[quietthrow]

Apple makes unbelievably good hardware and software that just lasts and just works. Until it’s 7 years old. After that you essentially have to chuck it as you don’t get any updates from Apple and slowly you descend into incompatibility unless you world exists in browser.

I wish once you bought an Apple computer it was truly yours for as long as you wanted it instead of it being dictated by Apple.

Still Great computers though.

[d1sxeyes]

It is yours for as long as you want it, and it (mostly) runs all the software it was compatible with when you first bought it (there are some quirks around software you had access to but didn't install, like Garageband, where you may no longer be able to access the original version). Stuff doesn't just 'stop working', as a rule, but the rest of the world does move on. I'm not sure what you think should be done about that? All software should always be backwards compatible with older versions forever?

As a reasonable alternative, you can stick Linux on it and it'll run nicely, although with a different set of software to what you got the laptop with. 2026 is the year of the Linux Desktop!1! (in all seriousness though, it is actually quite good by now).

[gib444]

> Stuff doesn't just 'stop working'

They didn't say that. In fact they said the total opposite

> As a reasonable alternative, you can stick Linux on it and it'll run nicely

Somewhat true for Intel

Not so true for Apple Silicon (Asahi are only upto M2 I think?)

[d1sxeyes]

I did read between the lines here:

> After that you essentially have to chuck it as you don’t get any updates from Apple and slowly you descend into incompatibility unless you world exists in browser.

But I don't think the lines were particularly far apart.

> Not so true for Apple Silicon (Asahi are only upto M2 I think?)

M1 was six years ago, M2 was four, both within the seven years OP was talking about.

You can run Linux inside a VM on any Apple Silicon Mac already, even if there is no progress on native Linux on Apple Silicon.

[gib444]

The absolute contortions in logic

[keiferski]

I bought a 2015 iMac last year for 100 euros at a thrift store. It’s a bit slow but works fine for YouTube etc. And the computer itself basically looks good as new - the screen is really beautiful.

Thinking I’ll try and install Linux on it at some point.

[crims0n]

You can still get plenty of use out of them if you adjust expectations accordingly. I don't expect my 2013 iMac to do everything a brand new one can, but I do expect it to sit on my bench and function as a control station for my 3d printer... which it does fine, and will likely continue to do in perpetuity.

[kowbell]

My 2019 MacBook Pro (the last year of Intel) is now 7 years old and runs "frustratingly" well ("frustrating" in the sense that I can't justify replacing it yet, despite how badly I want to get a new one!)

[k3nx]

I was in the same boat. I was also one of the weird folks that like the touch bar. I've had my M5 Pro MBP for just over a week now. It's insane how much better it is than the i9 I had. I have a Rust/SwiftUI project that I swear was taking 2 minutes to do a clean build on that Intel machine, that takes about 3 seconds on this new one. I've used it for over 14 hours of heavy development work and have charged it ONCE. Yes, my wallet wasn't happy, but I am, like actually giggling happy. I don't want to make you feel like you should upgrade, but come on in, the water's fine. :D

[nolist_policy]

As a data point: Chromebooks get 10 years of updates.

[dmos62]

Fruit Construction Inc. makes great houses. Wish you could own them, but really great houses.

[baq]

hardware? yes.

software? macos is a disaster after disaster, worse each year. currently deferring upgrade to tahoe for as long as corporate IT lets me.

[sgt]

Complete hogwash, of course. Tahoe is running just fine for me and for nearly hundred of my co-workers.

People complain about the strangest things too, like the corners of windows. I am resizing a hundred times a day and it works fine.

[baq]

please. I was an early adopter of sequoia and the firewall/crowdstrike corrupting packets was something else. scarred for life.

[sgt]

Okay sorry to hear that. Sounds like Crowdstrike sucked for many reasons, then. I have never ran it or even seen that myself.

The OS however I have used for 23 years. I know it quite well and it's robust.