Apple is known to add products to its list of Vintage and obsolete products, and 2017 will see the addition of four more products. The list will soon include Mac from 2009 to 2011. Among the product there are 15-inch MacBook Pro (early 2011), 17-inch MacBook Pro (early 2011), Mac mini (early 2009) and 13-inch MacBook (mid 2009).
Once added to the list, either vintage or obsolete, these products will no longer be eligible for repairs and part replacements from Apple or any other authorised service providers. Unless, if they were bought in the US or Turkey until 31 December, 2018 (read more in the exceptions part later). This announcement shouldn’t affect many, but if you still own one of these products then its time to get it repaired/fixed before the year-end.
Apple describes vintage products as those that have not been manufactured for more than 5 and less than 7 years ago. Apple has discontinued hardware service for vintage products, but there are a few exceptions that can be read here.
obsolete_list
Obsolete products are the ones that were discontinued more than seven years ago. And, Apple has discontinued all hardware service for obsolete products with no exceptions.
Moreover, service providers cannot order parts for obsolete products. All Apple Retail Stores and the Canadian, European, Latin American, and Asia-Pacific operating regions follow the US product list, but make no distinction between vintage and obsolete. When applied to Apple Retail Stores and these operating regions, products on the US vintage list (all models) are considered obsolete.
Some of the other obsolete products include the iPhone 3G, iPhone 4, iPod nano 4th generation, iPod Shuffle second gen, to name a few. See the complete list here.