Have older Macbook Air's been nerfed?

Hawk Tuah

Hawk Tuah

Hawk Tuah

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Hi, I'm thinking of getting an older, cheapish Macbook Air for my son to do home work on (word, google classroom, teams etc).

In 2015 I had a 2013 Macbook Air at work, and the thing was an absolute dream to use. Reliable 12 hour battery life, fast, responsive. Pretty much perfect for my usecase at the time and now in virtually every way.

However, my experience of Apple products makes me wary to touch anything a few years old, as everything I've had from themhas been nerfed in some way by them - especially iPads. (Except, an old iPad 1. Which never had an update and still runs as quick as the day it was released - but is nerfed due to lack of support).

Are the older (say 2013 macbook airs) still useable today? Do they now feel sluggish?
 
I mean, a 2013 Macbook Air performs exactly as you would expect. It performs exactly like the 10.5 year old machine it now is. That's not apple nerfing them, its simply the fact its 10 years old. I'm in the position where I still have the 11 year old PC in my signature tucked away upstairs, along with an i7 2013 macbook air, and an M1 macbook air. As you would expect the M1 Macbook air stomps all over both of them and the 2013 air feels slow in the same way my 11 year old desktop does. Apple havent nerfed the machine, its just old.

I'm not sure I agree on the iPad thing either. My son has a 5th gen iPad and whilst its starting to show it's age its still fine for his need. Again its 6 years old and whilst it cant run iOS17 its capable of running 16 and that still getting updates. Again I dont feel it's been nerfed in anyway and the fact it got free updates for 5 out of the 6 years of it's life seems pretty good to me? It's simply that 6 years on the hardware no longer matches the needs of the day and its getting ready to be replaced.

There was a refrubished M1 macbook air going on one of the deal sites the other day for just shy of £600, that would be where to put your money in my opinion. Mines coming up for 3 years old and essentially feels just as fast as it did on day 1. It's more powerful than my work laptop with a Ryzen 5750u in it as well so they are certainly holding up to the needs. Unless you can get an intel mac for insanely cheap money I wouldn't bother, the M1 and newer are simply much better machines.
 
If by ‘nerfed’, you mean have Apple done something to slow them down then the answer is no.

With things moving the way they are, don’t even consider buying an Intel Mac. Old machines, old technology and it won’t be long now before the OS becomes Apple Silicon only.
 
Managed to win an auction for a working 2013 8gb, 256gb MacBook air for £70.

It's only going to be used for word processing, teams calls, etc. If it still runs as smooth as it did in 2015, I'll be more than happy.

As for iPads. I used to (2013 to 2016) manage a fleet of around 100 iPads. After a couple of years they all became ridiculously slow and buggy. Intentional forced obsolescence. Never trusted apple since.
 
Bug One said:
Perhaps you missed all the lawsuits / fines.
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To do with iPad's and Mac's?

Apple slowed the iPhone IIRC so that the battery wouldn't overheat and/or drain significantly quickly.

There is no planned obsolescence. If you continue to believe so that's your prerogative, just don't forget to renew the foil on your hat.
 
ChrisD. said:
Apple slowed the iPhone IIRC so that the battery wouldn't overheat and/or drain significantly quickly.
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No the slowed it so as not to make the phone turn off due to over current which the older battery could no longer handle, and they did that without informing anyone as to circumvent the shutting down that was being widely reported at the time.

Also to deny planned obsolescence is as bad as to say it doesn't happen, obviously its easier to make your devices almost unrepairable to the point that buying a new one makes more sense, or forcing down the route of an insurance policy so if it does go wrong you only pay an excess. Let us not confuse Apple with a charity.
 
Main problem with older Apple devices (and this applies to Android as well, just not so much to Windows) is when support for new versions of the OS gets dropped. This means things will eventually stop working, and your machine is more likely to be hacked once Apple stops releasing patches for it. My mum had an ancient Macbook Air (probably a 2011 version), and nothing worked because SSL support was just too old. I got her a second-hand 2017 and it's fine, but Apple have already dropped support, so she's already a year or two behind in MacOS releases. They still release critical security fixes for the un-supported versions, but that slows down to a trickle.

If you aren't willing to spend much (as pointed out above you can get M1 MBA for pretty cheap if you keep your eyes open), I would get your son a ChromeBook, or install ChromeOS on an old Windows laptop.
 
Bug One said:
Managed to win an auction for a working 2013 8gb, 256gb MacBook air for £70.

It's only going to be used for word processing, teams calls, etc. If it still runs as smooth as it did in 2015, I'll be more than happy.

As for iPads. I used to (2013 to 2016) manage a fleet of around 100 iPads. After a couple of years they all became ridiculously slow and buggy. Intentional forced obsolescence. Never trusted apple since.
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At that price its fair enough. It will do the job, but I wouldnt expect more than a couple of hours battery life and it will be hot / loud compared to anything new.

The iPad thing I still disagree on. I actively manage a fleet of about 700 iPads / iPhones across a Multi Academy Trust and what you are saying just isnt the case. We have a mixture of iPads some of which are well out of support and showing their age, then lots of 7th / 8th / 9th gens of varying ages and all of which are doing just fine. The performance is exactly as you would expect and the old 4th / 5th gens feel slow. The newer ones dont. The same is true on phones. We still have some ancient 5c's in circulation that are as bad as you would think. Then we have SE's of 1st / 2nd / 3rd gen. Yes the 1st gens are showing their age but the 2nd / 3rd are absoutley fine.

I'd say on average we are getting 5-7 years of use out of most Apple stuff without issue.

Ultimately, if you are so sure they have forced obsolence, why have you jsut bought a 10 year old one?
rotor said:
Main problem with older Apple devices (and this applies to Android as well, just not so much to Windows) is when support for new versions of the OS gets dropped. This means things will eventually stop working, and your machine is more likely to be hacked once Apple stops releasing patches for it. My mum had an ancient Macbook Air (probably a 2011 version), and nothing worked because SSL support was just too old. I got her a second-hand 2017 and it's fine, but Apple have already dropped support, so she's already a year or two behind in MacOS releases. They still release critical security fixes for the un-supported versions, but that slows down to a trickle.

If you aren't willing to spend much (as pointed out above you can get M1 MBA for pretty cheap if you keep your eyes open), I would get your son a ChromeBook, or install ChromeOS on an old Windows laptop.
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Again this seems a harsh criticism though. I've got a 5th gen iPad in the house thats only just dropped support for iOS 17 meaning it was updated for almost 6 years. It's also still getting minor updates for iOS 16 so effectively is still supported. The 2nd hand 2017 machine they've dropped support for is now 6.5 years old. Surely thats reasonable? We cant expect apple to keep releasing updates for everything forever.
 
I have the last Intel MacBook Air (2020) before the M1 and it's not great tbh and I only run very basic things on it. Sluggish, the fans are always coming and terrible battery life.
 
BinnsY said:
Again this seems a harsh criticism though. I've got a 5th gen iPad in the house thats only just dropped support for iOS 17 meaning it was updated for almost 6 years. It's also still getting minor updates for iOS 16 so effectively is still supported. The 2nd hand 2017 machine they've dropped support for is now 6.5 years old. Surely thats reasonable? We cant expect apple to keep releasing updates for everything forever.
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Oh, you misunderstood me. I was trying to explain to the OP what the consequences of buying old machines was. At least Windows (until 11) isn’t tied to the hardware so it doesn’t stop you from getting updates, and hence my recommendation for installing ChromeOS on an old Windows laptop (brings new life to an old device). An old Mac cannot be “revived” in such a way, and you are therefore stuck whenever Apple leaves you behind.
 
Im typing this on a 2015 MacBook air and it still works great. It runs Word fine, its not noisy and I can surf the web, watch Youtube etc etc and its no problem at all. Battery is showing its age but that's cos its nearly 10 years old. I have other more modern devices but this still does a job.

For me it depends on your budget but at the price point that you can pick these things up for now I would say they are still worth getting. If you only have £100-150 to spend Im not sure there is much better?
 
It’s £70 because it’s obsolete and can’t run any of the latest software. This isn’t solely an apple thing, this is right across the board.

It’s just part of technology, a decade is massive.

Look at the difference required the run the latest games/software. Even daft stuff like streaming in 4k you can’t do that on TVs made in 2013 unless you spent an absolute colossal amount on one and you’d be able to pick that up for £70 as well! You wouldn’t say Panasonic/Sony (whoever) have ‘nerfed‘ their TVs. The tech inside it just isn’t good enough now.
 
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