I think this conflates "old" with "killed". Most of the stuff is just old.
I would say the Mac Pro was "killed", left to languish after the trashcan model, then isolated from third party GPUs when it finally got upgraded to Apple Silicon, and then left to languish again until the lack of sales justified killing it.
Rosetta 2 will certainly deserve a spot on this list next year when they start yeeting it, an amazing piece of technology that has made Apple Silicon-era Macs uniquely capable of executing the widest range of software.
I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and the pretending that they don't even exist anymore.
I have a house full of Apple hardware and none of them get updates from Apple anymore, and I can't manually update them without hackery (OpenCore) or wiping them to install Linux (where possible). Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore. Heck, even Homebrew, which ships open source software that has always run on my devices, relegates my hardware into their "tier 3" garbage can[1].
The combination of Apple's and third party's disinterest counts as "killed by Apple" in my book.
This isn't really just an Apple mentality though. I have all kinds of old electronics and devices from Google, Samsung, Intel, WD, etc. that all fit this exact same description.
If you've ever tried to run a hardware business (or really any business), you know that it is not financially sound to continue to support old devices that have been superceded (sometimes more than once) by newer products that consumers are currently spending money on.
We can debate if this is the way things should be, the aspect of whether you truly "own" things, software escrow, and on and on. But the phenomenon itself is in no way unique to Apple. If anything, I have found that the usable lifespan of Apple hardware is, on average, longer than the usable lifespan of other name-brand electronics in similar categories.
Absolutely, we could easily have any number of killedby[manufacturer] websites. A device being "old" is a common reason/excuse manufacturers use to stop supporting it. Just making the point that Apple is not a special exemption.
I always thought it was strange how intolerant Homebrew is of users who are not surfing the bleeding edge.
I held out using MacPorts for ages, but there came a point when I just could not reasonably expect to find the software I needed on MacPorts, but could on Homebrew, and so I switched. I wish Homebrew hadn't won that particular mindshare war. Moving from MacPorts to Homebrew felt like downgrading from an actual package manager to a duct-taped shell script.
The good news is that MacPorts is IMO better than ever. I previously did the MacPorts -> Homebrew switch, but recently moved back and am very happy with MacPorts.
If you ever try to install any packages from GH or an indie, you only get brew install/cask instructions. It's game over.
Regarding the appeal, this probably exists in Mac Ports, I do not know since you guys reminded me it still existed, but Brewfile lets me provision a new Mac very efficiently.
> Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore.
I think it's more about 3rd party app developers attempting to improve their products and stay relevant.
If Apple releases a new framework or API that would make a developer’s app better, but it requires macOS 14 or later, are they not supposed to incorporate it?
I've noticed lots of 3rd party developers keep older versions of their apps available for older macOS versions.
On both macOS and iOS it is straightforward to target older devices while using the newer SDKs, and to use those new frameworks conditionally based on the user's OS. Of course, Apple's tooling makes this harder and harder to do, the older the targeted OS is.
> I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and their pretending they don't even exist anymore.
Sorry but the HomePod wasn't "killed" just because they upgraded from gen 1 to gen 2. Gen 1 HomePod literally just got a software update a month ago with another on the way. The iPhone X wasn't "killed" just because they released the iPhone 11. This list is egregiously version-centric for things where it makes no sense.
Apple could easily support eGPUs if they wanted to, but they choose to have vertical integration over fragmentation or usefulness. It's the same as them not supporting OpenGL or Vulkan: they could if they wanted to be a better gaming/porting target, but compatibility of any sort is not a priority.
Apple did recently approve drivers for both nvidia and amd, but not for gaming purposes.
Apple supported OpenGL plenty, just that the world moved.
Apple created metal, shortly after Vulkan was created.
"They could support it if they wanted to" is almost a tautology.
Of course they could.
But then they have to support another thing.
They are on the hook when something goes wrong.
Agreed. Aside from obsolete hardware that was replaced with newer products, there isn’t really anything on this list that I miss except for HyperCard. Just about everything worthwhile became another product or got rolled into something else.
I came here to comment the same. I'm still using my iphone SE 2nd gen and it's still receiving software updates. Calling it dead is a bit misleading imo.
Fellow user here. It still surprises me on durability and usefulness. Its small size fits into my trousers’ pockets and even if it falls out, it won’t brake like a Samsung.
I think so, Macs can run software written for Android, iOS, Mac, Windows and Linux, everything else is incapable of running the iOS and Mac stuff. Virtualizing macOS from a Linux or Windows sucks for arbitrary reasons, and both macOS and iOS are missing a compatibility shim like WINE.
All this sounds great in theory, but Mac does not have a particularly stable ABI and it's fairly common for closed source software from 5+ years ago to just not run.
Yes, the company that explicitly closes its ecosystem can also run the more open ecosystems legally, and those open ecosystems can't legally run the closed one.
That's a knock against Apple, not a bragging point.
I've come to believe Apple's way is probably the only sustainable way.
I'm a Windows user who also develops for Windows desktop and it's kind of sad that even though Windows has a way larger desktop share, there just isn't much going on compared to MacOS. Every week I read about some cool new or updated MacOS application and I can't remember the last time I read something similar about a Windows application (other than games).
The only reason I can think of is that MacOS developers are more motivated at least in part by having users that are willing to support developers by paying for software.
In turn, users and developers willing to pay for computing motivates and enables Apple to make better hardware. They don't always get it right, but I think they are doing a better job than most companies. It's also the reason why I think Apple's recent push for services revenue is so dangerous. The incentives aren't as aligned with users.
Maybe next year Framework or System76 will come out with their answer to Apple's M-series chips and I'll have to re-evaluate, but right now it feels like it's Apple against everybody else and everybody else is racing to the bottom.
This has a very different feel than similar pages for other companies. Hardware is still supported if it's within age, most of the software features are just elsewhere and renamed, and some of it is just previous generations of products they currently sell?
Usually these pages convey how capricious the parent is, but this just feels like an arbitrary accounting of things Apple has moved or updated, with a few of them not having replacements.
I read some of it as interesting "quick fails" - Apple's BNPL, for instance - I see why they would have tried, and it's interesting that they pivoted relatively quickly out of it.
Some of the text is silly sour grapes, but it always will be with editorial content about tech products.
Hacker news holds Apple and Google to different standards, so I doubt this post will get much traction. (I'm still angry about how I must use an iPhone if I want to be able to text high quality video to people I don't know very well)
Apple has done a much better job at maintaining their stuff compared to Google. Even this list is mostly just old hardware that fell out of service.
And even then, I can still sync my 20+ year old firewire ipod with the most recent Apple Music (formally iTunes) on my m4 MacBook with the right converter.
Well, even looking at the list it's clear that there's huge difference between things killed by apple and by google. E.g. there's lots of hardware for which there's just no genuine market, e.g. iPod touch. I'm surprised it was killed only in 2022. Lots of software was just incorporated into other products. It's completely different compared with what google does.
unfortunately they hold it in the wrong direction. At least when it comes to updates and feature retention apple is one of the leaders. Even this website posted here shows that most of the software stuff is just rolled into other native apps instead of being abruptly cancelled (lookin at you google) with no recourse where to go.
> I'm still angry about how I must use an iPhone if I want to be able to text high quality video to people I don't know very well
You’re mad at the wrong people in this case though. iMessage can do high quality video and images because it’s a separate channel from the telecoms. RCS can now do high quality video and images too because it’s a newer standard and was built for that (and iPhones do support RCS now). But for normal “text” messages using the MMS/SMS systems, your quality is capped by the carriers and the carries have ridiculously (relative to current standards) low size limits. AT&T limits them to 1MB [1]. Verizon limits you to 1.2MB for images and 3.5MB for video [2] and T-Mobile limits you to 1MB for outbound and 3MB for inbound. Low quality is just baked into those paths and there’s nothing Apple (or Google) can do about it other than build parallel messaging systems
Apple has absolutely been dragging its feet on RCS. The DoJ explicitly accused them of degrading cross-platform messaging to protect their smartphone dominance. Internal Apple communications revealed that executives were worried that bringing iMessage to Android would "remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones."
It is still possible to adjust the speed in QuickTime Player: from .5 to 2x. Not available via Quicklook, but definitely there in the player, either in the menu bar or by clicking the >> in the video window.
Some of these are like "Find My Friends" which is still a thing, but like the website mentions, was just folded into the Find My app. It's not like Google killing popular services like Reader or trying and failing to get another messaging app off the ground
On the other hand, I spent a lot of time with "iTunes U" as both an engineer on the project and as a user. I was sad to see it shut down. (I made the last code changes to the last version of iTunes U that shipped.)
While on the team, I also did what I could to try to keep iTunes U alive—fight against its pending "sunsetting". The Education team owned iTunes U but we were also trying to find our way with a new app, "Schoolwork". Schoolwork didn't have content like iTunes U—it was more like Canvas. An instructor created assignments with it and then assigned them to their students.
A desperate Hail Mary play I made was to facilitate the bridging of "iTunes U" and "Schoolwork". The idea was that an instructor could assign portions of an iTunes U course within Schoolwork. Links within the assignment would launch iTunes U, take the student to the specific course and then the specific chapter…
I hoped someone might then see what an asset all this free content iTunes U (well, Apple) hosted. (MIT courses on computer science, to name just an example.)
In the end when it was clear we were tilting against windmills trying to keep iTunes U going, I relented and spent time trying to help enable a mechanism that allowed iTunes U content owners to export their courseware to Canvas-style courses. A handful of content owners took us up on that. I don't know ultimately what ever happened to all that content though.
Some of it no doubt ended up on Coursera or similar. But that iTunes U courseware, for the decade or so that it existed, was absolutely free and often top-notch… That will be missed.
And unlike the music, books, movies, the iTunes U content was all free. The most nefarious thing you might try to ascribe to Apple was that they were hoping the free content would somehow sell more iPads…
If anything, this website provides a great track record for Apple. Most of the discontinued products are either ancient or just got rebranded, and many stayed alive way longer than expected (iPod Touches until 2022??!!).
The guy who led the Aperture, iPhoto, RAW Camera and Core Image engineering teams (an 18-year Apple veteran) is behind Nitro, which works on macOS, iPadOS and iOS.
Time Capsule ( for iOS ), AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, WebObjects, Safari for Windows, XServe, Aperture.
These are all the stuff I miss and I wish they would come back.
On iPhone Air, currently at 6.5" gets a Silicon Carbon Battery upgrade, I hope we also get iPhone Air Mini at 5.95". The current iPhone Air still sold better than iPhone Plus. It should continue to stay in the product line.
Why is Apple Watch series 0 even listed? I can _sort of_ see the argument for discontinued form factors generally even though I'd disagree with it being useful to show, but series 0 wasn't a different form factor even.
Jefferson and Read had sold a scripted series to Apple titled Scraper that was based on the inner workings of Gawker, and the quartet, along with a handful of, as Carmichael puts it, “very accomplished, amazing screenwriters and playwrights on Broadway,” were producing scripts for the first season. [...] “Max and I had been concerned about that when we sold the project to Apple,” says Jefferson, but the executives developing the project “told us there was a very protective firewall between the TV side and the tech side.” But a month before the writers room wrapped with scripts for the first season’s eight episodes, Jefferson recalls, “an executive called me and said word had reached Tim Cook that we were doing a show set in a world similar to Gawker, and he had put the kibosh on it personally.” Jefferson and his 3 Arts Entertainment manager Jermaine Johnson (who also represents Read and Carmichael) say they heard about but never saw an email in which Cook allegedly referred to Gawker as rife with “vile human beings.” (Cook did not respond to requests for comment.)
There's stuff that deserves to be noticed, like the Mac Pro. The category is a beefy machine with expansion slots and the ability to run so hard that you need massive cooling. Even if the chips have become far more efficient, there's still space for running something so overpowered that you need physics to cool it. They just gave up on this space and it made some people sad (including me, even if I'm no longer that demographic, because I was for two decades).
And then there's the thing that just stopped mattering to most people because it wasn't relevant anymore. I remember my father, who used to love making mixed CDs in iTunes, asking why MacOS got worse at burning music CDs. I had to tell him that what he wanted wasn't the thing anymore. I essentially told him that he was "holding it wrong." It felt bad. Was that killed by Apple or did the market just move on? I'd argue the latter.
If you want to drive engagement, Killed By Apple isn't a bad name. I think that's basically the sum of the idea and not much else.
Like by 2010 you only burned CDs for the stuff what couldn't accept the flash drives ie mostly for the car audio systems. And by 2015 the need for ODD just disappeared though they were still included in servers and desktop PCs out of habit. But by 2020 a 'desktop' PC became SFF/USFF/USDF and you couldn't mount ODD there even if you want (though Lenovo sold mounting bracket for ODD for their Tiny series).
This list can't be serious. Is there single thing on this list that was genuinely killed by Apple, and not just outdated or moved to be a part of other software?
I'd consider the functionality Aperture held to have been killed. I used it for years after 2015 due to a lack of a functional replacement that wasn't a subscription.
It still find myself missing what seems to be basic capabilities while using Photos.
I'm more interested in the technology they've acquired to kill, like buying up every company making assistive technology for the blind and then destroying them to make their facial unlock feature.
Probably because the vast majority of people either don't know a different world outside of mobile, or actively wants to be nannied or a combination of both.
It used to be that there was Android for those who didn't want the Apple way of doing things and wanted more control over their pocket computer, but Google saw how rich Apple got off the walled garden and has been slowly boiling the frog in that direction for years now.
The only thing missing i could find was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashcode which had a pretty great data binding UI that i never quite saw like that.
I think the website would benefit of listing the lifespan regarding support rather than when it stop selling the device. Right now, it lists the Homepod 1st Gen had a lifespan of 3 years, but mine is still receiving updates regularly.
Lots of these items were just moved from the app store into the os. How is that killed? That said, I really miss Dark Sky. Acme weather is good but not quite there yet.
I guess that's Rosetta 2, and TFA is referring to Rosetta 1.
But don't worry, Rosetta 2 is also on the chopping block:
> Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27 – as a general-purpose tool for Intel apps to help developers complete the migration of their apps. Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.
tl;dr: Rosetta is sticking around through macOS 27. After that, the normal Rosetta will be removed from macOS. but a subset of Rosetta will remain to support certain older unmaintained games.
I don't know your definition of "rolled in", but the actual successor to the SE is the e line (iPhone 16e, 17e, etc).
I agree that the SE was a great iPhone and a great form factor. I didn't have one, but my kid did. Whenever I had to do something on their SE, I found it so much more usable than my own whatever Pro phone of that time. It wasn't enough to get me to go to an SE, however.
For people complaining about the quality of the entries of the page, I would encourage you to take a look at the often-cited on this very site https://killedbygoogle.com/ and compare. There we have things like Dopple, "Killed recently, Doppl was an early experimental AI app launched by Google Labs in June 2025 to create a "digital twin" or virtual model of yourself for trying on outfits. It was 10 months old."
The quality of entries on killed by apple seems largely comparable if not higher.
Mac Studio is the Pro. It should have always been. Mini should be Mac. Studio, Neo, Mini et al fall outside of what makes the Mac line up comprehensive to me. iPad Mini is not mini, it's an iPad 8", like... there is an 11/13" ones. And it should have an M chip because Balatro is so sweet on my 11 Pro and chokes on whatever is in the Mini. There should a Pro version of it with Face ID for a hundo more. I like most about the iPad Mini, but give me Face ID and speed and charge me more for a smaller screen, I am tired rotating the damn thing trying to find where the Touch ID button is. WTH is the iPad Air? Pro sans Face ID and some screen stuff? Don't they pay their people well?
I wish they'd bring those back so simple and easy to set up. Could use some more functionality like VPN's and such but otherwise a great product line-up. Now it seems every AP looks like an alien spacecraft.
Dark Sky is the one that most grinds my gears. It was one of those unique apps that does something miraculous. Apple bought it and killed it for everybody that didn't use an iphone.
> Apple TV Remote app
> Apple's official iPhone and iPad app for controlling Apple TV. Pulled from the > App Store after Apple moved the remote into Control Center.
I mean it's not as offensive as a lot of other vibe-coded "products", but it's just kind of a waste of everyone's time; there's no ingenuity in the presentation (it suffers from the same emoji-feature-box-small-text combo as every single one-shot vibecoded site in existence) and judging by said presentation I highly doubt the author put the effort into researching this list or writing the comments by themselves either.
So while it's not gonna be the next Moltbook in terms of security breaches, it's basically just the 2026 version of your middle manager copy-pasting a paragraph from ChatGPT web into Slack. It's content from nobody for nobody. It's definitely not what I want to see on the HN front page, but I guess if people get a kick out of it then you do you.
Reading this, it honestly seems like Apple has keen product insight. Dropping FireWire for TB/USB etc. Killed by Apple but thank god so we can have fewer custom ports. Thank you, Apple.
Good. Apple users are a minority in my local community, yet the vast majority of broken charging ports over the years have been Lightning. Some micro-USB, and zero USB-C problems so far.
That's not what I mean. I like having products, but you can't really truly innovate if you insist on keeping products that may not make sense. That's why Google, Apple etc eventually cut products.
I think this conflates "old" with "killed". Most of the stuff is just old.
I would say the Mac Pro was "killed", left to languish after the trashcan model, then isolated from third party GPUs when it finally got upgraded to Apple Silicon, and then left to languish again until the lack of sales justified killing it.
Rosetta 2 will certainly deserve a spot on this list next year when they start yeeting it, an amazing piece of technology that has made Apple Silicon-era Macs uniquely capable of executing the widest range of software.
I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and the pretending that they don't even exist anymore.
I have a house full of Apple hardware and none of them get updates from Apple anymore, and I can't manually update them without hackery (OpenCore) or wiping them to install Linux (where possible). Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore. Heck, even Homebrew, which ships open source software that has always run on my devices, relegates my hardware into their "tier 3" garbage can[1].
The combination of Apple's and third party's disinterest counts as "killed by Apple" in my book.
1: https://docs.brew.sh/Support-Tiers
This isn't really just an Apple mentality though. I have all kinds of old electronics and devices from Google, Samsung, Intel, WD, etc. that all fit this exact same description.
If you've ever tried to run a hardware business (or really any business), you know that it is not financially sound to continue to support old devices that have been superceded (sometimes more than once) by newer products that consumers are currently spending money on.
We can debate if this is the way things should be, the aspect of whether you truly "own" things, software escrow, and on and on. But the phenomenon itself is in no way unique to Apple. If anything, I have found that the usable lifespan of Apple hardware is, on average, longer than the usable lifespan of other name-brand electronics in similar categories.
Absolutely, we could easily have any number of killedby[manufacturer] websites. A device being "old" is a common reason/excuse manufacturers use to stop supporting it. Just making the point that Apple is not a special exemption.
I always thought it was strange how intolerant Homebrew is of users who are not surfing the bleeding edge.
I held out using MacPorts for ages, but there came a point when I just could not reasonably expect to find the software I needed on MacPorts, but could on Homebrew, and so I switched. I wish Homebrew hadn't won that particular mindshare war. Moving from MacPorts to Homebrew felt like downgrading from an actual package manager to a duct-taped shell script.
The good news is that MacPorts is IMO better than ever. I previously did the MacPorts -> Homebrew switch, but recently moved back and am very happy with MacPorts.
I never moved to Homebrew, and never understood the appeal. It’s refreshing to see people coming back to MacPorts after the last decade.
If you ever try to install any packages from GH or an indie, you only get brew install/cask instructions. It's game over.
Regarding the appeal, this probably exists in Mac Ports, I do not know since you guys reminded me it still existed, but Brewfile lets me provision a new Mac very efficiently.
> Also, because third party app developers largely align with Apple's philosophy, less and less 3rd party software even works on my computers anymore.
I think it's more about 3rd party app developers attempting to improve their products and stay relevant.
If Apple releases a new framework or API that would make a developer’s app better, but it requires macOS 14 or later, are they not supposed to incorporate it?
I've noticed lots of 3rd party developers keep older versions of their apps available for older macOS versions.
On both macOS and iOS it is straightforward to target older devices while using the newer SDKs, and to use those new frameworks conditionally based on the user's OS. Of course, Apple's tooling makes this harder and harder to do, the older the targeted OS is.
> I think it's important to highlight Apple's mentality: That old devices are dead to them, and their pretending they don't even exist anymore.
Sorry but the HomePod wasn't "killed" just because they upgraded from gen 1 to gen 2. Gen 1 HomePod literally just got a software update a month ago with another on the way. The iPhone X wasn't "killed" just because they released the iPhone 11. This list is egregiously version-centric for things where it makes no sense.
They used to just kill those things with upgrades until they were forced not to.
Yeah. Still daily driving my two 8-year old OG HomePods. Compared to e.g., Sonos, who discontinued the Play:1 after 5 years, that's pretty good.
Apple could easily support eGPUs if they wanted to, but they choose to have vertical integration over fragmentation or usefulness. It's the same as them not supporting OpenGL or Vulkan: they could if they wanted to be a better gaming/porting target, but compatibility of any sort is not a priority.
Apple did recently approve drivers for both nvidia and amd, but not for gaming purposes.
Apple supported OpenGL plenty, just that the world moved. Apple created metal, shortly after Vulkan was created.
"They could support it if they wanted to" is almost a tautology. Of course they could. But then they have to support another thing. They are on the hook when something goes wrong.
What they approved was very limited, unofficial 3rd party drivers with very limited application.
It's the first positive sign in a decade but also almost entirely unrelated to what people would consider supporting AMD and Nvidia cards.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47640380
Right. Like the Lightning Connector and Apple SIM, replaced by USB-C and eSIM. It's like saying ISA slots were "killed by Intel."
Agreed. Aside from obsolete hardware that was replaced with newer products, there isn’t really anything on this list that I miss except for HyperCard. Just about everything worthwhile became another product or got rolled into something else.
Macbook 12" was the best form factor computer ever.
Size, but not form.
Best form goes to the Neo, current Air, or 2015 MBP.
They should be offering a 12” Air now.
I came here to comment the same. I'm still using my iphone SE 2nd gen and it's still receiving software updates. Calling it dead is a bit misleading imo.
Fellow user here. It still surprises me on durability and usefulness. Its small size fits into my trousers’ pockets and even if it falls out, it won’t brake like a Samsung.
Nevertheless, when Apple decides to kill "your" hardware, you will have no recourse. You are forbidden to manage and update it yourself.
> widest
wider sure, but widest?
I think so, Macs can run software written for Android, iOS, Mac, Windows and Linux, everything else is incapable of running the iOS and Mac stuff. Virtualizing macOS from a Linux or Windows sucks for arbitrary reasons, and both macOS and iOS are missing a compatibility shim like WINE.
All this sounds great in theory, but Mac does not have a particularly stable ABI and it's fairly common for closed source software from 5+ years ago to just not run.
Sure, but that doesn't change the fact that it can run more software (legally) than any other platform.
Yes, the company that explicitly closes its ecosystem can also run the more open ecosystems legally, and those open ecosystems can't legally run the closed one.
That's a knock against Apple, not a bragging point.
I've come to believe Apple's way is probably the only sustainable way.
I'm a Windows user who also develops for Windows desktop and it's kind of sad that even though Windows has a way larger desktop share, there just isn't much going on compared to MacOS. Every week I read about some cool new or updated MacOS application and I can't remember the last time I read something similar about a Windows application (other than games).
The only reason I can think of is that MacOS developers are more motivated at least in part by having users that are willing to support developers by paying for software.
In turn, users and developers willing to pay for computing motivates and enables Apple to make better hardware. They don't always get it right, but I think they are doing a better job than most companies. It's also the reason why I think Apple's recent push for services revenue is so dangerous. The incentives aren't as aligned with users.
Maybe next year Framework or System76 will come out with their answer to Apple's M-series chips and I'll have to re-evaluate, but right now it feels like it's Apple against everybody else and everybody else is racing to the bottom.
Quoth Steve Ballmer: "Developers, Developers, Developers!!!!!"
Don't find and watch that video unless you have a therapist on the line.
This has a very different feel than similar pages for other companies. Hardware is still supported if it's within age, most of the software features are just elsewhere and renamed, and some of it is just previous generations of products they currently sell?
Usually these pages convey how capricious the parent is, but this just feels like an arbitrary accounting of things Apple has moved or updated, with a few of them not having replacements.
I read some of it as interesting "quick fails" - Apple's BNPL, for instance - I see why they would have tried, and it's interesting that they pivoted relatively quickly out of it.
Some of the text is silly sour grapes, but it always will be with editorial content about tech products.
BNPL is kind of back for apps subscriptions, but not in the US for some reason.
https://www.macrumors.com/2026/04/27/app-store-monthly-subsc...
Hacker news holds Apple and Google to different standards, so I doubt this post will get much traction. (I'm still angry about how I must use an iPhone if I want to be able to text high quality video to people I don't know very well)
Apple has done a much better job at maintaining their stuff compared to Google. Even this list is mostly just old hardware that fell out of service.
And even then, I can still sync my 20+ year old firewire ipod with the most recent Apple Music (formally iTunes) on my m4 MacBook with the right converter.
A lot of the Software listed is just stuff the has a new name or merged into another piece of software now too.
iTunes -> Apple Music
Apple TV Remote App -> Apple TV Remote in Control Center
Dashboard -> Desktop Widgets
Find My Friends -> Find My
iPhoto -> Photos
Game Center app -> Games/Apple Arcade
Newsstand -> Apple News
iChat -> iMessage
Final Cut Studio/Server -> Final Cut Pro
AppleTalk -> AirDrop
as just a few examples.
Well, even looking at the list it's clear that there's huge difference between things killed by apple and by google. E.g. there's lots of hardware for which there's just no genuine market, e.g. iPod touch. I'm surprised it was killed only in 2022. Lots of software was just incorporated into other products. It's completely different compared with what google does.
Right. Like, Apple sold a DVD drive until 2024?
unfortunately they hold it in the wrong direction. At least when it comes to updates and feature retention apple is one of the leaders. Even this website posted here shows that most of the software stuff is just rolled into other native apps instead of being abruptly cancelled (lookin at you google) with no recourse where to go.
> I'm still angry about how I must use an iPhone if I want to be able to text high quality video to people I don't know very well
You’re mad at the wrong people in this case though. iMessage can do high quality video and images because it’s a separate channel from the telecoms. RCS can now do high quality video and images too because it’s a newer standard and was built for that (and iPhones do support RCS now). But for normal “text” messages using the MMS/SMS systems, your quality is capped by the carriers and the carries have ridiculously (relative to current standards) low size limits. AT&T limits them to 1MB [1]. Verizon limits you to 1.2MB for images and 3.5MB for video [2] and T-Mobile limits you to 1MB for outbound and 3MB for inbound. Low quality is just baked into those paths and there’s nothing Apple (or Google) can do about it other than build parallel messaging systems
[1]: https://www.att.com/support/article/wireless/KM1041906/
[2]: https://www.verizon.com/support/knowledge-base-14641/
[3]: https://www.t-mobile.com/support/devices/device-troubleshoot...
Apple has absolutely been dragging its feet on RCS. The DoJ explicitly accused them of degrading cross-platform messaging to protect their smartphone dominance. Internal Apple communications revealed that executives were worried that bringing iMessage to Android would "remove an obstacle to iPhone families giving their kids Android phones."
Apple is clearly the bad guy on the RCS issue.
Google killed more messenger app/services than the entire software count listed in this list. Obviously exaggerating but might be close to true
They removed the speed and pitch adjuster in QuickTime player, some time in the past decade, I forget when. That was a useful feature to me.
It's not on the site, and I don't care _quite_ enough to figure out how to add it.
That's the problem with built-in software that "does it all" and crowds out the market for other software. One day it might not do it all.
(VLC can do this, but not as simply as I used to be able to).
It is still possible to adjust the speed in QuickTime Player: from .5 to 2x. Not available via Quicklook, but definitely there in the player, either in the menu bar or by clicking the >> in the video window.
Many of them are hardware which is understandable.
It would be nice, but perhaps hard to do, to have a list of "sherlocked" apps and services.
Or acquisitions where they immediately killed the product... RIP FingerWorks TouchStream
I've never heard of that product but man, that's an... unfortunate name.
RIP Dark Sky
RIP lala.com
Not supporting old hardware is fine. Forbidding users from updating their hardware themselves is killing it though.
Some of these are like "Find My Friends" which is still a thing, but like the website mentions, was just folded into the Find My app. It's not like Google killing popular services like Reader or trying and failing to get another messaging app off the ground
"Clips"? The lightning connector?
To some of these I say, good riddance.
On the other hand, I spent a lot of time with "iTunes U" as both an engineer on the project and as a user. I was sad to see it shut down. (I made the last code changes to the last version of iTunes U that shipped.)
While on the team, I also did what I could to try to keep iTunes U alive—fight against its pending "sunsetting". The Education team owned iTunes U but we were also trying to find our way with a new app, "Schoolwork". Schoolwork didn't have content like iTunes U—it was more like Canvas. An instructor created assignments with it and then assigned them to their students.
A desperate Hail Mary play I made was to facilitate the bridging of "iTunes U" and "Schoolwork". The idea was that an instructor could assign portions of an iTunes U course within Schoolwork. Links within the assignment would launch iTunes U, take the student to the specific course and then the specific chapter…
I hoped someone might then see what an asset all this free content iTunes U (well, Apple) hosted. (MIT courses on computer science, to name just an example.)
In the end when it was clear we were tilting against windmills trying to keep iTunes U going, I relented and spent time trying to help enable a mechanism that allowed iTunes U content owners to export their courseware to Canvas-style courses. A handful of content owners took us up on that. I don't know ultimately what ever happened to all that content though.
Some of it no doubt ended up on Coursera or similar. But that iTunes U courseware, for the decade or so that it existed, was absolutely free and often top-notch… That will be missed.
And unlike the music, books, movies, the iTunes U content was all free. The most nefarious thing you might try to ascribe to Apple was that they were hoping the free content would somehow sell more iPads…
If anything, this website provides a great track record for Apple. Most of the discontinued products are either ancient or just got rebranded, and many stayed alive way longer than expected (iPod Touches until 2022??!!).
Aperture is the only Apple software I miss. Sometimes I feel they killed 32bits app too soon
The guy who led the Aperture, iPhoto, RAW Camera and Core Image engineering teams (an 18-year Apple veteran) is behind Nitro, which works on macOS, iPadOS and iOS.
https://www.gentlemencoders.com/nitro-for-macos/
I don't know what it would take to replace my iPhone SE 3. I can't come to terms with the losing the home button and the fingerprint scan auth.
Time Capsule ( for iOS ), AirPort Extreme, AirPort Express, WebObjects, Safari for Windows, XServe, Aperture.
These are all the stuff I miss and I wish they would come back.
On iPhone Air, currently at 6.5" gets a Silicon Carbon Battery upgrade, I hope we also get iPhone Air Mini at 5.95". The current iPhone Air still sold better than iPhone Plus. It should continue to stay in the product line.
that is perhaps the Nobel Prize in Clickbait Titles winner for 2026, and it's only May. Well done (not kidding...it's clever)
It's a riff on https://killedbygoogle.com/
But killing a service is something completely different then discontinueing hardware or interface standards. A lot here is still well supported.
This page could have used some heavy editing after asking the LLM to compile all stuff from wikipedia.
Lost it at the Lightning listing, which apple still first party even:
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/muqw3am/a/lightning-to-us...
oh that's fun. had not seen that before: thanks.
Why is Apple Watch series 0 even listed? I can _sort of_ see the argument for discontinued form factors generally even though I'd disagree with it being useful to show, but series 0 wasn't a different form factor even.
A more interesting list of products that Apple still supports in someway or there other: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102772
Maybe add the TV series "Scraper"?
At Gawker, They Battled a Billionaire. 10 Years Later, the Scars Are Still Healing https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/digital/inside-ga...
Jefferson and Read had sold a scripted series to Apple titled Scraper that was based on the inner workings of Gawker, and the quartet, along with a handful of, as Carmichael puts it, “very accomplished, amazing screenwriters and playwrights on Broadway,” were producing scripts for the first season. [...] “Max and I had been concerned about that when we sold the project to Apple,” says Jefferson, but the executives developing the project “told us there was a very protective firewall between the TV side and the tech side.” But a month before the writers room wrapped with scripts for the first season’s eight episodes, Jefferson recalls, “an executive called me and said word had reached Tim Cook that we were doing a show set in a world similar to Gawker, and he had put the kibosh on it personally.” Jefferson and his 3 Arts Entertainment manager Jermaine Johnson (who also represents Read and Carmichael) say they heard about but never saw an email in which Cook allegedly referred to Gawker as rife with “vile human beings.” (Cook did not respond to requests for comment.)
> Apple USB SuperDrive
I dunno, I mean… sigh.
There's stuff that deserves to be noticed, like the Mac Pro. The category is a beefy machine with expansion slots and the ability to run so hard that you need massive cooling. Even if the chips have become far more efficient, there's still space for running something so overpowered that you need physics to cool it. They just gave up on this space and it made some people sad (including me, even if I'm no longer that demographic, because I was for two decades).
And then there's the thing that just stopped mattering to most people because it wasn't relevant anymore. I remember my father, who used to love making mixed CDs in iTunes, asking why MacOS got worse at burning music CDs. I had to tell him that what he wanted wasn't the thing anymore. I essentially told him that he was "holding it wrong." It felt bad. Was that killed by Apple or did the market just move on? I'd argue the latter.
If you want to drive engagement, Killed By Apple isn't a bad name. I think that's basically the sum of the idea and not much else.
Was too puzzled by SuperDrive inclusion.
Like by 2010 you only burned CDs for the stuff what couldn't accept the flash drives ie mostly for the car audio systems. And by 2015 the need for ODD just disappeared though they were still included in servers and desktop PCs out of habit. But by 2020 a 'desktop' PC became SFF/USFF/USDF and you couldn't mount ODD there even if you want (though Lenovo sold mounting bracket for ODD for their Tiny series).
This list can't be serious. Is there single thing on this list that was genuinely killed by Apple, and not just outdated or moved to be a part of other software?
I'd consider the functionality Aperture held to have been killed. I used it for years after 2015 due to a lack of a functional replacement that wasn't a subscription.
It still find myself missing what seems to be basic capabilities while using Photos.
iphone mini. sure you could argue nobody wants it. i agree most other things there were just old, renamed, folded into sth else or obsolete etc.
I’m still waiting for another small form factor iPhone like the iPhone 13 mini before I upgrade. I find it a lot more ergonomic to use
I'm more interested in the technology they've acquired to kill, like buying up every company making assistive technology for the blind and then destroying them to make their facial unlock feature.
Apple killed its soul. I was a happy Apple user around the time of the Apple ][. From there it went downhill.
I dunno, I hated how the Apple ][ forced a case on you. Had more choice before.
The market seems to think otherwise, though?
I'm surprised so many people are ok with not owning the device they paid for, and with being nannied by Apple all the time.
But I know, I'm not the target audience anymore.
Probably because the vast majority of people either don't know a different world outside of mobile, or actively wants to be nannied or a combination of both.
It used to be that there was Android for those who didn't want the Apple way of doing things and wanted more control over their pocket computer, but Google saw how rich Apple got off the walled garden and has been slowly boiling the frog in that direction for years now.
This is a deeply unserious list of things that were just updated to newer versions or made obsolete.
The only thing missing i could find was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashcode which had a pretty great data binding UI that i never quite saw like that.
I think the website would benefit of listing the lifespan regarding support rather than when it stop selling the device. Right now, it lists the Homepod 1st Gen had a lifespan of 3 years, but mine is still receiving updates regularly.
Lots of these items were just moved from the app store into the os. How is that killed? That said, I really miss Dark Sky. Acme weather is good but not quite there yet.
I just want to say Rosetta is still around, it's just not PPC -> Intel anymore. Required for Serato DJ to work as recently as a year or so ago.
I guess that's Rosetta 2, and TFA is referring to Rosetta 1.
But don't worry, Rosetta 2 is also on the chopping block:
> Rosetta was designed to make the transition to Apple silicon easier, and we plan to make it available for the next two major macOS releases – through macOS 27 – as a general-purpose tool for Intel apps to help developers complete the migration of their apps. Beyond this timeframe, we will keep a subset of Rosetta functionality aimed at supporting older unmaintained gaming titles, that rely on Intel-based frameworks.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple-silicon/abou...
Citation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple-silicon/abou...
tl;dr: Rosetta is sticking around through macOS 27. After that, the normal Rosetta will be removed from macOS. but a subset of Rosetta will remain to support certain older unmaintained games.
I miss the home button so much. the facial recognition takes far longer and requires that I hold the phone directly in front of my face.
Forgot to mention John Sculley's reputation.
And Michael Spindler’s mental health. https://lowendmac.com/2013/michael-spindler-peter-principle-...
Truly, the SE was a great phone. It was not really "rolled in" to future phone models; it just ended.
I don't know your definition of "rolled in", but the actual successor to the SE is the e line (iPhone 16e, 17e, etc).
I agree that the SE was a great iPhone and a great form factor. I didn't have one, but my kid did. Whenever I had to do something on their SE, I found it so much more usable than my own whatever Pro phone of that time. It wasn't enough to get me to go to an SE, however.
For people complaining about the quality of the entries of the page, I would encourage you to take a look at the often-cited on this very site https://killedbygoogle.com/ and compare. There we have things like Dopple, "Killed recently, Doppl was an early experimental AI app launched by Google Labs in June 2025 to create a "digital twin" or virtual model of yourself for trying on outfits. It was 10 months old."
The quality of entries on killed by apple seems largely comparable if not higher.
I'm particularly glad the Touch Bar got "killed by Apple".
Mac Studio is the Pro. It should have always been. Mini should be Mac. Studio, Neo, Mini et al fall outside of what makes the Mac line up comprehensive to me. iPad Mini is not mini, it's an iPad 8", like... there is an 11/13" ones. And it should have an M chip because Balatro is so sweet on my 11 Pro and chokes on whatever is in the Mini. There should a Pro version of it with Face ID for a hundo more. I like most about the iPad Mini, but give me Face ID and speed and charge me more for a smaller screen, I am tired rotating the damn thing trying to find where the Touch ID button is. WTH is the iPad Air? Pro sans Face ID and some screen stuff? Don't they pay their people well?
PSA - Ford killed the Model T. Big whoop.
This list includes some things that were killed then brought back. Seems unfair.
RIP to Lala -- I fondly remember listening as much music as I could exactly once
My general impression is that Google is more fickle, but just the same I don't think this is a complete list
Not just fickle but their kills impact more.
Lightning Connector was not killed by Apple though. Not really.
Is there any evidence that it was "years of regulatory and industry pressure" that did it?
When Apple introduced Lightning it was as the "modern connector for the next decade" and... that's exactly what happened.
I personally agree, but the general public seems to think the EU had something to do with it.
Honestly this regulation should never have happened IMHO…
Arguably if anything killed by EU
Still love my Apple Airport Extreme APs. They just work.
I wish they'd bring those back so simple and easy to set up. Could use some more functionality like VPN's and such but otherwise a great product line-up. Now it seems every AP looks like an alien spacecraft.
i'll never forget Nothing Real / Apple Shake
Dark Sky is the one that most grinds my gears. It was one of those unique apps that does something miraculous. Apple bought it and killed it for everybody that didn't use an iphone.
No floppy disk. I guess they didn’t actually kill it with the iMac but they certainly facilitated its death.
that's a laughably small list for a company the size of apple
Hopefully News/News+ will make this list.
> iPhone 5c
> Apple TV Remote app > Apple's official iPhone and iPad app for controlling Apple TV. Pulled from the > App Store after Apple moved the remote into Control Center.
lol
Wow another vibeslopped website on the front of Hacker News, how original!
I'd argue a good use of vibeslop -- a non security critical, fun, UI-centric data presentation website, don't be so cynical :)
I mean it's not as offensive as a lot of other vibe-coded "products", but it's just kind of a waste of everyone's time; there's no ingenuity in the presentation (it suffers from the same emoji-feature-box-small-text combo as every single one-shot vibecoded site in existence) and judging by said presentation I highly doubt the author put the effort into researching this list or writing the comments by themselves either.
So while it's not gonna be the next Moltbook in terms of security breaches, it's basically just the 2026 version of your middle manager copy-pasting a paragraph from ChatGPT web into Slack. It's content from nobody for nobody. It's definitely not what I want to see on the HN front page, but I guess if people get a kick out of it then you do you.
I'm disappointed these keep making it to the front page, but clearly most people here have no taste or standards.
What does it mean for Apple to have "killed" the iPhone X?
A lot better than Google’s track record:
https://killedbygoogle.com/
Reading this, it honestly seems like Apple has keen product insight. Dropping FireWire for TB/USB etc. Killed by Apple but thank god so we can have fewer custom ports. Thank you, Apple.
> Lightning Connector
Good. Apple users are a minority in my local community, yet the vast majority of broken charging ports over the years have been Lightning. Some micro-USB, and zero USB-C problems so far.
The whole premise of this site is very negative and pessimistic in nature. Why the emphasis on "killed", rather than "innovated" or "created"?
The expectation should not be for products to last for ever.
And for each product that happened, more products came after that were inspired by it.
That is also the case for many of the products on the Google killed by lists.
Not everyone has the urge to replace absolutely everything with the same deal but with a positive spin. Lottery factor, unaliving etc.
That's not what I mean. I like having products, but you can't really truly innovate if you insist on keeping products that may not make sense. That's why Google, Apple etc eventually cut products.
Google's list is pretty extreme though.
Ever heard of killedbygoogle.com?