Is #apple purposely breaking older laptops?
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Is #apple purposely breaking older laptops?
I have a 2018 Macbook Air that I factory reset through the internet recovery. It formatted the drive and installed MacOS 10.15 and rebooted.
On reboot, setting up the account let me log into my Apple account, but then I could not accept the TOS, no matter what I did.
It seems this is a common issue where there is a "communication issue" with apple's servers.
Seems that Apple is purposely adding friction to use "older" machines.
What do you think?
@codemonkeymike My guess is yes, whether intentionally or not.
The server that handles that TOS is probably either dead or confused at why it's receiving a API call today.
But my experience is mainly in trying to register ancient versions of software from disk-- some of the mechanisms that ensure the software is authentic rely on a server somewhere issuing a cryptographic "all is clear for installation" signal, and some of those servers are just dead now.
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@codemonkeymike Not sure if purposeful or just not incentivized to care.
Companies that abandon old hardware should be required to release specs, tooling, documentation, etc. Whatever it takes to allow people who still own this hardware to continue using it.
"Oops, we don't want to support it anymore" should not force users to chuck it in the trash.
@snow exactly.. its negligent at best.. its malicious and evil at worst..
Either way, Apple doesnt care.. but sure should be made to.
Again, there is a workaroudn where you can skip the Apple account login, but still, its NOT clear.. how many people will not do this and assume the computer is dead?
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Is #apple purposely breaking older laptops?
I have a 2018 Macbook Air that I factory reset through the internet recovery. It formatted the drive and installed MacOS 10.15 and rebooted.
On reboot, setting up the account let me log into my Apple account, but then I could not accept the TOS, no matter what I did.
It seems this is a common issue where there is a "communication issue" with apple's servers.
Seems that Apple is purposely adding friction to use "older" machines.
What do you think?
@codemonkeymike I've been running Linux (Fedora + Ubuntu) on everything from 2009 Macbook Whites to 2014 Mac Minis and my 2015 MBP is very coorporative, but none of those had the T2 chip.
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@wyatt I agree.. Like seems like organizations like the EU should sue the crap out of Apple for something like this.
To actively stand in the way of simply signing into a device...
And yes, it's an older OS but it's what their own internet recovery system put on there.
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@codemonkeymike I've been running Linux (Fedora + Ubuntu) on everything from 2009 Macbook Whites to 2014 Mac Minis and my 2015 MBP is very coorporative, but none of those had the T2 chip.
@simonjust yup.. i love running Linux on Apple products pre-t2. Post T2 is a nightmare
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@simonjust yup.. i love running Linux on Apple products pre-t2. Post T2 is a nightmare
@codemonkeymike Wouldn't be surprised if this kind of friction is "by design".
Similarily, the Asahi Linux project has had plenty of success with the M1s and M2s, however the M3s and onwards is another story
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@codemonkeymike Wouldn't be surprised if this kind of friction is "by design".
Similarily, the Asahi Linux project has had plenty of success with the M1s and M2s, however the M3s and onwards is another story
@simonjust oh yes totally.. and t2 linux even on intel works well. But it's still way more friction than the older ones. My worry is people literally trashing perfectly good machines because of this. And then there is the t2 activation lock issue.
It all adds up to ALOT of e-waste.. meanwhile Apple does a whole lotta hand waving about how eco friendly they are
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@codemonkeymike My guess is yes, whether intentionally or not.
The server that handles that TOS is probably either dead or confused at why it's receiving a API call today.
But my experience is mainly in trying to register ancient versions of software from disk-- some of the mechanisms that ensure the software is authentic rely on a server somewhere issuing a cryptographic "all is clear for installation" signal, and some of those servers are just dead now.
@abmurrow yup.. and if its a 15 year old kindle or something.. whatever. But this is a $1200, 8 year old computer.
And Apple's own internet recovery system is what installed this OS. It's insane for them to kill the setup like this. Shoudl be illegal
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@abmurrow yup.. and if its a 15 year old kindle or something.. whatever. But this is a $1200, 8 year old computer.
And Apple's own internet recovery system is what installed this OS. It's insane for them to kill the setup like this. Shoudl be illegal
@codemonkeymike Preach! Its not like the hardware is bad. Apple has some of the best in the game, but they're so cagey about who's allowed to use it.
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@simonjust oh yes totally.. and t2 linux even on intel works well. But it's still way more friction than the older ones. My worry is people literally trashing perfectly good machines because of this. And then there is the t2 activation lock issue.
It all adds up to ALOT of e-waste.. meanwhile Apple does a whole lotta hand waving about how eco friendly they are
@codemonkeymike Yeah, in their defence, they are doing something*, but ecofriendly or not, at this day and age it should be illegal to use all kinds of technical obstacles that prevents repurposing of older hardware.
*) https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/16/apple-hits-record-recycled-content/
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