Apple @ Work: The M1 MacBook Air has the longest usable lifespan of any Apple laptop in history
Apple @ Work: The M1 MacBook Air has the longest usable lifespan of any Apple laptop in history
Publish Date: 2026-07-11 08:00:00
Source Domain: 9to5mac.com
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I have a very standard plan when a batch of Apple laptops reaches the end of its lease or deployment lifecycle. I want them gone ASAP. Typically, by the time a MacBook Air or Pro hits that four-year mark, it is old, unusable, and ready to be recycled. I don’t want to see them in my office, and I certainly don’t want to support them. I want them recycled, but the M1 MacBook Air has completely broken that rule, and in a world where Macs are going up in price, it matters.
About Apple @ Work: Bradley Chambers has been an Apple IT admin since 2009. Through his experience deploying and managing firewalls, switches, a mobile device management system, enterprise-grade Wi-Fi, 1000s of Macs, and 1000s of iPads, Bradley will highlight ways in which Apple IT managers deploy Apple devices, build networks to support them, train users, share stories from the trenches of IT management, and ways Apple could improve its products for IT departments.
The standard laptop lifecycle
If you look back at the last Intel era of Macs, a laptop from 2016 or 2017 was showing its age rapidly by the time it was retired (especially if it had a butterfly keyboard). The batteries were heavily degraded, the fans ran constantly, and the keyboards were a constant source of problems. Keeping the old laptops around as spares was a liability for IT. When they came off lease, I wanted them sold, recycled, or otherwise disposed of. This wasn’t unique to that era,…
