If you still have an old 2015 or 2016 MacBook sitting on your shelf, as venerable and solid as it ever was, it’s now officially entered the dustbin of history. Apple updated its obsolete list Monday to include several MacBook Air and Pro models alongside three iMacs that debuted nearly nine years ago. As the years go on, we’ll see more of these elder products, like the iPhone 5S, enter their twilight years before being unceremoniously dumped in a pauper’s grave.
The list includes several 13- and 15-inch Air and Pro models from early 2015 through 2016. If you stroll down memory lane, several models still support that perfunctory touch bar. As for the 2015 and 2016 model laptops, Gizmodo wasn’t too keen on those 12-inch Retina screen MacBooks that required an additional dongle to connect more than one cable.
The full list of new obsolete products, as first noted by MacRumors, includes:
- MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2016)
- MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015)
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, 2 Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2016, 4 Thunderbolt 3 Ports)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2016)
- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015)
- iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2015)
- iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, Late 2015)
- iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)
Despite the wide selection of MacBooks officially meeting their end, the iMacs are a bigger blow to longtime Apple fans. The 2015 models introduced the 4K display at 21.5 inches, a big sea change for Apple’s large-screen all-in-one computers. The 2023 24-inch iMacs with M3 are effectively the same design as back then, despite minor changes to the body and base. The latest versions feature a 4.5K Retina display or 4480 by 2520 resolution.
Several more products are entering the “vintage” list. These include the 2018 13-inch MacBook Air, the 2017 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the 2018 13-inch MacBook Pro. That 2018 MacBook Pro was plenty powerful—then featuring Intel’s 8th-gen CPUs—with a hefty number of ports. That series of Pros featured its own controversy due to reports that it wasn’t as powerful as competing PCs with the same chip due to cooling issues.
Apple’s vintage products are still available for repairs, though only as supply lasts. Obsolete products, on the other hand, are not normally considered available for any repairs or replacements. Apple products become vintage after about five years of sale. We’re inching closer to the day when the first M1 MacBooks, featuring Apple’s silicon, will, too, enter their twilight years. Considering how many people still use and praise those 2020 MacBooks, we don’t expect Apple to send them to nursing homes anytime soon.
