These Apple Products Are about to Become Obsolete
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As sad as it sounds, all tech devices have a limited lifespan, and Apple devices aren’t the exception.
While most Apple devices will get around five or six year’s worth of software updates, there will be a time when they become obsolete. However, unlike other devices, Apple first puts its products on a vintage list, which basically means that they’ll soon become obsolete but will get some limited support before that.
This happens regularly, and unfortunately, it happened again recently. Apple announced these three products are now part of the vintage list.
What Is Apple’s Vintage List?
To put it simply, Apple has a list of products it categorizes as “vintage.” This is a list of products that Apple stopped distributing for sale more than five years ago but less than seven years ago.
What does this mean for your device? Well, it means that if your device is vintage, Apple Stores and other authorized repair and service stores will only be able to repair your products for one or two more years.
That’s because, after seven years, these products move onto the obsolete list, which means Apple will discontinue hardware services for them.
Apple Added These 3 Products to the Vintage List
Unfortunately, several products go to the vintage list every year, and 2024 was no exception. Apple recently added these three products to the vintage list.
iPhone X
A lot of iPhone X users will be sad to know that their iPhone is now considered vintage. The iPhone X came out in 2017, and it completely changed the iPhone into what we know today.
The iPhone X was the first iPhone to ditch the Home button and bezels. It introduced the notch that we know and (somewhat) love, and it was the first iPhone with Face ID support. Clearly, it was a game-changer for Apple and iPhone fans around the world.
HomePod (1st Generation)
When it was first introduced in 2017, the HomePod was also a historical event for Apple. This was the first smart speaker Apple created, and it introduced a new way to control your smart home and listen to music.
Unfortunately, the HomePod wasn’t as big of a success as many expected since Apple discontinued it in 2021 and decided to focus on the smaller HomePod mini instead.
However, the story of the bigger HomePod wasn’t over. Apple decided to reintroduce the second-generation HomePod in 2023, bringing the bigger speaker back to life.
First-Generation AirPods
The third product that’s part of the vintage list are the incredibly popular AirPods. When they first came out in 2026, Apple took the world by storm for two reasons.
First, it was the first-ever Bluetooth earbuds Apple launched. Second, it was the end of the headphone jack, which some of us still miss to this day.
Of course, this change created a lot of backlash and criticism for the Cupertino company. Everyone disliked the lack of a headphone jack, and no one really liked that they had to pay extra to get new earbuds. Some companies, like Samsung, even mocked Apple because of this decision.
But as we now know, the elimination of the headphone jack combined with the great functionality and form factor of the original AirPods made them one of Apple’s best-selling products. By 2019, the company had already sold over 100 million AirPods, resulting in many tech companies following Apple’s lead and removing their own headphone jacks.
Apple Says Goodbye to Three Huge Products
For better or worse, these three Apple products changed the way people felt about and used Apple products.
Some of these products, like the iPhone and AirPods, created a new trend in the smartphone world that we see to this day.
Apple wouldn’t be the company it is today without the iPhone X, HomePod, and AirPods, and it’s sad to see how all of these products will become obsolete in two years’ time.
