I would argue the opposite, still using my 2012 15” MacBook Pro… a decade later. Go to Walmart and look at the laptops on display, and tell me any of those are capable lasting near a decade.

That’s not true of the current Macs though.

I still have a 2011 era MacBook that I can use, and was very pleasant to use until an OS update a couple of years ago.

But that was because I was able to upgrade the RAM, the SSD, and replace the battery.

None of those things are possible with macs from the last few years, so their longevity is much more likely to resemble phones than older macs.

I'm not arguing for or against, but we've hit a fairly stable period of diminishing returns on specs.

We've solved the storage latency and throughout bottlenecks, scheduling, and CPU core counts, so we don't really need beaucoups of RAM for a functional laptop.

RAM bandwidth doubles with each generation and throughout and latency improve, so less is needed for the same performance.

Batteries are relatively inexpensive to replace through the vendor are improved in energy density, energy density, and cycles, so there's not a big advantage to buying aftermarket even though you can.

For 2014-2016 Macs with flash storage, they're still pretty great to excellent machines. The greatest detriment to the longevity of 2017-2019 Macs is that they contain Intel components, and that every release of MacOS since High Sierra has been designed adversarial against their security flaws. Costco was practically giving away Intel iMacs recently, offering them almost half off.

Also, I remember benchmarking on apfs post-mitigations and seeing up to a 40% performance loss on some syscalls, which translated to an unusable computer on dual core Intels or anything with mechanical storage. How would upgrading components have helped then?

> RAM bandwidth doubles with each generation and throughout and latency improve

RAM bandwidth is improving a lot faster than its latency. (The latter is almost as stagnant as max CPU clock frequencies.)

Apple is rather good at planned obsolescence. Intel handed them a few years of unusable machines on a platter (thanks Intel) but I’m sure they’ll find new reasons for MacOS updates to degrade performance on old machines regardless of hardware capability.

They lead the industry in how long they provide OS update support for phones/tablets and desktops/laptops.

They downclock the CPU on mobile devices as the battery ages, to keep the CPU from browning out so you

My system, made in 2013, won't be supported by the next OS release this coming fall, but they usually continue security updates at least one release behind. That's basically ten years of hardware support.

Keep in mind that Windows 10 came out in 2015. A ton of manufacturers simply did not support windows 10 on hardware sold before it, because win10 coming out helps them move new PCs.

Linux and Windows both support most hardware for longer than Apple does. It may not have a manufacturer stamp of approval, but Windows 10 supports CPUs back to some Pentium 4s with full security updates. That's a decade farther back than Apple.

Linux leads the industry in support, and additionally, in openness.

Apple leads the industry in using slave labour to create disposable fashion items.

https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/10/seven-apple-suppliers-alleged...

The secondary market simply doesn't agree with the weird obsession with calling Apple's hardware future e-waste just because you can't change out an SSD.

Mac hardware holds value because it's well built, supported for a long time, has specs that are enough for a wide range of users...

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For every power user running through battery cycles every day, there's people who just need a solid well built machine and won't feel the need to upgrade just because their machine gets less battery life, or a given IDE needs more RAM.

Those people don't replace hardware because it's broken, they replace it because it feels old. Design wise, materials wise, etc. Not having crummy bloatware slowly accreting gigabytes of junk and a dozen extra startup items.

Compare a sub $1000 M1 Air to any other sub $1000 laptop coming out today. You'd be incredibly hard pressed to find anything even half as well designed... that's how you get people to keep their hardware.

I bought Dell 3410 for $600 and upgraded it for another $200 to 16 GB/500 GB SSD. It's a perfect little beast. Air with those specs will be around $2000 in my country.

I bought my 2013 MacBook Pro with a 1TB SSD and 32GB of RAM, with the highest specced i7 at the time.

I sold it last month to pick up a new 2021 MacBook Pro M1 Max. I bought it with 32GB RAM and a 1TB SSD because I don't need anymore, 8 years later. And the i7 I had still beat out last years base model on Geekbench.

Not to take anything away from how long you got to use your computer, but you couldn’t get 32GB of RAM in an Apple laptop until 2018. You likely had 16GB of RAM in 2013 if you had a 15” retina MacBook Pro.

You're correct, just checked my receipt, it was 16GB. I upped it to 32GB with my new laptop.

Still using a Note 8. This phone is awesome. I forget how many years...

I would be OK with my M1 Air performing in a similar way.

This is a decent example of what folks are talking about in terms of supported lifespan. Your Note 8 was EOL'd in October 2021. It came out in September of 2017. That's four years of support.

My iPhone came out around the same time and Apple is planning to support devices several generations older than mine with iOS 16...

I am very likely to use this phone another three years.

Just saying.

Otherwise, yeah! My wife has an older iPhone still nicely supported, and older than my Note.

My last Mac was a 2012 i7. I used it 6, 7 years? It is still useful, but got coke on keyboard! I fixed it myself last time. Not doing it again.

What if there is a debilitating security problem with Android within those three years?

I wouldn't choose that kind of uncertainty.

Depends on how one uses the phone for starters. I may ditch it, I may not.

I used a 2011 Core i7 Asus N53SV till last year - full hd and had 4 ddr3 slots. I was able to run the latest Linux, and the latest Windows on it. Apple meanwhile has dropped support for 2014 macbooks. There are apps which won't run on them today, and Apple will stop supporting Catalina this year.

To act like your experience extrapolates out to the wider market is disingenuous at best.

hmmm thinkpad?

Completely false.

If you do any volume purchasing the resale value of old Acer laptop or asus ones is so bad they really do become w waste quickly. Folks w macs use them forever. And then resale market isMUCh better for apple

With the cpu change I suspect os support to be dropped in a couple of years, and resale values to drop. My friend had a pretty expensive g5 PowerPC that wasn’t worth much and had an end of life much sooner than the hardware should have had.

I'm curious how Apple's competitor Microsoft is handling ARM - I actually always thought Apple did a MUCH better transition / management of these types of tech variations.

Can I really run everything windows runs on windows ARM offerings? Be good if MS has solved things this time around. Some of us still remember Microsoft's "Plays for Sure" campaign against Apple.

Someone will buy an old MacBook, good luck ebaying your old Lenovo…

You're underestimating the hobbyist Thinkpad community.

I’m not, I’m sure for every modder that puts a new motherboard and mech keyboard in, there are 100000 that just get pitched

They're also not purchased at the volumes that Macbooks are, I do think you're underestimating how well they hold their value. You picked an unfortunate laptop line to make your point, especially since this is in no way a recent phenomenon. I'm sure people chuck away their Macbooks instead of reselling them too.

More like put it in a drawer. I question the notion that laptops are thrown away as opposed to put in storage. Especially when they’re used for sensitive information and not normally wiped if they’re not used for resale.

Both my wife and I had 2011 MBPs that were only replaced last year. I upgraded the RAM & replaced the HDDs with SSDs over the years, which is reasonable imo.

I'd say 10 years is a pretty good run for a laptop. YMMV