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I have a 2015 iMac, that I spec'ed up as a custom build from Apple, so annoying they don't reconize the power of these machines still and cut support. I have a

I have a 2015 iMac, that I spec'ed up as a custom build from Apple, so annoying they don't reconize the power of these machines still and cut support. I have an 4ghz i7, 32gb ram and a Radeon 395x graphics card, but support is cut. The machine still runs beautifully on Monterey, so I am hesitant to use the OpenCore legacy patcher, but may have to one day if apps i use drop support. I love my iMac, but in future, I think i shall need to got he Mac Mini + Monitor route, Mac minis are reasonably cheap and i wouldn't feel so annoyed ditching my machine when it still works well.

rafaelturk 4y ago
That's exactly my step, beautiful iMac, however I'm stuck with some GPU issues #108 how did you managed to get it to work?
mynameisvlad 4y ago
I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? For Apple to support your computer until the end of time even if you’re the only person using that model? In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. At a certain point, it’s no longer profitable for a company to continue supporting old systems. And that rarely has to do with power and almost entirely due to it being 8-year old devices with practically no remaining user base.
- ChildOfChaos 4y ago
  It's a computer I paid over £3,000 for, that got cut off 7 years after release for no valid reason as a customer. Yes I understand what you are saying, but there is no need for it, Operating systems didn't require suddenly more powerful computers, years ago it made sense because the machine just couldn't handle it, but today my machine handles everything just fine and is higher spec than machines Apple has determined can run it. You make it sound like it's some crazy high cost for Apple to do this, yet this small open source project seems to be able to do it and for them it would be much more difficult. In terms of Apple's support, it's been awful, they provided one set of bootcamp drivers for the graphics card a year after release and even that was out of date when it was released, therefore I have to get the gfx card drivers from a third party.
  - mynameisvlad 4y ago
    > You make it sound like it's some crazy high cost for Apple to do this, yet this small open source project seems to be able to do it and for them it would be much more difficult. Hacks are in no way shape or form equivalent to official support. Both in functionality (this thread is full of people talking about small issues popping up more and more frequently, especially in the latest OS versions which actually have specific requirements like AVX2) and in terms of actual support. The level of work required from a community project is magnitudes smaller than from the company. > It's a computer I paid over £3,000 for, that got cut off 7 years after release for no valid reason as a customer. > Yes I understand what you are saying, but there is no need for it, Operating systems didn't require suddenly more powerful computers, years ago it made sense because the machine just couldn't handle it, but today my machine handles everything just fine and is higher spec than machines Apple has determined can run it. You say you understand, but I already said it has nothing to do with power and explained why. Bringing it and the cost of the machine up again isn’t going to change this. At its core, it’s a cost benefit analysis. Each system supported adds tests, customer support, etc. Direct, actual costs to the company. At a certain point, the number of users using a specific system does not justify those costs. Apple looked at that analysis and decided that the costs are no longer justified. 8 years later seems like an entirely reasonable amount of time for that.
    - ChildOfChaos 4y ago
      I disagree. It's six years after they stopped selling it. Apple do this on purpose to make people buy new machines, it wouldn't be expensive for them too provide a small amount of support, if they are not willing to do that they shouldn't be making such machines. 6 years is not a long time.
      - mynameisvlad 4y ago
        Windows 11 dropped support for 7th generation and earlier. Your 2015 iMac, having a Broadwell/5th or Skylake/6th generation processor, would have also not been compatible. To have hardware compatibility, you'd have to have gone all the way up to a 2019 iMac with Coffee Lake. That shows that this is hardly an Apple problem, and hardly a problem of "Apple forcing you to buy new hardware". Entire companies come and go in those 8 years. Do you expect every company you ever buy products from to support them forever? That's an absurd ask.
- kamilafsar 4y ago
  I think the majority of people here understands the commercial considerations Apple makes. But you asked what would you expect. At least don’t block me to update. Tell me it’s not officially supported. But let me install whatever OS I want, at my own risk. The problem is not even the OS. It’s the whole ecosystem of apps that require a certain OS version. I’m stuck on 10.13 with my iMac from 2012. The hardware serves me well, it does exactly what I need it to do. I’m just stuck on an old OS. I’m gonna try OpenCore legacy patcher for sure.
- pantalaimon 4y ago
  My main PC is 10 years old now and still works fine with the latest Ubuntu. I'm sure I'd have no trouble running Windows on it either.
- PragmaticPulp 4y ago
  > I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? I’m an avid Mac user, but the short lifespan of Macs is an anomaly in the world of computers. I use my old MacBook Pros as Windows and Linux machines now. They’re plenty fast and, honestly, feel much faster with Windows than they did with macOS. I can understand why Apple deprecates old hardware, but cutting expensive machines after only 7-8 years is really disappointing. There are a lot of these machines in great condition out there. My parents and in-laws all got burned by Apple’s early deprecation. When you’re not a hardcore daily computer user, these machines can easily last over a decade and do just fine for web browsing and other common tasks.
- 1over137 4y ago
  >In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. I feel like that was the case in the 90s and earlier, but now? An 8 year old computer is quite capable of doing the kinds of basic browsing that most non-geek users do. But without the newest macOS, they are open to security vulnerabilities.
  - ChildOfChaos 4y ago
    Yeah, exactly and the problem becomes that apps update and require a newer OS than you were able to run, happened to a lot of Discord users in the last week or so, when Discord upped the requirements of the app, but the app itself barely changed. So people have to pay up for an expensive new machine that doesn't do anything really that different to what they had before, just to be back at square one.
- skemper911 4y ago
  Seems like apple themselves had a good solution to this with one model of the iMac that supported use as an secondary monitor. Imagine if every laptop / iMac supported use as a secondary monitor.
  - ChildOfChaos 4y ago
    Yeah, to be honest, I would be happy if I could buy another product such as the mini and then plug it into the display, but sadly not supported, there are some third party ways of doing this, but I am not sure they are so great. I actually use my iMac with my windows laptop for work, by plugging in a video capture device via USB and going via HDMI to the laptop, it works okay, but i'm not sure i'd want to run a shiny new Mac this way.
rahoulb 4y ago
I have a 2015 27" i5 iMac and I use OCLP to run Ventura on it. Everything is fine - apart from some very occasional graphics glitches (transparency effects and so on). A bigger issue is every time there is an official OS update, Bluetooth breaks. I have to plug in a keyboard and mouse, get OCLP to repatch the OS and reboot.
planb 4y ago
I have a 2015 iMac too and it runs fine with opencore legacy patcher on Ventura. I don’t complain that Apple did drip support for this machine in their newest os, but I complain that so much of their software comes only with the latest os. I had to update because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to use my HomeKit setup and the shared photo library on this device.

rafaelturk 4y ago

That's exactly my step, beautiful iMac, however I'm stuck with some GPU issues #108 how did you managed to get it to work?

mynameisvlad 4y ago

I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? For Apple to support your computer until the end of time even if you’re the only person using that model? In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. At a certain point, it’s no longer profitable for a company to continue supporting old systems. And that rarely has to do with power and almost entirely due to it being 8-year old devices with practically no remaining user base.

ChildOfChaos 4y ago
It's a computer I paid over £3,000 for, that got cut off 7 years after release for no valid reason as a customer. Yes I understand what you are saying, but there is no need for it, Operating systems didn't require suddenly more powerful computers, years ago it made sense because the machine just couldn't handle it, but today my machine handles everything just fine and is higher spec than machines Apple has determined can run it. You make it sound like it's some crazy high cost for Apple to do this, yet this small open source project seems to be able to do it and for them it would be much more difficult. In terms of Apple's support, it's been awful, they provided one set of bootcamp drivers for the graphics card a year after release and even that was out of date when it was released, therefore I have to get the gfx card drivers from a third party.
- mynameisvlad 4y ago
  > You make it sound like it's some crazy high cost for Apple to do this, yet this small open source project seems to be able to do it and for them it would be much more difficult. Hacks are in no way shape or form equivalent to official support. Both in functionality (this thread is full of people talking about small issues popping up more and more frequently, especially in the latest OS versions which actually have specific requirements like AVX2) and in terms of actual support. The level of work required from a community project is magnitudes smaller than from the company. > It's a computer I paid over £3,000 for, that got cut off 7 years after release for no valid reason as a customer. > Yes I understand what you are saying, but there is no need for it, Operating systems didn't require suddenly more powerful computers, years ago it made sense because the machine just couldn't handle it, but today my machine handles everything just fine and is higher spec than machines Apple has determined can run it. You say you understand, but I already said it has nothing to do with power and explained why. Bringing it and the cost of the machine up again isn’t going to change this. At its core, it’s a cost benefit analysis. Each system supported adds tests, customer support, etc. Direct, actual costs to the company. At a certain point, the number of users using a specific system does not justify those costs. Apple looked at that analysis and decided that the costs are no longer justified. 8 years later seems like an entirely reasonable amount of time for that.
  - ChildOfChaos 4y ago
    I disagree. It's six years after they stopped selling it. Apple do this on purpose to make people buy new machines, it wouldn't be expensive for them too provide a small amount of support, if they are not willing to do that they shouldn't be making such machines. 6 years is not a long time.
    - mynameisvlad 4y ago
      Windows 11 dropped support for 7th generation and earlier. Your 2015 iMac, having a Broadwell/5th or Skylake/6th generation processor, would have also not been compatible. To have hardware compatibility, you'd have to have gone all the way up to a 2019 iMac with Coffee Lake. That shows that this is hardly an Apple problem, and hardly a problem of "Apple forcing you to buy new hardware". Entire companies come and go in those 8 years. Do you expect every company you ever buy products from to support them forever? That's an absurd ask.
kamilafsar 4y ago
I think the majority of people here understands the commercial considerations Apple makes. But you asked what would you expect. At least don’t block me to update. Tell me it’s not officially supported. But let me install whatever OS I want, at my own risk. The problem is not even the OS. It’s the whole ecosystem of apps that require a certain OS version. I’m stuck on 10.13 with my iMac from 2012. The hardware serves me well, it does exactly what I need it to do. I’m just stuck on an old OS. I’m gonna try OpenCore legacy patcher for sure.
pantalaimon 4y ago
My main PC is 10 years old now and still works fine with the latest Ubuntu. I'm sure I'd have no trouble running Windows on it either.
PragmaticPulp 4y ago
> I mean, you have an 8-year old computer. What did you realistically expect would happen here? I’m an avid Mac user, but the short lifespan of Macs is an anomaly in the world of computers. I use my old MacBook Pros as Windows and Linux machines now. They’re plenty fast and, honestly, feel much faster with Windows than they did with macOS. I can understand why Apple deprecates old hardware, but cutting expensive machines after only 7-8 years is really disappointing. There are a lot of these machines in great condition out there. My parents and in-laws all got burned by Apple’s early deprecation. When you’re not a hardcore daily computer user, these machines can easily last over a decade and do just fine for web browsing and other common tasks.
1over137 4y ago
>In the tech world, 8 years is already practically a lifetime. I feel like that was the case in the 90s and earlier, but now? An 8 year old computer is quite capable of doing the kinds of basic browsing that most non-geek users do. But without the newest macOS, they are open to security vulnerabilities.
- ChildOfChaos 4y ago
  Yeah, exactly and the problem becomes that apps update and require a newer OS than you were able to run, happened to a lot of Discord users in the last week or so, when Discord upped the requirements of the app, but the app itself barely changed. So people have to pay up for an expensive new machine that doesn't do anything really that different to what they had before, just to be back at square one.
skemper911 4y ago
Seems like apple themselves had a good solution to this with one model of the iMac that supported use as an secondary monitor. Imagine if every laptop / iMac supported use as a secondary monitor.
- ChildOfChaos 4y ago
  Yeah, to be honest, I would be happy if I could buy another product such as the mini and then plug it into the display, but sadly not supported, there are some third party ways of doing this, but I am not sure they are so great. I actually use my iMac with my windows laptop for work, by plugging in a video capture device via USB and going via HDMI to the laptop, it works okay, but i'm not sure i'd want to run a shiny new Mac this way.

rahoulb 4y ago

I have a 2015 27" i5 iMac and I use OCLP to run Ventura on it. Everything is fine - apart from some very occasional graphics glitches (transparency effects and so on). A bigger issue is every time there is an official OS update, Bluetooth breaks. I have to plug in a keyboard and mouse, get OCLP to repatch the OS and reboot.

planb 4y ago

I have a 2015 iMac too and it runs fine with opencore legacy patcher on Ventura. I don’t complain that Apple did drip support for this machine in their newest os, but I complain that so much of their software comes only with the latest os. I had to update because otherwise I wouldn’t be able to use my HomeKit setup and the shared photo library on this device.