind of just keep the old MacBook mid 2012 as a server on a shelf for backing up files/cloning hard drive etc. Speaker was toasted so I might replace it with a used part from eBay at some point.

Selling it for few hundred dollars doesn't justify the hassle needed. So I will keep it as a server and whenever I need to jump back to some intel-based App.
 
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