MacOS future ???

[woody649]

I've been operating in the Windows universe since I was forced into the "personal computing" world by my employer back around 1984. I know that Windows 11 has just come out,and that a great many current computers (all of mine included) won't run Windows 11. I have until October 14, 2025, to decide how to respond to that.

I'm writing something about computers and upgrades, and I need to be able to address the Mac world, but I don't know enough to even know what I don't know. The concern is: for future upgradeability (if that's a word), how much of a difference does hardware make? MacOS was named "10.xx" (alongside Apple's cutesy code names) from MacOS X (10.0) in 2001 through MacOS 10.15 in 2019. From 2011 onward the MacOS has seen a version update annually. Starting in 2020 Apple abandoned the "10.xx" nomenclature, calling it MacOS 11 in 2020 and MacOS 12 in 2021.

What advice would you give someone who is looking to get a start with a Mac on a budget? If buying a used Mac, how old can you go and still be assured that the computer will be able to run current and anticipated software and get security updates for at least ... oh, say five years or so?

Thanks.