Today Apple put a number of the company's devices on its list of "vintage" products. These include the iPhone X, the first-generation HomePod smart speaker and the first-generation AirPods.
The vintage and obsolete products list is a living document that Apple updates with products that the company no longer supports. Spotted by MacRumors, products are classified as vintage when Apple has stopped selling a device for more than five years but less than seven.
While all three products can be taken to Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Service Providers for repairs, anyone still using them has only two more years of support before Apple cuts that off. That's assuming parts are even available for the device at this point.
After seven years, Apple changes the classification from vintage to obsolete. Products are considered obsolete seven years after Apple has stopped distributing the device for sale. At that point, Apple Stores and the company's service providers will no longer offer repairs or other services for the tech.
While I'm still of the opinion that things from the 80s (or I guess 90s now) have long reached vintage status, tech moves faster than that.
The iPhone X was announced in September 2017 and released for purchase on November 2017. The iPhone X, along with celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the release of the iPhone made a number of changes to the iconic phone that have stuck around on subsequent versions.
The bezels around the screen started to shrink, the Home button disappeared and it is the first iPhone to feature FaceID instead of Touch ID. Powered by the A11 chipset, the phone also introduced Animojis, a feature that is the only reason I needed to upgrade the phone for my son.
The same year that the iPhone X came out, Apple announced the HomePod smart speaker. Though it didn't come out until February 2018. Designed to integrated with Apple Music and AirPlay, it was an impressive sounding speaker. However, Apple's first smart speaker lagged behind Google and Amazon with Siri struggling with smart home tasks and only controlling Apple Music but not other services. The HomePod 2 and HomePod Mini solved some of those problems, possibly putting the pin in the longevity of the HomePod.
Finally, the original AirPods come out in December 2016. It could be argued that the AirPods were the first true wireless earbuds. They also heralded the end of the headphone jacks on iPhones with the iPhone 7 "courageously" losing the port in favor of the AirPods.
We can't say that the AirPods haven't been influential even as the originals have become supplanted by later iterations. Even rivals like Samsung are starting to mimic the AirPod design.
One day, I'm sure, you'll tell your grandchildren about these devices or it'll be a nice memory dump when you pull them from boxes in an attic even though they should haven been recycled decades ago.
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- Apple AirPods Max 2: Everything we know so far
- iOS 18 has convinced me to upgrade, but not to an iPhone 15 Pro
