6 ms·

That is a 7 years old iMac. Apple is not forcing you.

mkj 6y ago
A 7 year old iMac keeps running Windows 10 fine.
soylentcola 6y ago
I mean...it is what it is, but my desktop is based on the previous year's Intel CPU, cost about as much, and still runs Win10 and Linux just fine.
damnyou 6y ago
I have 10 year old PCs that are perfectly functional. My main desktop is mostly from 2012 with a couple upgrades in between and works like a champ. 7 years is far too low. This is planned obsolescence. With Apple preventing dual boot on ARM this problem will only get worse.
kekebo 6y ago
I run Mojave perfectly well on a mid 2012 Macbook Pro, a friend of mine even on a 2008 one (also well for his needs). Durability has long been a feature of these machines, even sadder to be forced into hardware upgrades by what seems to be intentionally broken core features like wifi.
- sigjuice 6y ago
  What makes the broken wifi seem intentional?
  - furbyhater 6y ago
    It has nothing to do with a lack of capability of the older machine. They just decided it wasn't worth the effort to support the model of wifi chipset present in the older models, effectively killing them off.
    - reaperducer 6y ago
      I think you may be projecting. Wifi cards go bad. It happens. Sometimes they can be replaced. Sometimes not. I've had it happen to lots of my machines over the last two decades. But I don't think it's fair to characterize what could very well be a hardware fault as the work of some bean counter in Cupertino sitting behind his desk rubbing his hands with glee.
      - FireBeyond 6y ago
        I can't find reference here, but I remember a discussion with an Apple engineer who said that AirDrop had been blocked in a certain model, "due to incompatible wifi", but that the wifi card mentioned was not one they'd ever heard of being put in a production Mac, i.e. "ass-covering BS".
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Even Apple doesn’t have unlimited resources. They may still offer patches for outdated WiFi cards in a future update but it’s silly to commit to doing so in your initial OS release.
anthk 6y ago
My laptop is from ~2006. I can still run OpenBSD and Chromium with ~15 tabs open, and play videos well up to 720p, 1080p is wasting HD size because the screen is smaller than that.
kup0 6y ago
If I want to run Big Sur, it's my only legitimate option. So yes, if I want to continue to use macOS and want to stay on the latest release, then "having to upgrade hardware" is the only route. If you take issue with me calling that "forcing" then fine, but it's obvious how I'm using that term. Plenty of hardware from 2013 runs current operating systems- basically only in the Apple ecosystem is this a problem. I doubt there's any _technical_ reason older hardware cannot run newer versions of macOS. Apple just draws a line whereever they want. I understand this is a "known concern" of being a part of the Apple ecosystem- but it's one of the first times I've encountered it personally, so yes, it's frustrating.
- mirthflat83 6y ago
  A known “concern”? It’s a known benefit of owning Apple hardware. 7 years of support. You’re asking too much. Hope you enjoy forced reboots and telemetry on Windows
  - jefft255 6y ago
    That's a legit argument against Android, but the exact opposite holds for Windows. You can run Windows 10 on 10 years old hardware, 15 if you push it and I'm not exaggerating. I'm typing this on my 10 years old desktop PC running Windows 10 as we speak, and it's very smooth. I'd have been very pissed off if three years ago Microsoft decided to not support my PC because "7 years is long enough". Yes I hate forced reboots, but that's beside the point here.
  - damnyou 6y ago
    This is remarkable spin on what is objectively a bad thing.
    - jychang 6y ago
      Strictly speaking, "company drops support for software X" isn't always a bad thing, when it forces people to move on. For example, Windows XP dragged on for far too long, and there's a good argument that it should have been discontinued earlier.
tomxor 6y ago
> That is a 7 years old iMac. Apple is not forcing you. This attitude needs to stop. If a user's needs are met with a 7 year old machine and they are happy without upgrading then artificially obsoleting it in the name of capitalism is not progress, it's irresponsible.
- ceo_tim_crook 6y ago
  The computer should be fine, I don't think it's "capitalism" it's just apple not giving a shit in it's race to get iPad apps on the desktop
- reaperducer 6y ago
  If he was required to upgrade to Big Sur in order to keep his computer working, I'd agree with you. But nobody is forcing him to upgrade. I have an old Mac that I use daily that maxed out at Mojave. It still functions fine. Nobody forced me to do anything to it in the name of capitalism. You said yourself that his current machine meets his daily needs. So what's the problem? It's not going to turn off the day Big Sur is released.
  - kup0 6y ago
    Apparently I should not have used the word forced because some people went full-boar pedantic about it unfortunately. It's forced in terms of "if I want to run Big Sur, I have no choice" (thought that was obvious). Not forced, but unnecessarily required to purchase new hardware to run the latest OS version which should not have any reason for not working on the older hardware. I still think that's a problem. If there was a feature of Big Sur that required particular hardware to run, then I would be more understanding. Yes, I can stay on Catalina on my iMac, but it will continue to get more out of date when Apple could have easily kept supporting it. I'm understanding enough to know Apple has business reasons for doing it, and maybe even technical ones (that no one has yet explained) but it doesn't mean I agree with it.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      This is so silly. First, Apple’s history is that they will continue to support older hardware with security updates even if they can’t support them with the latest OS. Sometimes older hardware isn’t capable of supporting new features. In prior cases it might not have a 64 bit processor or not enough memory, and of course you can’t expect support in those cases. In this it’s old WiFi hardware that can’t support new features. It would be dumb for Apple to take engineers off making Big Sur more solid for 98% of Macs to waste time on this problem for a tiny percent of the active base. Apple is doing exactly the right thing. Make it work well for the vast majority, then see if they can take it farther back in the first couple of bug fix releases.

mkj 6y ago

A 7 year old iMac keeps running Windows 10 fine.

I mean...it is what it is, but my desktop is based on the previous year's Intel CPU, cost about as much, and still runs Win10 and Linux just fine.

damnyou 6y ago

I have 10 year old PCs that are perfectly functional. My main desktop is mostly from 2012 with a couple upgrades in between and works like a champ. 7 years is far too low. This is planned obsolescence. With Apple preventing dual boot on ARM this problem will only get worse.

kekebo 6y ago

I run Mojave perfectly well on a mid 2012 Macbook Pro, a friend of mine even on a 2008 one (also well for his needs). Durability has long been a feature of these machines, even sadder to be forced into hardware upgrades by what seems to be intentionally broken core features like wifi.

sigjuice 6y ago
What makes the broken wifi seem intentional?
- furbyhater 6y ago
  It has nothing to do with a lack of capability of the older machine. They just decided it wasn't worth the effort to support the model of wifi chipset present in the older models, effectively killing them off.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    I think you may be projecting. Wifi cards go bad. It happens. Sometimes they can be replaced. Sometimes not. I've had it happen to lots of my machines over the last two decades. But I don't think it's fair to characterize what could very well be a hardware fault as the work of some bean counter in Cupertino sitting behind his desk rubbing his hands with glee.
    - FireBeyond 6y ago
      I can't find reference here, but I remember a discussion with an Apple engineer who said that AirDrop had been blocked in a certain model, "due to incompatible wifi", but that the wifi card mentioned was not one they'd ever heard of being put in a production Mac, i.e. "ass-covering BS".
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Even Apple doesn’t have unlimited resources. They may still offer patches for outdated WiFi cards in a future update but it’s silly to commit to doing so in your initial OS release.

anthk 6y ago

My laptop is from ~2006. I can still run OpenBSD and Chromium with ~15 tabs open, and play videos well up to 720p, 1080p is wasting HD size because the screen is smaller than that.

kup0 6y ago

If I want to run Big Sur, it's my only legitimate option. So yes, if I want to continue to use macOS and want to stay on the latest release, then "having to upgrade hardware" is the only route. If you take issue with me calling that "forcing" then fine, but it's obvious how I'm using that term. Plenty of hardware from 2013 runs current operating systems- basically only in the Apple ecosystem is this a problem. I doubt there's any _technical_ reason older hardware cannot run newer versions of macOS. Apple just draws a line whereever they want. I understand this is a "known concern" of being a part of the Apple ecosystem- but it's one of the first times I've encountered it personally, so yes, it's frustrating.

mirthflat83 6y ago
A known “concern”? It’s a known benefit of owning Apple hardware. 7 years of support. You’re asking too much. Hope you enjoy forced reboots and telemetry on Windows
- jefft255 6y ago
  That's a legit argument against Android, but the exact opposite holds for Windows. You can run Windows 10 on 10 years old hardware, 15 if you push it and I'm not exaggerating. I'm typing this on my 10 years old desktop PC running Windows 10 as we speak, and it's very smooth. I'd have been very pissed off if three years ago Microsoft decided to not support my PC because "7 years is long enough". Yes I hate forced reboots, but that's beside the point here.
- damnyou 6y ago
  This is remarkable spin on what is objectively a bad thing.
  - jychang 6y ago
    Strictly speaking, "company drops support for software X" isn't always a bad thing, when it forces people to move on. For example, Windows XP dragged on for far too long, and there's a good argument that it should have been discontinued earlier.

tomxor 6y ago

> That is a 7 years old iMac. Apple is not forcing you. This attitude needs to stop. If a user's needs are met with a 7 year old machine and they are happy without upgrading then artificially obsoleting it in the name of capitalism is not progress, it's irresponsible.

ceo_tim_crook 6y ago
The computer should be fine, I don't think it's "capitalism" it's just apple not giving a shit in it's race to get iPad apps on the desktop
reaperducer 6y ago
If he was required to upgrade to Big Sur in order to keep his computer working, I'd agree with you. But nobody is forcing him to upgrade. I have an old Mac that I use daily that maxed out at Mojave. It still functions fine. Nobody forced me to do anything to it in the name of capitalism. You said yourself that his current machine meets his daily needs. So what's the problem? It's not going to turn off the day Big Sur is released.
- kup0 6y ago
  Apparently I should not have used the word forced because some people went full-boar pedantic about it unfortunately. It's forced in terms of "if I want to run Big Sur, I have no choice" (thought that was obvious). Not forced, but unnecessarily required to purchase new hardware to run the latest OS version which should not have any reason for not working on the older hardware. I still think that's a problem. If there was a feature of Big Sur that required particular hardware to run, then I would be more understanding. Yes, I can stay on Catalina on my iMac, but it will continue to get more out of date when Apple could have easily kept supporting it. I'm understanding enough to know Apple has business reasons for doing it, and maybe even technical ones (that no one has yet explained) but it doesn't mean I agree with it.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    This is so silly. First, Apple’s history is that they will continue to support older hardware with security updates even if they can’t support them with the latest OS. Sometimes older hardware isn’t capable of supporting new features. In prior cases it might not have a 64 bit processor or not enough memory, and of course you can’t expect support in those cases. In this it’s old WiFi hardware that can’t support new features. It would be dumb for Apple to take engineers off making Big Sur more solid for 98% of Macs to waste time on this problem for a tiny percent of the active base. Apple is doing exactly the right thing. Make it work well for the vast majority, then see if they can take it farther back in the first couple of bug fix releases.