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Comment by _mlbt | Hacker News Reader

Apple stopped sales of these models over seven years ago. It’s hard to be mad at them for ending support.

I realize Apple makes its money from hardware sales and that testing new software on old hardware is expensive, but I would love to see Apple commit to ten years of security updates for every Mac, to bring the software lifespan more in line with the hardware.

Good thing the author isn't "mad at them for ending support" then. The complaint is over the usage of "obsolete", not that they are ending support. A second related complaint is that Apple makes it hard to refurbish the hardware.

2019 MacBook Airs are not supported by Sequoia

Even when there is nothing wrong with the still-perfectly-capable machines? Capitalism offers strong incentives to force these functional and well-built computers into landfills.

Why should Apple be obligated to support these machines indefinitely? I think a 7 year lifespan for a computer is actually pretty decent from the original manufacturer. Much better than the most of the competition.

Additionally these machines do not cease to work once Apple declares them obsolete and there is nothing stopping someone from installing Linux on them and continuing to use them with a supported operating system that way.

What obligations does Apple have after designing, manufacturing, distributing, and wildly profiting from what they are now arbitrarily classifying as e-waste?

Currently Apple is reaping all the financial rewards and taking responsibility for very few of the externalities. Does this mean it's what's best? It might seem like a stretch today, but in the medium to long-term, true sustainability is important.

Apple could at least (1) not cripple the devices software and (2) coordinate with a generic manufacturer or supplier to provide replacement parts and competent service and/or updates.

Apple could surely dig around the couch for some spare change and locate the resources to make this happen.

Putting aside whatever "true sustainability" means, it's unlikely that it's a money thing. It's probably more related to the efficiency of individuals in organizations as they grow, and Apple is already quite large.

It is absolutely a money thing. If Apple didn't have to worry about the commercialization of MacOS, then they could publish the driver code so Windows and Linux clients could offer support theoretically "forever".

They do not publish the drivers though, which means groups like Asahi have to waste their life-hours reverse-engineering for sustainability purposes.

Its like asking how long a car can last. Apple makes it difficult to continue using them

We're not talking about cars, we're talking about computers. What computer manufacturer provides Apple's level of support for 7 year old hardware?

Apple just has the decency to communicate what hardware it considers to be officially obsolete.

The relevant difference between cars and computers in this case is what, exactly? They are both high-tech, require a lot of resources to manufacture, and can remain useful over a long period of time.

They are dramatically different industries.

Let me reiterate, what computer manufacturer provides Apple’s level of support for more than 7 years?

Plenty, when you pay enterprise support contracts, but Apple doesn't do enterprise actually.

Please provide some examples, because the few programs I’ve found (enterprise-level and not cheap, example: Dell ProSupport Plus) all end at a max of 5 years after purchase date.

That would be breaking NDAs.

Google is out of the Chromebook hardware market, but they provides ChromeOS updates for 10 years on current machines.

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en

The problem is that Apple doesn't open-source their drivers and firmware, so those things won't get security updates even if you're using a third-party OS that otherwise does. If I were in charge, companies would be obligated to keep providing security updates for all hardware they sold until they either did open-source everything, or provided full refunds to everyone who ever bought one.

Obsolete doesn't mean that the computer needs to be thrown away immediately. It means that Apple will no long allocate a portion of its finite software resources towards this machine.

Also, keep in mind that even if Apple did continue to invest software resources into the older machine, the application vendors probably wouldn't as it costs them money too. And applications can have security holes and breakages just like everything else.

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