End of an era as last Intel MacBook Air is declared vintage

Macworld

As one year ended and another began, Apple blew away the cobwebs by shunting a further batch of products into its “Vintage” category, including the last ever MacBook Air to run an Intel chipset.

As of last month, the 13-inch Retina MacBook Air from 2020, the 128GB iPhone 8 Plus, the iPhone 11 Pro, the cellular version of the iPad Air 3, and the Apple Watch Series 5 have all been added to Apple’s list of vintage products (as spotted by Macrumors). That model of MacBook Air launched in March 2020 with a 10th-gen Intel Core i7 processor and a new keyboard design, but was superseded later the same year by the first Air to feature Apple silicon.

The M1 Air was a popular and critically acclaimed machine that helped to kick off the Apple silicon revolution. But as much as Apple might have wanted them to, Intel MacBooks didn’t simply disappear from the world overnight. This latest move may help the company to turn the page on a significant chapter in its history.

Because the switch to vintage isn’t just about a name or a theoretical categorization, the move has real-world consequences for owners of those devices. Vintage Apple products, defined as those that stopped being sold between five and seven years ago, are no longer guaranteed the full range of servicing, repairs, and replacement parts offered for younger models and are one step closer to being branded obsolete. This may encourage those who still own the final Intel Air to consider an upgrade to something a little newer and easier to maintain.

With the Air’s transition to vintage, the remaining pool of viable Intel Macs has shrunk even further. The last three Intel MacBook Pro models–the 16-inch from 2019, and the two 13-inch variants from 2020–can still get repairs and parts, as are the 2019 and 2020 iMacs, which ran Coffee Lake and Comet Lake Intel Core chips respectively. And the Intel-based Mac Pro from 2019 didn’t get discontinued until June 2023, astonishingly, and therefore won’t move to vintage for another two and a half years.

Find out how long Macs last, how long Apple supports them for, and how to tell if a Mac is too old to be useful in: How long Macs and MacBooks last.