> The issue with passing off a list of vintage products as some kind of past tense support schedule is by definition products become vintage when they are added to the list at some arbitrary date.

If you read some of the text above the product list, you'll see that Apple does publish guidelines about when products can be expected to be added to the list:

> Products are considered vintage when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 5 and less than 7 years ago.

> Products are considered obsolete when Apple stopped distributing them for sale more than 7 years ago. Monster-branded Beats products are considered obsolete regardless of when they were purchased.

> Apple discontinues all hardware service for obsolete products, and service providers cannot order parts for obsolete products. Mac laptops may be eligible for an extended battery-only repair period for up to 10 years from when the product was last distributed for sale, subject to parts availability.

So as you can see, it's not arbitrary or unpredictable when a product is going to show up on the vintage product list. The only unpredictable or obscure part of this process is finding out how long an outdated product was still being sold after its successor launched.

Ok, but this is an Apples vs oranges comparison. (Carlos!)

We are talking about software support here.

The vintage products list is specifically targeting hardware support; e.g. how long Apple will keep spare parts in stock. After a set number of years they purge stock and you are SOL going to Chinese third party vendors and places like iFixit for batteries etc.

Not really; vintage macs turning obsolete are being dropped from the macOS support very reliably. I.e. the 2015 mbp was dropped from 2022 macos release like on the clock.