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Comment by thefz | Hacker News Reader

> Apple is dropping support for the 2018 MacBook Air

That's an awfully short support window, I bet these computers still work well enough for daily usage. Thankfully, for the intel line there's always the option to install Linux (I suppose).

So much ewaste for a company that touts to be environmentally friendly.

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When are they dropping security updates? Not being on the newest MacOS isn’t a huge deal until the security updates stop.

My iPad 2 had a weird short support cycle and the thing that killed it was a new version of iOS, it’s so slow you can barely open any app.

Not strange coming from the company that deliberately slowed down older models (batterygate).

The general accepted rule is N-2, so you get two years of updates after you get dropped from the newest version, but there are plenty of examples of Apple neglecting to patch things on N-1 or N-2, nor has Apple ever stated a policy as such.

Depending one what one means by "usage" I have connected iCloud and Obsidian to 10+ year old Macs. Sure, I can't air drop, screen support, etc. All of those features and updates you generally want on your 'new' system. But as far as booting and running a lot of compatible legacy software, browsing, email... what most people use a computer for... you could pick up any fair condition Mac from the last 10 years and chances are it will work for most things (without Linux).

Those computers will still run Ventura for years to come though.

Will 3rd party applications support it forever now that it is no longer updated?

iOS apps tend to drop support for older versions very quickly due to that the overwhelming majority of users are at most one version behind, but macOS apps generally don't. Okta Verify appears to be the only third-party app I have installed which requires >11, and that's something that has no reason to support older versions (one of the things it specifically does is stop me from logging into work things if I haven't fully updated my system).

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