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macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

arstechnica.com

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Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#41

Post by dereg »

cywick wrote: post #36
dereg wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not flipping a kill switch on these devices. They just won't be running the newest OS. I don't see how these two things (software updates and hardware longevity/recyclability) are at all related.

The main issue is, as the article points out towards the end, that you only receive all macOS security updates if you are on the latest major version. The two major versions prior to that one receive some, but not all, security updates. Once you are three major versions behind, your Mac does not receive any macOS security fixes anymore, which of course is hugely problematic. So yes, unless you are completely ignoring…

There's another way which you could see this, which is that the cost of maintaining backward compatibility for every prior piece of hardware only increases the surface area for vulnerabilities to emerge.

Also, if security is your #1 priority you should pay the cost of the upgrade. Monterey is compatible with Macs as old as 2015. That means that Apple will sunset security support for it in 2024. That's nine years of supported life for your computer – not bad.

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#42

Post by dfawcus »

dereg wrote: post #30
dainiusse wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are. Apple always uses it's ecosystem...

As a counterpoint, I have a 2011 MBA that I still use from time to time. It doesn't have half a decade of updates but it does everything that it used to do, just fine. I primarily use it as my no-distraction writing device.

Same here, but using a late 2010 MBA.

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#43

Post by derbOac »

dereg wrote: post #22
exabrial wrote: post #17

The joke is Apple and its employees think they're a "green" company. These systems have a lot of life left in them.

They're not flipping a kill switch on these devices. They just won't be running the newest OS. I don't see how these two things (software updates and hardware longevity/recyclability) are at all related.

I have a 2014 Mac that still runs flawlessly.

The problem I've run into is other software/libraries dropping support for older versions of MacOS. So far this is fixable, but it means if you need new features, libraries, or whatever in other, non-Apple products, you might not be able to get it. In these cases, there's nothing functional about the decision, it's just "we're cutting off support here". That is, I could install Linux on my Mac, and run the latest version just fine.

This isn't Apples fault, but the whole thing is sort of ridiculous to me. It puts real pressure on me to upgrade hardware for it's purposes solely because of arbitrary software support cutoff decisions. It would be different if it were "version x needs this hardware feature" but that's not the case.

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#44

Post by tromp »

iwanttocomment wrote: post #14
tromp wrote: post #7

I suffer from a similar issue. The current magic keyboards that Apple sells require MacOS >= 11.3 while my 2017 iMac is stuck on MacOS 10.15. As a result, the media keys on my new keyboard don't work.

macOS 12.x supports the 2015 (and 2017) iMacs.

Oops; I meant to say 2013 iMac...

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#45

Post by tinus_hn »

postalrat wrote: post #33
ChildOfChaos wrote: post #9

Bit disappointed to see my iMac 2015 dropped. It's got an i7 running at 4ghz, I paid for the graphics card update to 395x and 32gb of ram. It still runs everything absolutely flawlessly. I have no plans to upgrade anytime soon. So hopefully will run the OS with a hack, as I don't see what this OS needs better specs for, considering i'm sure lower spec machines can run it, so it's just Apple cutting it off for being A…

"It still runs everything absolutely flawlessly"... well that's the problem.

Would it be better if Apple release a few ‘security’ updates that cripple it?

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#46

Post by skavi »

goosedragons wrote: post #40
skavi wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting that this seems like it may happen faster than the PowerPC -> Intel transition, where it took three years after the last PowerPC model was replaced and Snow Leopard stopped supporting PowerPC. Did OS X have security updates then?

This transition is way slower than PPC to Intel. They had the entire lineup changed by the end of 2006 starting the same year. By 2009 PPC models seemed particularly ancient. Meanwhile with the current transition Apple has yet to introduce a Mac Pro replacement over a year and a half in.

Isn’t the Studio pretty much a Pro?

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#47

Post by niklasbuschmann »

I really dislike this behavior from Apple. I had a first generation Mac Pro from 2006 which was able to run OS X 10.11 perfectly fine but officially only supported OS X 10.7. The reason was that this was the only Mac using a 32bit EFI so when they stopped compiling the boot.efi file for 32bit, newer OS X versions couldn‘t boot. Luckily it was quite simple to patch the boot.efi to 32bit.

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#48

Post by nullfield »

highwaylights wrote: post #37
cywick wrote: post #4

It's really disappointing how aggressively they have started to drop macOS support for slightly older Macs. Big Sur, which was released in Nov 2020, still supported the MacBook Air (2013) and the MacBook Pro (Late 2013). When Ventura is released only two years later, not even the MacBook Pro (2016) is supported, which was sold until Jun 2017. The fact that Ventura even drops support for a Mac that they sold until Dec…

I agree this is completely unjustifiable, especially with regards to the Mac Pro. Can these machines even run Linux without losing hardware features (like T2 acceleration?) The above said, I can see why they want to do it. It makes sense to want to stop supporting Intel macs as early as they can, and that means bringing down expectations of support life every year so it’s not a sudden cutoff that would cause an uproa…

And yet it should cause the uproar anyway…

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#49

Post by musicale »

This may be something of a warning before macOS goes Apple Silicon only.

Consider Apple's transition from PowerPC to x86: the first intel Mac shipped in 2006; in 2008 Apple released Mac OS X 10.6/Snow Leopard which was intel only.

In 2020 Tim Cook said the Apple Silicon transition would take about two years and that Apple would "continue to support and release new versions of MacOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come" - without specifying whether "years" is 2, 3, or more.

Re: macOS 13 Ventura dumps all pre-2017 Macs, including the “trash can” Mac Pro

#50

Post by goosedragons »

skavi wrote: post #46
goosedragons wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This transition is way slower than PPC to Intel. They had the entire lineup changed by the end of 2006 starting the same year. By 2009 PPC models seemed particularly ancient. Meanwhile with the current transition Apple has yet to introduce a Mac Pro replacement over a year and a half in.

Isn’t the Studio pretty much a Pro?

If you don't need PCI-E slots and only need 128GB RAM maybe it is. But remember the Mac Pro has a memory ceiling of 1.5TB.
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