At its Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco 2014, Apple announced the latest version of its desktop Mac OS: OS X Yosemite. After much anticipation this was the largest overhaul of Mac OS X in ten years and it was released in October of that year with few problems for the majority of users. But can your Mac actually run it?
If your Mac can run Mavericks and Mountain Lion, it will be able to run Yosemite as the system requirements are exactly the same for all three. This means that the hardware requirements for Apple’s latest Mac operating system has not changed for two years. If you are running earlier versions of Mac OS X of course you are quite possibly still in luck.
Here is a list of Macs that will run Yosemite:
- MacBook Pro: mid-2007 or newer
- MacBook Air: late 2008 or newer
- Mac Pro: early 2008 or newer
- MacBook: late 2008 aluminum, early 2009 or newer
- Mac Pro: early 2008 or newer
- iMac: mid-2007 or newer
- Mac mini: early 2009 or newer
- Xserve: early 2009
Yosemite is the current version of Mac OS X, and is a free download available through the App Store.
As time marches on your current version of the operating system is only updated by Apple for so long. Eventually (after about 3 years) Apple demote your system to ‘legacy’ status and stop providing updates to allow it to use the latest innovations. Software and web developers will usually carry on supporting your system for a while longer, but eventually the world moves on and your system unfortunately gets left behind. Currently the oldest system that is likely to work with pretty much any website or major piece of software is version 10.7, Lion. If you have a system older than this (Mac OS X 10.6.8 Snow Leopard or older) you should seriously consider upgrading as you will find things like Adobe Flash Player will no longer have updates to run on your system, and web sites like BBC iPlayer that use such software won’t work without the latest update.
The Mac Whisperer provides a hassle free service to upgrade your computer for a flat fee of £50* including pre- and post-upgrade checks and a full backup. If your machine can’t run Yosemite don’t despair! We can also upgrade to earlier Mac OS versions if necessary, potentially giving your computer many years more life. Get in touch for a free consultation and see how you can keep your Mac running for longer.
