Apple Obsolete List: Your Repair Deadline

Your MacBook Pro worked the day you bought it, and it still works. What changed is a line on an Apple support page you have never opened. Seven years after Apple stops selling a model, it joins the Apple obsolete list, and no Apple Store or authorised shop can order a part for it. You paid once. The lock-in arrived years later, dated by Apple's last sale, not your receipt.

How long will Apple repair my iPhone or Mac?

Apple repairs most iPhones and Macs for up to seven years after it stops selling the model, with normal service for the first five and parts-permitting service in years five to seven.

Apple's own support page, Vintage and obsolete products, updated on 15 September 2026, draws both lines. A product is vintage once Apple stopped distributing it for sale more than five and less than seven years ago. Past seven it is obsolete: Apple discontinues all hardware service, and providers cannot order parts. So the repair price stops mattering, because nobody in Apple's network may quote one.

The clock is the part owners get wrong. It starts when Apple stops selling the model, not when you bought it (unless, I suppose, you bought on the very last day). The usual advice, wait until something breaks, is outdated for any device past year five. By then the repair you postponed may be one Apple can no longer do.

Two other clocks run beside this one. The date Intel Macs stop getting security updates can beat the repair cut-off, and on an iPhone it pays to check what an out-of-warranty battery replacement costs while Apple still stocks your part.

That conditional window is already open for many Macs. TechRepublic's 3 April 2026 report on Apple's spring update stressed that vintage repairs depend on parts being in stock, and its newly vintage list runs from the Late 2013 Mac Pro to the 2020 Intel MacBook Air. Own one, and a quote can now be refused. That deferred screen fix is due now.

Four numbers set the terms; the share of laptop life is my own arithmetic from Apple's thresholds.

The battery extension sounds generous until you see what it leaves out. Khaleej Times reported on 16 August 2026 that the 2018 15-inch MacBook Pro and the iPhone X had turned obsolete. That MacBook can still, parts permitting, get a new battery from Apple. A failed display gets a no.

What the Apple obsolete list actually takes away

Moving from vintage to obsolete takes away every Apple and authorised repair except, on Mac laptops, a battery swap, and it leaves independent shops with salvaged or aftermarket parts as your only route.

Read the table by your model's age since its last sale.

A vintage model has between zero and two years of Apple repairs left, my own arithmetic from Apple's two thresholds, and Apple never says where in that range you sit. The April report dated the iPhone 11 Pro's move to vintage to January 2026, which puts its obsolete date around January 2028. I think Apple should print each model's last sale date on that page, since the whole policy runs on it.

Can I still get an obsolete iPhone repaired?

Yes, an obsolete iPhone can still be repaired by an independent shop using salvaged or aftermarket parts, but Apple and its authorised providers will refuse the job and cannot order the part at any price.

TechRepublic's verdict on repair after that point is fair: possible, just less predictable. That means donor-device or aftermarket parts of uneven quality, with no Apple quote to compare against.

The second date owners miss is software. Per 9to5Mac figures cited in the same Khaleej Times report, the iPhone X topped out at iOS 16 and the 2018 MacBook Pro at macOS Sequoia. Software support usually ends first, so check both dates before paying: a new screen on a phone that apps are leaving behind fixes the wrong problem.

The EU is the one market where part of this is law. Under ecodesign rules in force since 20 June 2025, Hardware Busters reported, phone and tablet makers must keep critical spare parts for seven years after a model leaves sale and deliver them within 5-10 working days. That covers only models sold after mid-2025, though. And replacing is not cheap, given the memory shortage pushing phone prices up.

• A refused vintage quote has no appeal: the problem is stock, not policy.
• Non-genuine screens and batteries can trigger an unknown-part notice on recent iPhones.
• Both lists change several times a year, so check again before buying used.

The decision is repair now or budget for the replacement, so make it this week. Open Apple's Vintage and obsolete products page and find the year your model left sale. Between five and seven, book the repair you have been putting off while a part may exist. Past seven, ask an independent shop now what a battery and a screen would cost, so you choose on numbers rather than in a panic.