{"id":8333,"date":"2022-05-02T13:04:52","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T18:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=9144"},"modified":"2022-05-02T15:13:31","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T20:13:31","slug":"understanding-what-vintage-and-obsolete-mean-for-apple-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/understanding-what-vintage-and-obsolete-mean-for-apple-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Understanding What \u201cVintage\u201d and \u201cObsolete\u201d Mean for Apple Products"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Macs\u2014and Apple products in general\u2014tend to last a long time. It\u2019s not unusual to see someone happily using an 8-year-old MacBook Pro. As much as it\u2019s environmentally responsible to use electronics as long as possible, doing so may reduce your productivity or leave your business in a precarious situation if a hardware failure forces an upgrade at an inconvenient time.<\/p>\n<p>Another factor to consider is whether or not you can get service and parts for your older device. It\u2019s easy to assume that Apple will fix whatever you bring in, but unfortunately, that\u2019s not the case. Apple has policies surrounding how long it guarantees to provide service and parts, which is reasonable. No one would expect Apple to repair a 128K Mac from 1984\u2014many repair techs hadn\u2019t even been born then.<\/p>\n<p>All Apple products fall into one of three categories: current, vintage, and obsolete. Current products, which Apple defines as those that were sold within the last 5 years, are eligible for service and parts from Apple, Apple Authorized Service Providers, and Independent Repair Providers. In other words, if you bought your Mac new within the last 5 years, you won\u2019t have any problem getting Apple to fix it.<\/p>\n<p>(Independent Repair Providers are firms that have signed up for Apple\u2019s Independent Repair Provider Program to provide out-of-warranty iPhone and Mac repairs using Apple-provided parts, tools, service guides, and diagnostics. Other repair shops can repair Apple products but may lack Apple certifications and have to source parts from other suppliers.)<\/p>\n<p>Things get trickier with the other two categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Vintage:<\/b> Apple considers a product to be <i>vintage<\/i> when the company stopped selling it more than 5 and less than 7 years ago. During this 2-year window, Apple says that service and parts may be obtained, subject to parts availability.<\/li>\n<li><b>Obsolete:<\/b> As you\u2019d expect, a product is considered <i>obsolete<\/i> when Apple hasn\u2019t sold it for more than 7 years. Apple will not service obsolete products, and service providers cannot order parts for them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>There is one exception to these policies. Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only repair period for up to 10 years from when the product was last distributed for sale, subject to parts availability. That makes sense since a new battery may be all an old MacBook needs to keep working.<\/p>\n<p>Apple maintains a page listing <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/HT201624\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">all vintage and obsolete products<\/a>. To determine which Mac model you have, choose About This Mac from the Apple menu. For <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/HT201296\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iPhones<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/HT201471\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iPads<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/support.apple.com\/en-us\/HT204217\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">iPods<\/a>, Apple provides pages explaining how to identify your model.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-9143\" src=\"https:\/\/macworks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/understanding-what-vintage-and-obsolete-mean-for-apple-products.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"858\" height=\"560\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Apple\u2019s policies surrounding vintage and obsolete products shouldn\u2019t make a huge difference to most users. That\u2019s because once a Mac hits 5 years old, it\u2019s likely that upgrading to a new model will provide significant benefits. Many businesses prefer a 3-year replacement cycle because they\u2019ve determined that\u2019s the sweet spot where increasing support costs and lower performance make it worth selling the old Mac and buying a new one that\u2019s faster and more reliable.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, there\u2019s nothing wrong with keeping a Mac longer if it meets your needs and you don\u2019t mind spending more on support. At some point, though, products in the vintage and obsolete categories are living on borrowed time.<\/p>\n<p>(Featured image by iStock.com\/Soulmemoria)<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It might be easier to repair vintage jeans than a vintage Mac. Read on if you want to understand Apple\u2019s definitions of vintage and obsolete hardware and what they mean for support and repair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,69,106,880,8,25,112,185],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-apple","category-apple-consulting-ct","category-apple-support-ct","category-ipad","category-iphone","category-mac","category-mac-support-ct","category-mactech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8342,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8333\/revisions\/8342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}