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Comment by SkipperCat | Hacker News Reader

As someone who uses Mac products (macpro, ipad, iphone), I can say I've never had hardware from any other vendor which has lasted so long. Their gear stays functional for several years (especially the macbook pro) and the only reason I upgrade my iphone was because I get tired of replacing the battery.

My old Macbook from 2016 is still being used by my wife and the only issue she has is hard drive space. The compute power is still spot on. My reason for upgrading to a M1 was just because I wanted to play with the ARM chipset.

I've never had any other brand of laptop or phone age so well (maybe because my last Android was from 2014). There's a cost premium for Apple but I think over time, their gear is more cost effective.

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I have not had the same experience at all. I have MacBooks and old iPads or phones that are totally bricked and unable to update, but PC towers I built 15 years ago that still run like a champ. Just an anecdote, but I feel like I HAVE to upgrade Apple products, or they simply stop working, while the PCs I've built last the test of time.

Is that true? I feel like iPhones and iPads receive updates for what seems like an industry-leading amount of time. I view Android tablets as relatively disposable, but my iPad Air from 2018 hasn't missed a beat. The battery is starting to slow down a bit but it easily handles my required tasks.

The problem is apps raising the minimum iOS version. Apple usually doesn’t backport new APIs, so developers are eager to bump it up to use new APIs/frameworks. Similar thing is now happening on macOS. A lot of apps require macOS 11/12, which is pretty crazy compared to how desktop software used to run on much older versions of OSX.

Huh, I don't think I have run into that very often, but I do tend to not go beyond 3 years old for Macs since work replaces them.

Even if apps require macos 14, it looks like it is supported on machines going back to 2018 for the most part:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/105113

I suspect that Macs will reach back to M1s for quite a while.

Yea, I've seen apps that required >= the latest OS version available! Totally unacceptable. From a marketing POV alone, why would you just close the door on a significant % of your market before they even look at the product?

When I had a job writing mobile apps, I tried to "fight the good fight" by keeping our minimum version as low as possible, but everyone up the chain from me pressured us to increase it, especially software engineering, because it was "too hard" to maintain backward compatibility with older versions. Even though maintaining compatibility usually just meant a handful of if statements.

This is a huge problem if you use heavily apps and must use the most recent version. I've got a 6+ year old iPad pro that just works...I haven't noticed any apps saying I can't install them, although I guess it is still supported by iOS's latest version.

>I feel like iPhones and iPads receive updates for what seems like an industry-leading amount of time.

If we're talking about OSs alone, Windows wins. MacOS/iOS second. Android dead last on average (but it's much better now on some new phones).

You can easily run Windows on a PC from 2010 (at least on a desktop PC with a good CPU), getting updates well into the 2030s...

Comparing laptops and tablets to PC towers isn't even.

If the laptop and the ipad had been sitting in a corner of a climate controlled room being rarely handled, they would likely have lasted quite a bit longer.

If I compare my iPad to my mom's Surface, it is MUCH more durable. Same thing when I compare a macbook to a Dell laptop.

That's fair. But I do feel like a Macbook pro workhorse ought to feel like it has similar lifespan as a heavily-used desktop.

Maybe I'm too optimistic, or the wear and tear of portability really has a lot of influence here.

That’s an apples to oranges comparison (comparing a desktop PC with devices). Desktops last forever. You should be comparing to a 10 year old Dell laptop running latest Windows or a Samsung Galaxy S3 running the latest android.

Windows PCs tend to slow down. I had a Dell 530s that I used for 10 years but midway Windows got too slow. I switched to Linux and it extended its life for another 5 years. It’s still quite usable under Linux but I moved on.

Apple devices are guaranteed 7 years of support. That’s not bad.

> ...a 10 year old Dell laptop running latest Windows

Not Dell but Lenovo and not Windows but Linux but for the rest the comparison is just fine to me. If it were not for the switch to 64 bits I'd still be using a 19 year old IBM Thinkpad T42p - I have three of them - daily. I still use them but the things are hampered by their 32 bits Pentium M CPUs. The keyboard and screen still beats whatever other notebook I've tried though...

Is anyone here still running a 2005 Apple laptop? That'd be a PowerBook G4?

> ...or a Samsung Galaxy S3 running the latest android.

I'm using one of those, a Galaxy SIIIneo running Android 11 - not the latest but not out of date either. It actually works quite well for a 10 year old phone, the battery easily lasts for a week with occasional use (and it is user-replaceable when the need arrives). Of course it is not running a Samsung Android distribution, those stopped somewhere around Android 4.4 on this model if I'm not mistaken. No, it runs LineageOS 18.1 with OTA updates, the last update was about a month ago.

So yes, Apple does offer longer support for its hardware than many other vendors. They are outclassed though by the longevity of AOSP-derived distributions like LineageOS on mobile and by Linux distributions on PC-type hardware - which includes Apple hardware, I'm typing this on a "late 2009 27" iMac" running Debian. The thing has been out of support by Apple for quite a while with MacOS 10.13 'High Sierra' being the last supported version. I managed to get 10.15 'Catalina' running on it but that is where it stops. It has no problems whatsoever running Debian 'Sid' (the 'unstable' latest version which in practice is not all that unstable, really) and will keep on doing so for the forthcoming years.

BTW, I just checked and found that LineageOS 20.0 - i.e. Android 13 - is also available for the Samsung SIII neo. Since 18.1 - Android 11 - runs fine for me I see no need to update the thing but if I wanted to, I could. It looks like Android 14 (the current version, released last October) will become available as well. I suspect the limited amount of RAM (1.5 GB) in this device will eventually put a stop to supporting newer Android versions but for now the ball is still rolling.

The issue with Apple computers is that they abandon them faster.

I had a Mac Mini Core Duo from 2006 that was abandoned by Apple in less than 3 years. I put Windows 7 on it. MS didn’t end support for Windows 7 until 2020.

I had a Dell Core 2 Duo 2.66Ghz laptop from 2008 that I put Windows 10 on and it doesn’t reach end of life until 2025. I just retired it as my Plex Server in 2020.

I have a macbook pro from my father from 2012 that work just fine, but I have to patch the bootloader and insert some kexts to run the latest version.

It works just fine, but Apple don't want it to work.

My daughter has an apple watch se that they also stopped updating after just 3 years, so now the LTE on it is useless as the carriers here require a newer version.

She's getting the pixel treatment when it's time to get a new phone.

Core Duos received software updates until October 2014… what was abandoned in 3 years?

The Core Duos were 32-bit, they only sold them for about 6 months before refreshing everything to the Core 2 Duo (64-bit). They were supported for 5 years though, not less than 3. 10.7 was the release that dropped 32-bit Intel support and that was released in 2011. 10.6 still got updates for a few more years though, it didn't die in 2011.

We just decommissioned a 2011 iMac for a coworker, pretty much only because it no longer runs a supported MacOS version. I did an Ubuntu install out of curiosity, and it runs fabulously. We don't know what to do with it; it would probably make a nice machine for someone for years to come, but we don't have anyone who needs one.

> Their gear stays functional for several years

Wow!

Yes wow, because it’s not the norm. Before I switched to an iPhone, I needed to change my Android phone every 2 years or so (sometimes less) because they became completely unusable, from hardware issues (broken connectors) to software issues (I had 2 Nexus 5x that died because of a bootloop issue, unacknowledged by Google). Android also becomes extremely slow pretty quickly for some reason.

For comparison I’ve had my iPhone 12 for 3,5 years and it shows no sign of slowness or battery issues or whatever, and I intend to keep it for at least 1 or 2 more years. When OP say it stays functional for several years, they mean it stays as functional as the first day for several years, with no degradation.

You would have had the same experience staying on Android. I used to switch Androids every ~2 years, but I've had my latest Android for >4 years and feel like I've got several more years in it.

Good to know they improved their game!

I have my daily driver Lenovo E520 from 2011 still working fine with new battery, replaced HDD by SSD and using it as second HDD instead of CDROM bay.

> and the only issue she has is hard drive space

Can't you just switch the SSD to a 4TB one and clone the old disk over?

Have you ever had a ThinkPad?

All of my daily driver Apple hardware are in the 2014-2016 vintage, including a Mac Mini, an iMac, several displays, a MacBook Air, and an iPhone 7. They all still work flawlessly--my only complaint is that both the OS and many 3rd party apps have deliberately stopped providing updates for these devices.

It's sad how much longer the hardware outlasts the software (which doesn't wear out).

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