Or users who are left in the dust will just go to the store and buy a new device.' 'They live by the motto that users will just take all updates all the time as soon as they become available. 'Let's face it, Apple doesn't go out of their way to ensure users are aware when products are going end of life,' said Andrew Storms, director of DevOps at San Francisco-based CloudPassage, in an interview. But Apple doesn't, leaving users guessing about when their current Macs will drop into the unsupported dustbin. None of this would be noteworthy if Apple, like Microsoft, clearly spelled out its operating system support policies. Under that plan, Snow Leopard was 'n-2' when Mountain Lion shipped in mid-2012, and by rights should have been retired around then. Traditionally, Apple has patched only the OS X editions designated as 'n' and 'n-1' - where 'n' is the newest available - and discarded support for 'n-2' either before the launch of 'n' or immediately after. Snow Leopard was last updated with security fixes in September, the same day Apple last provided the final patches for Safari 5.1.
