Macbook Pro, Late 2013 users rejoice!
What makes the Late 2013 MacBook Pro more special than, say the Mid 2014, Early/Mid 2015, or anything newer (or even the couple of generations older that are also getting support for macOS Catalina?
2012 Mac Mini will be supported for another 2 years, its was still sold in 2016.
Edit: Now I think of it, it's the 2012 MBP, I have both, the MBP was still up for sale in 2016, not sure about the Mac Mini, it's got the same hardware so why shouldn't it.
The 2012 Mac mini was sold until 2014 when the 2014 Mac mini replaced it in the lineup.
The 2012 non-Retina 13" MacBook Pro was still sold until late 2016.
Both are rocking the same Intel Ivy Bridge chipsets, so you are correct that there's no technical reason as to why one should get more support than the other. However, the final sale date isn't what matters relative to the date it loses software support. If that was the case, then it would stand to reason that the 2012 Mac Pro should be supported for Catalina, given that a 2012 MacBook Pro already has support (when the 2012 Mac Pro didn't include any technology that wasn't also present in the 2010 Mac Pro).
Woo hoo! My daughter and I have late-2013 MBPs. Probably the best investment I made was paying a premium for a notebook that’ll last. If I had gone economy with a basic Windows notebook, it would have been replaced a few times by now.
A Windows PC sold in the same time period that the Late 2013 MacBook Pros were on sale for would still be supported for the current version of Windows 10 and presumably the next few thereafter. Even the cheap ones. You'd probably want to replace the HDD with an SDD, but other than that they'd be no different in terms of how well they ran Windows today.
People like to think that Macs are special in this regard, but they really aren't.
What is? This is the same list of Macs that can run 10.14 Mojave. Unless I missed something.
2010 and 2012 Mac Pros are excluded; likely for all of the video card upgrade gymnastics that had to be supported to enable them to run in Mojave.
You didn’t miss anything.
Some people just need to find something to grumble about.
I'm sure that if you spent $6000 on a 12-Core Mac Pro in 2011 or 2012, (and more money this last year on an upgraded graphics card so you could be current on macOS), you'd also complain. I do not have one of these machines, so it doesn't bother me. But I could totally imagine not being happy that this pretty much marks the beginning of shopping for a replacement Mac (especially when quality control isn't that great with Apple these days).
I would like to know why technically support for the 2010-2012 MacPro had to be dropped. Not sure I understand it.
I assume it’s because its vintage status is almost up and so they just don’t want to support t and want people to buy new machines. They couldn’t really do that with any other 2012 machine because they kinda messed up their lineup.
If I had to guess, it might have to do with (a) the fact that those Macs required a video card upgrade for Mojave (and Apple likely didn't want to have to keep supporting that kind of configuration for a machine that is already that old and (b) some of the increased tamper-proofing they're adding to Catalina. My guess is that if they didn't need an aftermarket video card for Mojave, they'd still be supported in Catalina.
A 2010 Mac Pro has more than enough power to run the upcoming version of Mac OS, and quite likely any system software Apple releases for the next two decades. I know the 80s and 90s had us replacing our computers every few years, but we've hit a relative plateau over the past decade, and claiming that an 2010 8-core Xeon can't run what a 2017 dual-core i5 can is just disingenuous.
...Except...it has nothing to do with the processor and everything to do with the video card support.
not saying don't innovate or update. But I despise the throwaway culture we live in. I'm in the small minority, but I'd like to see computers (especially one's that cost more than $1000) come to be viewed as appliances more than apparel (think about it). When I buy a refrigerator, a couch, or a car, I expect it to last me 15-20 years. I will pay for quality engineering, but in return I'll determine when to EOL my property.
This is the philosophical problem I have with Apple and most other companies in the hardware and software industries. Most people don't seem to notice (or mind) that they're being fleeced, and the analogy of the frog in the boiling water is not out of place here.
They need to slow down their software development cycles is what they really need to do. I don't think anyone really needed macOS 10.15 to release in 2019. Hell, I wouldn't mind waiting until 2021. They do not need to pump out new OS releases every year, especially since they don't seem to focus on things that I really wanted out of my Mac and are instead focusing on trying to figure out how my Mac can run more like a bloody iPad.
The only thing driving us to replace our Apple products is that the pace of software development is such that we are much sooner getting to the version of iOS/macOS/tvOS/watchOS/iPadOS where our Apple product either runs like crap or is left in the cold. Just slow your cycle and our **** can last longer and everyone can be happy!