Apple Says All Mac Minis With Intel Are Now Vintage (macrumors.com)
- Reference: 0177030793
- News link: https://apple.slashdot.org/story/25/04/15/2010214/apple-says-all-mac-minis-with-intel-are-now-vintage
- Source link: https://www.macrumors.com/2025/04/15/apple-vintage-list-mac-iphone/
> Apple periodically adds devices to its ever-growing list of vintage and obsolete products. That happened today, as spotted by [2]MacRumors , with two noteworthy "vintage" additions: iPhone 6s and Mac mini (2018). The latter product is especially significant, because the 2018 Mac mini was the last remaining Intel model that was not yet labeled either vintage or obsolete.
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> So what are those timelines exactly? Per [3]Apple's definitions : Vintage: "Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and less than 7 years ago." Obsolete: "Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 7 years ago." [...] Since these products are now considered vintage, Apple no longer guarantees that parts for repairs will be readily available.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2025/04/15/apple-says-all-mac-minis-with-intel-are-now-vintage-or-obsolete/
[2] https://www.macrumors.com/2025/04/15/apple-vintage-list-mac-iphone/
[3] https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772
Typing from (Score:2)
a 16 year old Optiplex. Works "fine" for me with Debian.
Re: (Score:2)
And just like the 2018 Mac Mini, Dell might refuse to repair it if they don't have any more parts for it.
Re: Typing from (Score:2)
Unlike the 2018 Mac mini you can just swap the storage device into a vaguely similar machine, boot and run.
Many apps are already ARM only (Score:2)
As the pool of old macs to test intel code on is shrinking, many developers are going ARM only on their apps. I remember that by around 2010 that PowerPC was mostly dropped by the majority of apps.
Re: Many apps are already ARM only (Score:2)
Apple Silicon devices can run x86_64 binaries via Rosetta 2. Are real Intel devices really required for testing the binaries of most apps? We have so many Intel Mac Minis that this isnâ(TM)t a problem for us. Testing on the latest macOS is a different issue. Testing on Apple Silicon doesnâ(TM)t have as many devices for us either.
Re: (Score:2)
Five years after a major architecture change sounds about right, given Apple's history. M68k was supported up to about 1998-1999. PPC software updates ended around 2010. So 2025 would make sense as the last year of Intel- Mac support.
refurbs don't count (Score:2)
just an FYI, Apple goes by the date of sale when determining warranty category for parts availability. So if you bought a refurb of a late model, it may still technically not be "vintage" yet.
My laptop, the VERY last intel model sold, I got as a great deal on a fully loaded refurb (4tb ssd etc) and it JUST went out of 3 yr applecare less than two months ago. It's out of warranty, but Apple won't consider it "vintage" for another two years.
Of course this article is concerning regular new sale date ranges,
Qnap 656 (Score:1)
Still going strong with 6 disks (6 and some TeraBytes of RAID6) 3 disks I have replaced during 13-14 years of 24/7 operation. (not very heavily loaded, but still.) Not My backup, but I've been wondering will this things psu / chipset ever gona give up.... BTW: qnap still offering regular fixes for vulns... APPLE: eat sh&/
Mine was already vintage. (Score:2)
A year or so ago, I bought a 2012 model to serve as a home fileserver and media center. Given it just sits idling most of the time, I'm not too worried about it being obsolete. I have other computers for gaming or other heavy processing.
Re: (Score:2)
> it just sits idling
With fan and disk spinning, capacitors losing capacitance, rubber feet gluing to the shelf...
Re: (Score:2)
It might pay to upgrade, though likely not in this case. It would be worth measuring the actual power draw, multiply Watts times 24*365.25 / 1000 * (cost per KwH from your power bill).
Let's do the math:
I see someone reported a 2012 Mac Mini drawing 9.1W, and power at $.16/KwH (national average), that comes out to only $12.76/year. So you're not likely to be able to save enough to pay for an upgrade. But if you were in Massachusetts at $.28/KwH with a home-built server drawing 65W, that's about $160/year,