Apple Obsolescence

I despise Apple. But I didn’t know how much. As I am forced agreed to switch to a Mac laptop for a new job, I dusted off a MacBook bought from work a couple of years ago to practice and ease into the system. That’s when I learned that Apple have dropped Intel x86_64 support in their upcoming major version of macOS. 😳😶😬😠😡

The implications are roughly that this laptop will become next to unusable in the next few years:

• No OS updates starting next year.
• Security updates for the next 3 years.
• Apps stop supporting Intel macs next year.

This is an Intel MacBook Pro 13" 2020 (initially purchased December 7, 2020)¹ I bought in 2024 that becomes obsolete in 2027. So the lifetime expectancy is around 6 years. 😳 That’s for high-end laptops praised for their robustness and longevity²!

And people don’t revolt³???

At least there’s a right-to-repair push happening⁴! Because no, it’s not normal for tech to eventually be discontinued.

For comparison, the Dell and Lenovo laptops and desktops, on which I run open-source OSes (Linux or BSD), last decades⁵.

Just to put this into words: Apple provide high-end, closed, throw-away equipment, and people happily buy it. The closed aspect is really shocking from the perspective of an open-source practitioner. You don’t own the equipment in the full sense of the word: you can’t repair, extend or modify it.

I read that it will be next to impossible hazardous to repurpose my Mac by installing Linux. That’s how locked down the thing is!

Goodbye new laptop!

Oh and for the smooth transition, keyboard shortcuts are completely different (not only app shortcuts, but input, word/line navigation or deletion, pretty much all keyboard interaction), and so is the keyboard layout itself. But that’s another story.

See also previous obsolescence list