Apple products don’t do anything as crass as getting old. They become vintage. And, in a bid to make everyone feel old, Apple’s very first MacBook Pro featuring a Touch Bar has just hit that milestone. It’s not alone, though.
A collection of other MacBook products, a pair of iMac models, and two iPad Pro versions are all now classified as vintage. This isn’t the worst thing in the world to have happen. It typically takes at least five years for an Apple product to get to this point.
MacBook Pro retires, story at 11
The products newly reclassified are the 12in MacBook from 2016, the early 2015 version of the MacBook Air, the early 2015 13in MacBook Pro, the two Touch Bar Pros from 2016, and the 15in MacBook Pro from 2016. Also on the list are a 21.5in iMac and 27in iMac from 2015. Plus, in case you thought your iPads were safe, a pair of iPad Pro 9.7 models also made the cut.
Going vintage isn’t anything to be scared of. It just means that Apple hasn’t sold any of these in at least five years. They’re still functional. It’s actually pretty hard to get an Apple product to stop working. But repairs and service for them might be limited because by then the bits are harder to come by. It’s only when devices are considered obsolete that you might run into problems.
Which isn’t that far off. The first Touch Bar MacBook Pro and its other companions are just a few months away from crossing that barrier. Apple considers products obsolete when it hasn’t sold or distributed any for seven years. At that point, it won’t work on them at all. You can still organise repairs, but those will be conducted by someone who might not really know what they’re doing.
Source: NotebookCheck