I think this conflates "old" with "killed". Most of the stuff is just old.
I would say the Mac Pro was "killed", left to languish after the trashcan model, then isolated from third party GPUs when it finally got upgraded to Apple Silicon, and then left to languish again until the lack of sales justified killing it.
Rosetta 2 will certainly deserve a spot on this list next year when they start yeeting it, an amazing piece of technology that has made Apple Silicon-era Macs uniquely capable of executing the widest range of software.
I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and the pretending that they don't even exist anymore.
I have a house full of Apple hardware and none of them get updates from Apple anymore, and I can't manually update them without hackery (OpenCore) or wiping them to install Linux (where possible). Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore. Heck, even Homebrew, which ships open source software that has always run on my devices, relegates my hardware into their "tier 3" garbage can[1].
The combination of Apple's and third party's disinterest counts as "killed by Apple" in my book.
I always thought it was strange how intolerant Homebrew is of users who are not surfing the bleeding edge.
I held out using MacPorts for ages, but there came a point when I just could not reasonably expect to find the software I needed on MacPorts, but could on Homebrew, and so I switched. I wish Homebrew hadn't won that particular mindshare war. Moving from MacPorts to Homebrew felt like downgrading from an actual package manager to a duct-taped shell script.
The good news is that MacPorts is IMO better than ever. I previously did the MacPorts -> Homebrew switch, but recently moved back and am very happy with MacPorts.
This isn't really just an Apple mentality though. I have all kinds of old electronics and devices from Google, Samsung, Intel, WD, etc. that all fit this exact same description.
If you've ever tried to run a hardware business (or really any business), you know that it is not financially sound to continue to support old devices that have been superceded (sometimes more than once) by newer products that consumers are currently spending money on.
We can debate if this is the way things should be, the aspect of whether you truly "own" things, software escrow, and on and on. But the phenomenon itself is in no way unique to Apple. If anything, I have found that the usable lifespan of Apple hardware is, on average, longer than the usable lifespan of other name-brand electronics in similar categories.
Absolutely, we could easily have any number of killedby[manufacturer] websites. A device being "old" is a common reason/excuse manufacturers use to stop supporting it. Just making the point that Apple is not a special exemption.
> Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore.
I think it's more about 3rd party app developers attempting to improve their products and stay relevant.
If Apple releases a new framework or API that would make a developer’s app better, but it requires macOS 14 or later, are they not supposed to incorporate it?
I've noticed lots of 3rd party developers keep older versions of their apps available for older macOS versions.
On both macOS and iOS it is straightforward to target older devices while using the newer SDKs, and to use those new frameworks conditionally based on the user's OS. Of course, Apple's tooling makes this harder and harder to do, the older the targeted OS is.
> I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and their pretending they don't even exist anymore.
Sorry but the HomePod wasn't "killed" just because they upgraded from gen 1 to gen 2. Gen 1 HomePod literally just got a software update a month ago with another on the way. The iPhone X wasn't "killed" just because they released the iPhone 11. This list is egregiously version-centric for things where it makes no sense.
Apple could easily support eGPUs if they wanted to, but they choose to have vertical integration over fragmentation or usefulness. It's the same as them not supporting OpenGL or Vulkan: they could if they wanted to be a better gaming/porting target, but compatibility of any sort is not a priority.
Agreed. Aside from obsolete hardware that was replaced with newer products, there isn’t really anything on this list that I miss except for HyperCard. Just about everything worthwhile became another product or got rolled into something else.
I came here to comment the same. I'm still using my iphone SE 2nd gen and it's still receiving software updates. Calling it dead is a bit misleading imo.
Fellow user here. It still surprises me on durability and usefulness. Its small size fits into my trousers’ pockets and even if it falls out, it won’t brake like a Samsung.
I think so, Macs can run software written for Android, iOS, Mac, Windows and Linux, everything else is incapable of running the iOS and Mac stuff. Virtualizing macOS from a Linux or Windows sucks for arbitrary reasons, and both macOS and iOS are missing a compatibility shim like WINE.
All this sounds great in theory, but Mac does not have a particularly stable ABI and it's fairly common for closed source software from 5+ years ago to just not run.
Yes, the company that explicitly closes its ecosystem can also run the more open ecosystems legally, and those open ecosystems can't legally run the closed one.
That's a knock against Apple, not a bragging point.
I've come to believe Apple's way is probably the only sustainable way.
I'm a Windows user who also develops for Windows desktop and it's kind of sad that even though Windows has a way larger desktop share, there just isn't much going on compared to MacOS. Every week I read about some cool new or updated MacOS application and I can't remember the last time I read something similar about a Windows application (other than games).
The only reason I can think of is that MacOS developers are more motivated at least in part by having users that are willing to support developers by paying for software.
In turn, users and developers willing to pay for computing motivates and enables Apple to make better hardware. They don't always get it right, but I think they are doing a better job than most companies. It's also the reason why I think Apple's recent push for services revenue is so dangerous. The incentives aren't as aligned with users.
Maybe next year Framework or System76 will come out with their answer to Apple's M-series chips and I'll have to re-evaluate, but right now it feels like it's Apple against everybody else and everybody else is racing to the bottom.
You're looking at this space from the wrong angle.
Getting sales is a function of your visibility on marketplaces that are overwhelmed with minimum-effort works.
The problem you need to solve is not "how can 5 days work be done in 5 minutes", but how to stand out amongst the million other people ahead of you on this.
It apparently already is, just trying to say something marginally critical about YC will enrage the zealots of social mobility with their metaphorical pitchforks. But yeah, thinking back, it's not a religion, it's already a cult.
I miss heroku dearly. somewhere at Salesforce there is an exec who killed the product and shifted it to enterprise and is now looking at the vibe coding revolution seeing their opportunity missed.
Last time I tried render, it did not allow me to spin up 1 instance of my web app, so I'm never going back. (To clarify: Render would always spin up a minimum of 2 instances.)
They use TOTP for 2FA (industry standard), which doesn't require a phone.
Their help page lists a bunch of 2FA app options, all of which run on phones, so it's understandable to think a phone is required. (I'm disappointed they don't list the app I use, which is Aegis Authenticator.)
But actually you can use any TOTP app, and they don't all need a phone. For example, macOS (desktop) has built-in TOTP 2FA as part of the password manager.
More likely than not they’re probably long gone, or have completely forgotten. The idea that someone out there regrets that decision is laughable. The fact that it’s laughable is sad.
> Apple's not making any money on developer subscriptions.
I think we're going to find out in a couple weeks, as Apple will be in court arguing over a reasonable commission to charge developers for using third party payments and their costs and developer subscription revenue are likely to come under a magnifying glass.
> millions of people have no issue with
I think that's a false dichotomy, consumers are not choosing Apple's developer policies and fees, and Apple has gone to great extents to keep consumers ignorant of their fees by banning mention of competing payment options and then burdening them with fees that ensure they can't be cheaper so the fees aren't obvious. This is not a choice consumers have made, it is a choice they have been deprived of.
If I had been positing it as a developer issue, then that would be true.
However, I was talking about the customer experience, not the developer one. There's no question at all. People pay a premium, and have no issues with the walled garden.
Just because I don't like something, doesn't mean that everyone else shouldn't like it, either. I may not be wrong in my rancor, and they might not be wrong in their acceptance.
One thing that customers are disliking, though, is the buggy and overcomplicated mess that Apple operating systems have become. I am hoping that they do another across-the-board "Snow Leopard" release. From what I hear, that's likely. It might end up making the developer experience a bit more frustrating, though, as they may be demanding more from us.
I've been shipping Apple-based software since 1986, and have found myself screaming with rage at them, many times, in those 40 years; but I never stopped developing for the platform. I guess I'm a walking exemplar of The Stockholm Syndrome.
> However, I was talking about the customer experience, not the developer one. There's no question at all. People pay a premium, and have no issues with the walled garden.
You can't even conclude that since lots of customers are actually suing them for excessive fees, Apple already lost that battle in the UK and are facing the return of billions in IAP fees, they are facing another in NL for nearly €800 million where they are certain to lose because they were ordered to allow third party payments and ignored the court, they are facing a class action in the US that actually predates their injunction ordering them to allow third party payments and their contempt for disobeying.
I don't think people will "pay the premium" when Apple has to allow apps like YouTube to offer a $19/month plan alongside a $25/month plan for exactly the same thing. They have fought this entire decade to prevent that choice and argued it will cost them billions.
> I am sadly now addicted to OLED and I fundamentally disagree with the Apple position of not having a touch screen on a laptop
Both of these are reportedly coming to the MBP this year (lately rumoured to be next year), although there's going to be a steep price to pay and rumours say it will still just have the MacBook's normal angular range so no good for drawing or iPad apps.
Apple is so far ahead of everyone it's sad but they're catching up and Apple is so unflinching on so many topics it handicaps them, we could be stuck with touchscreen Macs that aren't useful for iPad apps for many years, and later this decade ARM chips will start nipping at the heels of the Pro and Max chips while build/component quality is rapidly improving too.
The alternative to this was continuing to optimize Rosetta while simultaneously processors improve, soon enough the performance gap wouldn't matter in the slightest. By the end of the decade you'd probably be comfortably running that software on a MacBook Neo w/ A20 Pro.
Rosetta and its underlying tech enable 10,000s of games and applications to run so it's a tremendous loss overall, it doesn't sound like much will be left if this means x86 OSX games:
> "we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks"
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/27/app-store-monthly-subsc...
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