> Planned obsolescence has never really been Apple's style (their devices generally get longer software support and have better resale value than anyone else).

I think that only applies to their mobile devices. I have had Intel Macs that can't run the latest MacOS but can still Boot Camp into Windows 10. Of course, this is all moot in a post-Intel Apple world.

Most non-technical people don't share the same definition of obsolete. I know a few people who have gone more than 10 years between hardware purchases using Apple computers.

Windows 10 was released in 2015. Apple releases a new major macOS update every year. Not really surprised that you can run 6 year old software + minor updates on an 6-10 year old machine but can't run a major software revision from the past couple years.

Yeah but the point still stands that you can still run new applications on Windows 10 in Boot Camp an old Mac. There's a good chance that if you're using a "left behind" Mac, that you can't even update your apps because they stopped supporting your version of MacOS, even though it's working perfectly fine.

Also, Windows 10 in 2021 is far from being exactly like Windows 10 in 2015. There have been a lot of changes, Microsoft just doesn't increment the major number any more.

> Windows 10 was released in 2015. Apple releases a new major macOS update every year. Not really surprised that you can run 6 year old software + minor updates on an 6-10 year old machine but can't run a major software revision from the past couple years.

If you're saying that Windows 10 from 2021 is Windows 10 from 2015 with "minor updates", you haven't been paying attention to Windows updates :-)

Windows 10 updates are probably bigger than MacOS updates.

Windows 10 consistently gets updates just like Mac OS gets updates.

This is like saying Mac OS X is 10 year old software.

> Planned obsolescence has never really been Apple's style (their devices generally get longer software support and have better resale value than anyone else).

I agree with the latter, but tell that to their previous default of 4gb ram and 120gb ssd (for so long) and 16gb of storage on iPads.

Not really sure how you can agree that the resale value is excellent and in the same breath complain about features of the device being somehow egregious.

Every single device ever made has to make tradeoffs. No device can be everything to everyone. Apple has (correctly) identified that RAM is really not the end-all-be-all that people obsessed with specs seem to think it is. If you spend more time working on other aspects of the device you can get away with less RAM and still have a device that people resell years later for good money.

Because I think we're using two different definitions of obselete. Just because people will buy a thing years down the road, doesn't mean it wasn't already obselete then or when it was brand new or that those second purchasers can't make some use of it, however strained. I disagree about ram, at least at the minimum threshold, evidenced by numerous naive customers I've witnessed being incredulous as to why a few chrome tabs and some temp files are bringing their $1k+ computer to a halt.

Would you have bought a MacBook air or pro in 2017 with 4gb of non-replaceable ram for $1000? No, because it's obselete and you know that. What if they told you it was a great computer, and you didn't know anything about computers? Probably.