Apple to drop support for certain G4 Macs, Xserves

The news was relayed earlier this week to Apple Authorized Service Providers (AASP) via a support bulletin that was subsequently picked up by MacMerc. It included a list of Macs that will be classified as either "vintage" or "obsolete" in all markets come March 17th.

Obsolete products

At that time, the following products will be classified as "Obsolete products," or those which were discontinued more than seven years ago. Support for these products will be discontinued without exception, meaning none of the company's service providers will be able to order replacement parts for repairs.

• PowerBook G4
• Power Mac G4 (Digital Audio)
• Power Mac G4 (Quicksilver)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Digital Audio)
• Macintosh Server G4 (Quicksilver)

Vintage products

Meanwhile, a trio of Xserve products (below) will be classified as "Vintage products," or those that were discontinued more than five and less than seven years ago. Apple discontinues hardware service for vintage products like it does obsolete products, with the exception of those purchased in California, as required by statute.

• Xserve RAID
• Xserve (Slot Load)
• Xserve (Cluster Node)

Owners of these products may continue to obtain service and parts from Apple Service Providers within the state of California.

Apple maintains a complete list of vintage and obsolete products on its support site, which can be seen here. If you own one of the aforementioned products and it's in need of repair, you may want to contact your local AASP in the next few weeks.