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Dear All
I am planning to buy my first iMac and keen to understand for how many will Apple support the new iMacs with their M1/M2 chips with latest OS upgrades etc ?
With intel chips I understood the usual support period was 5 years, if am right .. do you believe or are aware / read credible reports that support will be longer for M1/M2 supported Macs i.e. more than 5 years etc ?
Thank You in advance :)
"Vintage" (5+ years since the introduction of the hardware model) and "Obsolete" (7+ years since the introduction of the hardware model) are mostly relevant to the ability to obtain hardware service and repair parts.
How long you can keep installing new OS updates varies.
I'm using a Late 2009 iMac that originally shipped with Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6). It can run everything up to High Sierra (macOS 10.13). So it was able to run the most current version of the OS until September 2018 (when Mojave came out), and one of the "most recent three" until November 2020 (when Big Sur came out).
That's probably longer than you can expect from most Macs.
To take another example, a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) that would have shipped with some version of Lion (10.7) or Mountain Lion (10.8) can run anything through Catalina. Catalina was one of the "most recent three" until October 2022, when Ventura came out. (It's worth noting that as of Catalina, Apple dropped support for 32-bit applications.)
"Vintage" (5+ years since the introduction of the hardware model) and "Obsolete" (7+ years since the introduction of the hardware model) are mostly relevant to the ability to obtain hardware service and repair parts.
How long you can keep installing new OS updates varies.
I'm using a Late 2009 iMac that originally shipped with Snow Leopard (Mac OS 10.6). It can run everything up to High Sierra (macOS 10.13). So it was able to run the most current version of the OS until September 2018 (when Mojave came out), and one of the "most recent three" until November 2020 (when Big Sur came out).
That's probably longer than you can expect from most Macs.
To take another example, a MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2012) that would have shipped with some version of Lion (10.7) or Mountain Lion (10.8) can run anything through Catalina. Catalina was one of the "most recent three" until October 2022, when Ventura came out. (It's worth noting that as of Catalina, Apple dropped support for 32-bit applications.)
We here in the Communities are just users like yourself with no knowledge of what Apple may or may not do. And, per the term of using these forums, we really cannot speculate.
Having said that, Apple products are considered vintage when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and less than 7 years ago.
Apple products are considered obsolete when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 7 years ago.
There's no reason to believe that Apple will deviate from this practice any time soon.
If you'd like learn more about and to view an historical record of Apple's current hardware status, please take a look at this support document:
Obtaining service for your Apple product after an expired warranty - Apple Support
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Imac 2021 - New M1/ M2 chips - OS Support Life ?
