Last Non-Retina Apple MacBook Pro is getting an early retirement and no go-away party

The very last 13 inch Apple MacBook Pro to sport a snappy disc drive, an LCD non-Retina display, a non-Force Touch trackpad, and a non-Butterfly mechanism endowed keyboard, is slowly but surely, being shown the back door to an early retirement.

The aging MacBook Pro was last updated in 2012, with a 2.5GHz processor, 4GB of RAM and a 500GB (non-SSD) spinning drive, and in the last year, it’s been pushed further down the bottom of the Apple Store.

More retail outlets have also been following the same trend, by pulling the older MacBook from shelves, while keeping it available online. Most Apple products do not gain “vintage” or obsolete status until after 7 years. While the non-Retina 13 inch MacBook Pro was updated in 2012, it’s unlikely for the aging Mac to get a 2019 retirement party.

The 2012 MacBook Pro shared many similarities with the 2009 MacBook, aside from CPU and graphic hardware. In fact Apple has kept the 2012 MacBook Pro’s design very close to 2009’s standards, until newer Retina-based unibody MacBooks began showing Apple’s commitment to thinner and lighter designs. As the last MacBook to feature an optical drive, and a screen resolution of only 1280 x 800, the 2012 13 inch MacBook Pro has become the most affordable MacBook Pro available today, and one of the cheapest to upgrade, as long as consumers can move past the outdated display resolution, as well as the external display resolution support, limited to 2560 x 1600, which is lower than current Retina display resolutions.

Apple has recently unveiled macOS Sierra, which might breathe new life into older laptops, however, according to recent discoveries from the new operating system’s internal code, a new MacBook Pro is coming, with specs and features that could prove fatal for the non-Retina MacBook Pro’s popularity, including an OLED touch bar, and biometric fingerprint recognition built into the Force Touch trackpad.