Apple adds iPhone 4, 2010 13" MacBook Air to vintage and obsolete list
All iPhone 4 models, the 2010 13-inch MacBook Air, third-generation AirPort Extreme, and mid-2009 AirPort Time Capsule will be added to Apple's vintage and discontinued list, as of Oct. 31.
The report specifically addressed adding the products to the vintage/obsolete list in Japan, but will most likely extend to other regions, including the U.S. The changes were first discovered by Macotakara.
Vintage Apple products are models that have not been manufactured for more than five years but less than seven, while obsolete products were discontinued more than seven years ago. Each of the products being added to the list on October 31 were released between 2009 and 2010.
Limited support may still be available in some regions. In California, for instance, Apple is legally required to provide support for Macs, iPhones, and iPods.
CDMA models of the iPhone 4 were sent to the obsolete list last month, while the 2010 MacBook Air joins the 2010 Mac mini and mid-2010 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro to obsoleted notebooks. The current model of the MacBook Air hasn't been updated in a little over a year, but an updated version is expected as early as this month.
The report specifically addressed adding the products to the vintage/obsolete list in Japan, but will most likely extend to other regions, including the U.S. The changes were first discovered by Macotakara.
Vintage Apple products are models that have not been manufactured for more than five years but less than seven, while obsolete products were discontinued more than seven years ago. Each of the products being added to the list on October 31 were released between 2009 and 2010.
Limited support may still be available in some regions. In California, for instance, Apple is legally required to provide support for Macs, iPhones, and iPods.
CDMA models of the iPhone 4 were sent to the obsolete list last month, while the 2010 MacBook Air joins the 2010 Mac mini and mid-2010 15-inch and 17-inch MacBook Pro to obsoleted notebooks. The current model of the MacBook Air hasn't been updated in a little over a year, but an updated version is expected as early as this month.
Comments
Well at least amongst my collection of iPhones starting with the very first one, the 4s is still left standing. I use it as an iPod via Bluetooth in my Jeep and it works great for music and audio books through the built in audio system and Apple still update its OS albeit stuck at 9.
I really want to see a new Mac Pro, but honestly the "trashcan" Mac Pro was ultimately a failure as a "Pro" product, but might have been perfectly fine as a MacMini redesign.
The iMac's can't really get any more powerful or thinner. If they are made thinner, they're really just batteryless laptops.If they are made more powerful they need more surface area for heat dissipation, and should just be using MXM video cards (those are the kind high end laptops like Dell use,) that would at least get more life out of the iMac platform, and returning to user-installable RAM.
I feel that the entire "no user serviceable parts inside" thing is going to eventually come back and bite Apple.
But as for the Mac Pro and Mac Mini, The Mac Pro really needs to return to the Tower design, redesign it to fit the E5's and NVME drives, but otherwise there was nothing wrong with the original design. The Mac Mini, if they want to redesign that, should take the Mac Pro design cue but use desktop Radeon R9 series as the GPU, and use the other panel for NVME drives.
I want to make it clear that I don't actually think it will happen.
Ok?
https://news.samsung.com/global/samsung-now-introducing-worlds-largest-capacity-15-36tb-ssd-for-enterprise-storage-systems
Blade SSDs go up to at least 2TB now. All the Macs can get faster in their existing form factors. The GPU manufacturers are targeting double performance-per-watt with their new GPUs. The full desktop RX 480 is reported to be as low as 95W, which is suitable for the current iMac and is around a desktop NVidia 970-980 and there's the option of the notebook 980 around 100W:
http://www.kitguru.net/components/graphic-cards/matthew-wilson/report-claims-amd-has-managed-to-boost-polaris-performance-per-watt/
http://wccftech.com/amd-polaris-revisions-performance-per-watt/
For some buyers, having easily replaceable/upgradable parts is reassuring but it does nothing for a seller. There have been dozens of big PC companies shut down over the years that offered user-serviceable parts. The majority of buyers don't care about servicing or upgrading their own machines and it just means the users who have the option, spend their upgrade money on 3rd party retailers who are also willing to take very low margins. Look at Newegg's financials:
https://techcrunch.com/2009/09/28/neweggs-ipo-filing-reveals-the-financials-behind-a-2-billion-electronics-retailer/
http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/company/newegg-inc-688280-62163?tab=financials
<$12m net income on $1.1b sales in 2009, more recently $25m income on $2.2b revenue (~1% margins). The best way to retain margins is to sell the the way Apple does, which is why they have the best margins and it's why they are most likely to stay in business for many years to come. All retailers would much rather be selling the full package and getting margins on every part.
For all the fantasy designs that people come up with about expandable Mac hardware, they are only going to be at best double the performance while severely compromising the hardware design. It's just not worth doing any more because not enough people care about that extra performance. Far more people care about having nicely designed hardware that isn't noisy, is easily portable and has decent battery life.
The Mac refresh is taking a long time this year but it's mostly just for the GPUs. CPUs aren't increasing much at all and the designs have reached a really refined level. The GPU release schedule is up to AMD and NVidia. Hopefully there will be a refresh by the end of October.