The iPhone 8 and iPhone 7 Plus are now vintage products, according to Apple.
Apple has added the iPhone 7 Plus and two iPhone 8 models to its list of vintage and obsolete products, as it’s been more than five years since both devices launched.
The iPhone 7 Plus, which launched in 2016, was the first iPhone to feature a dual rear camera system. Along with its smaller iPhone 7 counterpart, the iPhone 7 Plus introduced a solid-state home button and a jet black color option, but that was eight years ago.
Apple considers one of its products “vintage” when it stopped distributing them for sale more than five years ago, and less than seven years ago. Once a product hasn’t been sold new for more than seven years, it’s then classified as “obsolete.” The company provides service and parts for vintage products for up to seven years, assuming the necessary parts are available.
In the case of the iPhone 7 Plus, which was added to Apple’s list of vintage and obsolete products on May 21, this means that users may face additional difficulties in trying to get their device repaired. The iPhone 7 range notably suffered from audio IC failure, or “Loop disease” as it was called at the time. This meant that the device’s microphone would stop working, making it unusable for calls, among other things.
A class-action lawsuit was filed after repeated complaints, and was eventually settled in January 2024. Users were able to receive a payment between $49 and $350, if they owned an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus between September 16, 2016, and January 3, 2023.
Users who purchased the device at a later date, however, are not eligible, meaning that they’re on their own if any audio IC-related issues pop up. With the iPhone 7 Plus now being classified as vintage, repairs may not be as easy to obtain as they once were. AppleInsider staff members have experienced the iPhone 7’s audio IC failure firsthand, and the repair costs often exceed the value of the device itself.
Apple has also added two iPhone 8 models to its vintage products list, the 64GB and 256GB configurations. The 128GB iPhone 8, meanwhile, was sold for longer, meaning that it’s not a vintage product just yet. The iPhone 8 was the first iPhone to include wireless charging support, and was released alongside the high-end iPhone X in 2017.
The iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 2, meanwhile, have been classified as obsolete products by Apple. Neither the company nor its authorized service providers will offer repairs or parts for the two iPads, which isn’t much of a surprise given that they were released more than a decade ago.
