I don't think it's the same. On older Apple hardware, it just keeps on running on the older OS version. You don't get some new features or styling of the new OS, but nothing else changes. On Windows, it periodically brings up full-screen notifications that your hardware is obsolete and you need to upgrade, with the only options being to upgrade or "remind me again later".

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mort96 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

They also provide security updates for those old OSes for quite a while, AFAIK.

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Salgat 2 hours ago | parent [-]

macOS receives 1 year of full support and 2 additional years for security updates for each version with 6-8 years of upgrade eligibility. Windows 10 received 10 years of support (on top of a free upgrade from Windows 7/8.1 for most users).

	▲	mort96 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not sure why you're counting the years of support for a version of the OS and not the years of support for a computer. The interesting thing is: if you bought a computer at year X, does it still receive updates at X+Y? There's loads of relatively young computers which can't upgrade to Windows 11 and therefore aren't supported anymore. That's the problem, not how long Windows 10 was supported.

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freetanga 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

2013 MacBook Air on Linux Mint is fantastic

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Almondsetat 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Software in much more tied to the OS though. For example, Chrome is still compatible with Windows 10 which is more than 10 years old, while on macOS you cannot install it past Monterey (2021). Not to mention that also system applications are updated with the OS, so forget about using Safari

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raisedbyninjas 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's great, but it's no silver bullet. We have a 4th Gen iPad that was used mostly for consumption. Only one of the streaming apps works with its ios version.

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riddlemethat 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The same issues plague old Android tablets. Lots of unecessary ewaste out there so OEM's can sell new devices.

	▲	plagiarist 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		There are a lot of Android devices that look temping until one discovers how out-of-date the firmware is. With no option to install your own, of course. Boot loaders should be exclusively for running the manufacturer's lone security update from 5 years ago.

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NoMoreNicksLeft 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I just installed Opencore and run the newer OSs anyway. It will eventually not be an option when they come up with an ARM-only OS, but at the moment it seems to work ok.