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Re both discontinuation of Windows 10 and Mac OS for Intel Macs: it is criminal that the two biggest corporations in the world cannot maintain softwares for mil
by kombine 1y ago
Re both discontinuation of Windows 10 and Mac OS for Intel Macs: it is criminal that the two biggest corporations in the world cannot maintain softwares for millions of hardware units and force their untimely retirement.
- apples_oranges 1y agoIndeed. I still use my iPad 3 (15 years old or so) as a pdf and book reader and music player. The unnecessary obsolescence is annoying
- beeman 1y agoBut what makes it obsolete if this is what you use it for?
- thisislife2 1y agoIt's the only thing he can use it for because of planned obsolescence.
- kennywinker 1y ago1. No more security updates means using it is deeply risky 2. A closed ecosystem and App store bitrot combine to make installing anything new on it next to impossible. So, while it may be still useful as a pdf reader, it’s no longer useful as a general purpose computing device - but it COULD be if it was supported. Make no mistake - most of these devices won’t be used as pdf readers - they will end up in the landfill. This is part of the business model, and we + the environment pay for it.
- Schiendelman 1y agoWhat do you mean, "no more security updates"?
- jagger27 1y agoWeb browser engine, and OpenSSL (or equivalent) patches alone are the main concern in userspace. Those codebases are a constantly moving target. Look at the stream of CVEs and security patches that Apple publishes. Almost every bug affects every product because of how much code is shared up and down the stack.
- Schiendelman 1y agoYou know they keep updating Safari and making security updates for old OSes for years, right?
- smaccona 1y agoApple is definitely not the worst in this regard, but the most recent version of iOS to support the iPad 3rd generation (the device we are discussing which is being used as a PDF reader) is iOS 9.3.5 (a security/bugfix release on August 25, 2016 which supports the WiFi-only version of the iPad 3rd generation) or iOS 9.3.6 (also a bugfix release on July 22, 2019 which supports the WiFi+cellular version of the same device - specifically, this was a fix to keep GPS working). The iPad 3rd generation was released in 2012, so the 2016 9.3.5 iOS release gave 4 years of security/bugfix support for the WiFi-only version of that device.
- Schiendelman 1y agoSure, but there haven't been any security exploits in that version of iOS since then. It still works.
- kennywinker 1y agoNot sure what you’re meaning? A CVE like this: https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-24201 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2025-24201 found in 2025 impacts iOS versions before 18.3.1 (Safari and iOS are shipped together). Which means there is a decent chance an iPad running 9.3.2 is vulnerable. And there have been thousands of CVEs since 9.3.2. Most of low severity, but not all.
- sneak 1y agoUsing a Mac without the App Store is simple; it’s not an iPad. I have 7 Macs that I use to operate 3 businesses (and 2 more by way of consulting); precisely none of them use the App Store.
- kennywinker 1y agoFair point. I was talking about iOS devices which are much more locked down than macs. As i see it there are two issues with no-longer supported macs: 1. The security issue i mentioned earlier applies to macs. It’s a bit easier to mitigate because an older mac can run a newer non-system-linked browser. But e.g. firefox is dropping support for 10.14 (released in 2018) this year (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-users-macos-1012-1013-1014-moving-to-extended-support https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-users-macos-101...) 2. If you keep your os up to date as long as possible, new features will drag performance down to the point of being nearly unusable. So you’re forced to tradeoff between security+features and performance. Of course, with a old mac you can always install linux to extend its lifespan… but that’s not thanks to apple
- nsonha 1y agoWhen I still had my iPad 2 a few year back, I could not find any app that still run on it except for a few games for my cat. After that it became his iPad.
- cubefox 1y agoA cat with its own iPad to play games on. I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
- ricardobeat 1y agoiPad 2 was released in 2011, "a few years back" is an entire decade. It received its last OS update in 2019, eight years later, which is not bad at all. Picture trying to use a PC from 1994 in the year 2008.
- Symbiote 1y agoMost other devices can be used until they wear out, or for longer if it's reasonable to replace worn parts. This should be possible with computers too.
- ricardobeat 1y agoWhat are "most other devices"? I can't think of any electronics I own that are still usable after 10-15 years besides Apple hardware. Your average PC build will be completely outdated after ~5 years, suffer some type of hardware failure, or have nearly all of it's software (BIOS, OS, drivers) dead and unsupported by then. It is then only usable by enthusiasts / developers, and ends up in a landfill otherwise.
- bmacho 1y agoApple forbids everyone to put a newer SSL library on it, so it can't be used on networks. I think this is outrageous, to have a great piece of hardware, and not being able to use it.
- hexagonwin 1y agoNice. Just curious, which iOS version are you running? I have one as well and the screen is great but both iOS 8 and 9 are slow as hell.
- eddythompson80 1y agoI agree. 10 years for windows 10 and 6 years for the 2019 Macbooks are not very close, and you have to draw the line somewhere, but I’ll catch in on the outrage
- Mashimo 1y ago10 years of update for an OS is not even that bad, the problem is that there is perfectly working hardware out there that will not work with windows 11. (Unless TPU2.0 is circumvented)
- poizan42 1y agoI don't have any Intel MacBook to test it out on, but is Intel PTT permanently disabled on them? Almost all Intel CPUs from somewhere in 2014 and later has TPM 2.0 support as far as I'm aware.
- Mashimo 1y agoI don't know much about MacBooks. I recently sold my old computer with a i7-5820K. It's from 2014, but with 6 cores, 12 threads and 4 Ghz it is still fast enough for video and photo editing, and playing CPU intensive games like GTA or Red Dead Redemption 2. But can't run windows 11 because of TPM.
- fsflover 1y agoThe hardware will work with Linux, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44169504
- perching_aix 1y agoThis is a bit misleading. They haven't released a new Intel-based product / product-line since August 2020, and haven't shipped any new units of the same criteria since June 2023. While new versions of macOS will not be available to them, macOS Tahoe will almost certainly EOL in Fall 2028. That means their Intel-based devices will have a lifetime anywhere from 5 to 8 years at worst, depending on your time of purchase. Maybe I'm just used to this at this point, but I think this is pretty reasonable.
- rmi_ 1y agoWhile Microsoft is ending support for Windows 10 completely, Apple is just stopping feature upgrades. Apple usually supports old OS versions for years to come, especially when it's the only supported version for a lot of devices. So no, Intel Macs don't need to be retired.
- concinds 1y agoOnly for security vulnerabilities that "Apple is aware may have been actively exploited". And almost never for any bug fixes (and sadly, Apple now tends to push off bug fixes to the next major release/"n+1" rather than fix bugs in the major version in which they were introduced).
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> Only for security vulnerabilities that "Apple is aware may have been actively exploited" That still leaves a perfectly adequate machine for most common uses.
- fsflover 1y agoWould you be fine with your family running a vulnerable, insecure machine for everything, including communication with you?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- fsflover 1y agoI don't understand why I'm downvoted. I don't think it's acceptable to keep a machine with known vulnerabilities "not yet actively exploited" for "most common uses". The defense of Apple here goes too far.
- jurmous 1y agoThey also support updating Safari for 2 versions back of macOS.
- petesergeant 1y ago> and force their untimely retirement At what point do you think this becomes ridiculous? Like are we angry they're not still supporting PowerPC? Would three more years have made a difference to you? 5 more? 10 more? What's the magical number would have made you happy here?
- Nullabillity 1y agoYou're talking about a trillion dollar company, they could easily afford to keep going indefinitely.
- forrestthewoods 1y agoThat’s not how it works. The cost to maintaining support for old hardware isn’t merely money for more engineers. It’s the opportunity cost of slowing down forward progress for new things. Intel laptops are sooooo slow. So extremely painfully slow. They’re quite bad. I’m largely a windows users, but my god old Intel laptops are bloody awful. Leaving behind old and bad things isn’t bad. Besides, an older Intel MacBook will continue to work in its current form. It doesn’t need another 10 years of updates.
- kev009 1y agoThey really aren't slow, but the performance and battery life is greatly eclipsed by Apple ARM. I could live pretty comfortably on a Lenovo P51 (something like a 2017 MBP) if I had to under Linux and FreeBSD. Also a not negligible amount of performance was lost by the security gaffes and microcode and OS mitigations for them.
- eviks 1y ago> opportunity cost of slowing down forward progress for new things. Which ones and how?
- mmcnl 1y agoIf they're too slow to your liking, then upgrade. But for many people the performance is acceptable.
- TiredOfLife 1y agoThe funny thing is that Microsoft has versions of 10 and 11 (with the same hardware requirements as windows 10, no tpm and so on) officially supported till 2032.
- ricardobeat 1y agoThe last of these devices were sold in 2020. Eight years of full support is quite good (longest in the industry?), and usually you can keep using them for a good 2-3 years more, if you don't need the latest apps.
- ffsm8 1y agoThat's false, 2020 was the last year one was introduced - not phased out Some resellers still have them in inventory, at least I came upon one a few weeks ago. That makes it a 3 yrs EOL situation. Pretty terrible considering the prices of these devices. At least the notorious Chromebooks were sold super cheaply (notorious for their non-existent update policies) - not the case here They were also still being sold by Apple the last time I bought a MacBook pro, which was around 2022 iirc
- fragmede 1y ago> ChromeOS devices receive 10 years of updates. https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en
- ffsm8 1y agoYeah, that's post the controversy. Initially the vendors were expected to provide the updates... who obviously couldn't be arsed, so they set it to something around 1-3 yrs, which frequently went to 0 because the devices weren't sold quickly enough. That's from back when ChromeOS was initially put on the market, something around 2012-2015 Google thankfully relented and took up the maintenance burden, which ended with this policy
- goosedragons 1y agoYeah, the 2018 Mac Mini was sold into 2023 and isn't even getting macOS 26.
- monegator 1y agoI have Debian Trixie on my Mid 2012, and it's much more responsive, lightweight, and easy on battery than OSX 10.14 (which i had been using until last year.) As long as we can install linux on it, they can drop support. I don't care a single bit - Not being able to install debian on M3/M4 has been the only thing that keeps me from retiring that machine, I'd rather keep changing broken components and batteries, because even though moving away from x86 is the right thing to do from an efficiency point of view, we don't have an open standard between manufacturers so their ARM chip, and every other ARM chip, are effectively a proprietary architecture in which the customer ultimately lose because he has no control on its own hardware
- pjmlp 1y agoHow else could they make their shareholders happy in the usual MBA style exponential growth that is expected from public companies at the stock exchange?
- makeitdouble 1y agoFWIW you can pay Microsoft to keep getting support for Windows 10, and they also have LTS programs. But it costs a lot, and non corporate users will probably not even know about those nor want to pay that price.
- rollcat 1y agoThere always were ways to "upgrade" your Windows edition (Home -> Pro, etc) through less official channels. I can imagine these "corporate" patches will also make their way somehow. There's also enough community interest to maintain Win10 support for more legitimate projects: <https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat https://github.com/Raphire/Win11Debloat>. I'd also like EU to step in and mandate a continued patching period proportional to the number of deployed devices. After all, it's in their own interest: many devices used in day-to-day administration/operations likely do not need an upgrade; landfill is costly; etc.
- jay_kyburz 1y agoSo they are going to fix the bugs in the software I already paid for, but they are not going to share them with me.
- makeitdouble 1y agoFrom Microsoft's perspective, once your OS skew is out of support you got what you paid for in complete. I don't see much morality in MS's practices, but at least it's straightforward. Like buying a phone with a 2 year warranty, if you actually wish for 10 years instead you'll be paying for the 8 extra years separately.
- neepi 1y agoIt's not that bad. My ex-partner has my old 2017 iMac and it is still supported with patches on Ventura. She's bought an M3 MBA that she hasn't set up yet because she can't be bothered. As for Microsoft, much like the last few versions of windows, people will just continue to use it anyway. I am!
- reaperducer 1y agoMy wife has a 2015 MacBook that she uses for occasional email and web surfing. It's somewhat slow to startup, but once it's going, it's fine for most ordinary tasks. Like billions of other people, her phone is her computer. But she occasionally runs into a web site for work, or from a government agency, that requires a real computer.
- sneak 1y agoThey aren’t forcing anything. You can continue to run the OS that they have on them today, forever.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]