Apple has a list of obsolete devices, which are already so old that they are no longer officially supported. However, it also has another that includes devices that, although they are old, are not yet considered “vintage”. Although they continue to receive official technical service, They are teams that are in “the spotlight” and are usually the next ones that end up being discontinued.
The lists of old Apple products around the world
This product category does not have any distinction at the territorial level. Rather, they are considered, in the same way, in all countries in which Apple operates, or has had a presence of that product at some point. When a brand device is considered “obsolete”, there will be no more replacements for official parts, so it will already be considered that its useful life (in terms of repairability) has officially ended. This happens in those terminals that, after their withdrawal from the market, seven years (or more) have passed.
On the other hand, the equipment considered as old are those that, even if their sale has ended, they can still be repaired at Apple technical services and in authorized workshops. However, as time passes, the window by which an iPad that was once “old” will now become “obsolete” narrows. So if you have one of the following iPads on the list, it will most likely be considered vintage in a short time and, therefore, you will no longer be able to continue repairing it officially:
- 9.7-inch iPad Pro with Wi-Fi connection
- 9.7-inch iPad Pro with Wi-Fi and cellular data
- First generation iPad Air with Wi-Fi connection
- First-generation iPad Air with Wi-Fi and cellular data
- iPad Air 2 with Wi-Fi connection
- iPad Air 2 with Wi-Fi and mobile data connection
- iPad mini 2 with Wi-Fi connection
- iPad mini 2 with Wi-Fi and 4G connection
- 12.9-inch iPad Pro 1st generation with Wi-Fi
- First-generation iPad Pro, 12.9-inch with Wi-Fi and cellular data
- 5th generation iPad with Wi-Fi connection
- Fifth-generation iPad with Wi-Fi and cellular data
Other considerations for older iPad models
In addition, it is important to note that these iPads considered “old” They are no longer sold in the Refurbished and Certified section from the Apple website. In this section, the company itself repairs and fine-tunes different products from previous years, which are still fully functional, but at a lower price than at the time of release or, if they are of the current generation, compared to the standard purchase price.
On the official service website, we can select two types of repairs for the iPad. The first one is changing the battery. The second is categorized as “Other damages”. In this case, we will be shown an approximation of the price in the model search engine, and it will not be the real price. This is because the part to be repaired is not known until the device is evaluated.
