I have just read a comment that Apple will no longer support or provide updates for MacBook Pro's from 2017 - what are my options apart from buying a new MacBook? Or have I misread some of the comments? I am currently running MacOS Venture Ver 13.7.8. Just thought I should check before issues occur.
[Re-Titled by Moderator]
Original Title: 2017 MacBook Pro
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 13.7
No 2017 MacBook Pro can upgrade further than Ventura – and with the release of Tahoe, Ventura is no longer one of the "most recent three". That means that vendors like Microsoft and Adobe may soon drop support for Ventura, assuming that they haven't already. (The latest versions of Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and GarageBand required a minimum of Sonoma even before Tahoe came out.)
While Ventura will no longer get the latest versions of Safari, the version of Safari that runs on it now is very recent and should be fine for browsing most Web sites. Ventura is recent enough that it can run just about any third-party Web browser of your choice – such as Firefox, Brave, Opera, Microsoft Edge, or even Google Chrome. The current version of Firefox will run on Catalina – suggesting that Ventura will be in line to receive the latest versions of Firefox for several years.
Other applications that will run on your Mac include the free LibreOffice office suite, and the commercial Affinity V2 applications (Photo, Designer, Publisher).
No 2017 MacBook Pro can upgrade further than Ventura – and with the release of Tahoe, Ventura is no longer one of the "most recent three". That means that vendors like Microsoft and Adobe may soon drop support for Ventura, assuming that they haven't already. (The latest versions of Pages, Numbers, Keynote, and GarageBand required a minimum of Sonoma even before Tahoe came out.)
While Ventura will no longer get the latest versions of Safari, the version of Safari that runs on it now is very recent and should be fine for browsing most Web sites. Ventura is recent enough that it can run just about any third-party Web browser of your choice – such as Firefox, Brave, Opera, Microsoft Edge, or even Google Chrome. The current version of Firefox will run on Catalina – suggesting that Ventura will be in line to receive the latest versions of Firefox for several years.
Other applications that will run on your Mac include the free LibreOffice office suite, and the commercial Affinity V2 applications (Photo, Designer, Publisher).
While your 2017 MBPro cannot be upgraded past macOS Ventura that does not mean that it has or will become unusable or that you will encounter issues.
You can continue using your 2017 MBPro for as long as you want to and as long as it works. All your applications will continue to work as they do now. Many applications will even continue to receive updates for the forseeable future.
Are there specific potential issues you are concerned about?
Kezza137 wrote:
I have just read a comment that Apple will no longer support or provide updates for MacBook Pro's from 2017 - what are my options apart from buying a new MacBook? Or have I misread some of the comments?
You haven't misunderstood anything.
In principle, there's nothing you need to do. You really aren't missing out on anything but a bunch of new bugs and questionable design decisions. Your computer will keep working just as well as it always has.
But in practice, the new Apple Silicon computers are much, much nicer. I have one of those old 2017 MacBook Pros. Running Ventura, it's quite slow compared to my newer ones. One side of the speakers are blown out so I have to crank the balance to the other side or it sounds awful. And this was an Intel machine with the "butterfly" keyboard (which has already been replaced). It was never one of Apple's best products. By comparison, I expect to continue using my wonderful 2014 MacBook Pro for long after then 2017 becomes a paperweight.
Options for 2017 MacBook Pro after Apple's update cessation
