Re: What if there actually IS a new Mac Pro?

[Craig Seeman] "Apple has done this for some time. I remember doing a system hack to fool Leopard into installing on a Dual 800 G4. There were those who found FCPX installing on ATI 1900 systems even though it wasn't on the recommended list with FCPX 10.0.0. I believe some prevously compatible systems (maybe only "unofficial) dropped of the list as well."

So that's nothing new, like you said. I don't think Apple needs to have people throw out their Macs every two years to be successful, and they don't drop support for three year old Macs on any given rev to OS X. Lion dropped support for 2006-vintage Macs in 2011, a 5 year backfill. Mountain Lion might be a little more aggressive than that, but the supported list hasn't been finalized to say for sure.

FCPX is an outlier, since it relies so heavily on many new aspects of OS X, but most apps don't, even Apple's own. In most other cases, any given Mac will have broad software support for 4-5 years. That's a good long life for a computer.

Best,
Andy