In case people haven’t worked it out, Apple’s business model has always been screw-everyone, to the point that they even sent out letters to other resellers customers (at a unrelated Apple reseller) to buy Applecare…
In fact, I would be surprised if they also weren’t using the App store metrics to identify ideas/apps they should copy and target too (or, companies to buy).
If you spent money for that lovely premium computer hardware they sell, you only get updates for a few years, if you bought it at the end of the cycle.
If you remember Antennagate, Steve bent himself out of place to pretend their problem was the same as their competitors.
Multi-Touch phone. “Oh we patented that”. They’d hate for their customers to mistake them for inventing multitouch. All those customers who came into our reseller who heard “macs can’t get viruses” were just their own stupidity. Not misleading advertising
If you spent money for that lovely premium computer hardware they sell, you only get updates for a few years, if you bought it at the end of the cycle.
in a few exceptional cases around the very well known architecture transition that was announced in 2020. They will maintain older mac OSes that are intel compatible, so intel not completely unsupported.
Aside from that, Macs typically get many years of OS updates.
Lol. Right… That’s why my MacBook Pro is collecting dust while the spec-inferior MacBook Air I was required to purchase to keep getting OS updates is now my development machine… 🙄
Yeah, I bought a Mac Studio, Mac Pro, and used to own a powerMac G5. The worst part was that Apple sucks at GPU’s and always did. I dumped my Mac Pro when I realised the GPU was totally crap compared to PC half the price on the market, and there was no official way to update it, and keep using MacOS. I could switch GPU, but, Mac OS wouldn’t have the drivers.
It was super embarressing. Despite only needing to support a handful of GPU’s, Apple still didn’t offer a long timeframe of support for that system. The only solution was buy a whole new computer
Apple only updates their computers for about 6-7 years. After that, no new MacOS updates. Architecture changes are unrelated, but, yes, they did that twice in the past 20 years (Microsoft and Linux both support mostly the same architectures they always did, with the itanium builds, or other funky architectures that never succeeded).
In contrast, even Microsoft only JUST broke backwards compatibility with old processors (and, have only done it once)… And I’m not even sure that’s a hard cut off (as, I’ve seen older CPU’s than 7XXX series with windows 11 being sold)
Apple profits on both the OS, and the hardware directly. They’re in full control, and it isn’t as though they need to support a RANGE of hardware. And they charge a premium for this hardware.
As BJW mentioned, even worse, developers hoping to develop for Mac OS or IOS NEED to buy an Apple computer to ensure compatibility with the latest builds. Microsoft doesn’t force you to buy a Surface if you want to develop for them. On Linux, you don’t need a specific system either
No way? Apple? OMG… They’d never… Would they?
In case people haven’t worked it out, Apple’s business model has always been screw-everyone, to the point that they even sent out letters to other resellers customers (at a unrelated Apple reseller) to buy Applecare…
In fact, I would be surprised if they also weren’t using the App store metrics to identify ideas/apps they should copy and target too (or, companies to buy).
If you spent money for that lovely premium computer hardware they sell, you only get updates for a few years, if you bought it at the end of the cycle.
If you remember Antennagate, Steve bent himself out of place to pretend their problem was the same as their competitors.
Multi-Touch phone. “Oh we patented that”. They’d hate for their customers to mistake them for inventing multitouch. All those customers who came into our reseller who heard “macs can’t get viruses” were just their own stupidity. Not misleading advertising
in a few exceptional cases around the very well known architecture transition that was announced in 2020. They will maintain older mac OSes that are intel compatible, so intel not completely unsupported.
Aside from that, Macs typically get many years of OS updates.
Lol. Right… That’s why my MacBook Pro is collecting dust while the spec-inferior MacBook Air I was required to purchase to keep getting OS updates is now my development machine… 🙄
You don’t need to run macos on that older machine.
I distinctly remember how at some point the “best all around laptop for running windows” was a MacBook pro,
Ofc by now more people are catching on they are much bettered served with linux…
Yeah, I bought a Mac Studio, Mac Pro, and used to own a powerMac G5. The worst part was that Apple sucks at GPU’s and always did. I dumped my Mac Pro when I realised the GPU was totally crap compared to PC half the price on the market, and there was no official way to update it, and keep using MacOS. I could switch GPU, but, Mac OS wouldn’t have the drivers.
It was super embarressing. Despite only needing to support a handful of GPU’s, Apple still didn’t offer a long timeframe of support for that system. The only solution was buy a whole new computer
Apple only updates their computers for about 6-7 years. After that, no new MacOS updates. Architecture changes are unrelated, but, yes, they did that twice in the past 20 years (Microsoft and Linux both support mostly the same architectures they always did, with the itanium builds, or other funky architectures that never succeeded).
In contrast, even Microsoft only JUST broke backwards compatibility with old processors (and, have only done it once)… And I’m not even sure that’s a hard cut off (as, I’ve seen older CPU’s than 7XXX series with windows 11 being sold)
Apple profits on both the OS, and the hardware directly. They’re in full control, and it isn’t as though they need to support a RANGE of hardware. And they charge a premium for this hardware.
As BJW mentioned, even worse, developers hoping to develop for Mac OS or IOS NEED to buy an Apple computer to ensure compatibility with the latest builds. Microsoft doesn’t force you to buy a Surface if you want to develop for them. On Linux, you don’t need a specific system either