Hi everyone,
My girlfriend has MacBook Pro from 2012 which has already been upgraded with more Ram and an SSD.
From what I understand, her OS (Catalina) has reached end of life in 2022 and doesn’t get any support from Apple anymore.
As that machine works perfectly, what should she do?
I hate Apple products (even if it’s painful for me to say that they’re good) and I’m a Linux enthusiast, so I’d tell her to install Fedora Asahi, but I wanted to know if the Apple enthusiast crowd had a better idea.
My girlfriend isn’t geeky at all (despite her geeky glasses) and she would want to stay in the safe environment provided by an Apple OS. But we also don’t want to replace that powerful machine as we hate programmed obsoletism.
10 years of support. Not bad.
Just install Linux on it (if this is what she wants, regardless of if you think it’s better) or find a M1 MacBook Air for 7-800 if she wants a Mac.
I have a 2012 laptop, and upgraded to the M1 Air. Using the old machine is painful now, I didn’t realise how slow it was.
10-11yrs from a laptop is pretty great. I wouldn’t call it planned obsolescence.
Yep I upgrade my SO’s 2012 MBP and my 2012 Mac Mini to the M2 versions and it was amazing how large of a jump it was. I don’t know if I will drag another 10 years out of these machines, I think I probably could but I may sell them off in like 5 years and upgrade if there is something worthy out there.
Would it have been nice for Apple to support them for an extra couple years? Yeah, but I’m sort of happy they forced me to upgrade as I too didn’t realize just how much I was missing.
Keep using it until it no longer serves her needs. Then buy a MacBook Air (evidently not a power user).
Also, what 2012 pc laptop would still be usable in 2023?
If anything, Apple computers are known for long term support. 11 years is a crazy long lifespan for technology.
I’m writing this on my phone from the toilet.
Before that I was using my 2011 thinkpad x220. Those 2012 MBPs have twice the cores and a usable screen.
Never met anybody that uses a laptop while they crap. Might have to give it a go.
Craptop
When you spend most of the day on the porcelain throne you kind of just accept that reality.
Also, what 2012 pc laptop would still be usable in 2023?
A lot of them, especially if you’re doing a fair comparison and look at Windows laptops that were in the same price bracket as the MBP (though even many cheaper ones will still work).
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My T60 ThinkPad still works…
I heard about something called Open Core Legacy Patcher the other day which is supposed to allow updates for older macbooks but I have not tried it yet.
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Yeah probably, I was planning to try it on a 2015 macbook air which is already getting a bit sluggish.
I have tried it with a 2012 Retina MacBook Pro and it’s really cool. I installed a recent version of macOS on it so it wasn’t great performance wise (the OS itself ran pretty well but the computer was very warm all the time), but I think you can make it work still.
I’d try Big Sur or Monterey.
Also if you have performance issues, changing the battery can help a lot.
11 years old
“programmed obsoletism”
Serious question, how old is your laptop?
I have a 2019 Surface Go with Fedora on it and a 2006 Asus with Windows XP on it.
Planning on installing a lightweight Linux on it as it was mainly used for backups (iTunes) of my work iPhone (which I didn’t buy and didn’t choose to have).
But now that I can use my girlfriend’s Mac for that, I don’t need windows anymore. I also have a windows virtual machine in the Surface Go.
I’m going to disagree with the OCLP people: it’s a fine project, but it’s absolutely horrible to deal with from an end-user perspective because they’ll update something without realizing it’s going to break something, and now you have to deal with someone’s computer not working and get to maintain it.
If you can move to Linux, and she’s happy with that, then great. Though you’d probably want normal Fedora, and not Asahi since it’s not a M1/M2-based Mac.
But it sounds like she wants MacOS and, unless you want to fiddle with something that’s finicky, failure-prone, and not guaranteed to work in the future, just go buy a used/refurbished M1 for like $600, and then not worry about it for the next 5-10 years.
Look into OpenCore Legacy Patcher. I updated my GFs 2012 Air to Ventura and it’s running okay. A bit clunky around MacOS updates since you have to specifically run patcher again to get graphics acceleration again but otherwise fine. It’s definitely worth it for security updates.
Why would you do anything? It still works, so keep using it. Changing the OS just because you can sounds like a really bad idea to someone who’s been using the same thing for 11 years (and I’m a Linux user so no pro-Apple bias here). It sure sounds like she’s not the greatest fan of change.
And also, as already said by many other comments, an 11 year old laptop is about the opposite of planned obsolescence.
I don’t think planned obsolescence has a time line.
It’s more to do with the manufacturer making a decision to pull support.
Windows 11 is pulling the same stunt.
Linux distros however have no such problem.
Apple should have more than just an arbitrary reason to drop support.
I also dislike often dislike Apple but, a nearly 11yr lifespan is more than reasonable
Just keep it on Catalina and use that until it dies. I gave my dad a 2011 MacBook Air a while ago and that hasn’t been updated since High Sierra. It still works fine.
Thanks for all the answers.
I guess we’ll keep it on Catalina for a while. But what are the risks? Could she diminish them by getting an antivirus (which I never do)?
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You can try using OpenCore Legacy Patcher to install a newer unsupported macOS.
Mbp from 2012 should have everything working in ventura with a bit of patching.
Absolutely, I recently even bought one from 2012 since it was pretty cheap. Upgraded it to ventura using oclp and it works amazingly.
Keep in mind it is the higher tier i5 with ssd and 16gb of ram
This should be top comment. LegacyPatcher will keep that machine running and stay current.
Fedora Asahi is for ARM64 versions of MacOS, your 2012 MacBook Pro is x86, meaning that any x86 Linux distribution will run on it. My personal recommendation for someone who is not as tech savvy is Linux Mint. You don’t have to install it either until you decide it’s a good fit and instead run it from RAM and fiddle around with it until you decide it’s a good choice.
The 2012MBP is a fine machine. I actually just retired one. Being an intel model, you can run any Linux. You don’t need to stick to Ashashi (that’s for Apple silicon chips).
You could also put Windows on there.
Really though, if she likes the Apple ecosystem, go find a 2017/2018 MPB 4 thunderbolt port model. I recently picked one up on fb marketplace with an i7, 16 gigs of ram, and 256gb ssd for $350.
I have this exact same problem! The hardware all runs great, but no more OS updates :(
I can’t believe how long it has lasted.
It depends on what she wants to do with it. Does she need any first-party Apple apps? If so, she might be out of luck. If not, put your Linux flavor of choice on it and get another 10 years or more out of it.
I’m running Ubuntu Server on a 2009 Mac mini with absolutely no problems at all.
Well finally I think we’ll keep MacOs Catalina for when she wants to use Apple stuff and dual boot it with Fedora for everything else. That way she can also slowly ease herself into using Linux.
Since I already have a perfectly set up Fedora installation, I wanted to know if anyone had an idea on how to duplicate it without going through 1000 steps.
But I might be in the wrong place since the second part isn’t really Apple related…
I didn’t know that Apple sold a gluten free MacBook Pro…
