2007 Mac Mini Mountain Lion?

Hey Mac nerds (definitely a good way!),

I have a request for some more information. Here is my situation.

My son, who is 7, has a fascination with creating apps. I want to be able to hone him into those abilities so for christmas, I decided to go on craigslist and purchase him a mac mini. All of my research, obviously not enough, pointed me to be able to create apps on at LEAST a 2007 mac mini.

I found out, after christmas, that 2007 mac mini cant be upgraded past 10.7. Well I found the forum https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1325709/ on upgrading a mac mini to 10.8. Here is my question.

I have a 2007 Mac mini 2,1, 64 bit processor, intel core 2 duo. In theory, my mac has the potential to run a 10.8 OS. Will that guide help me with that or am I at a loss? Then if I upgraded to 10.8, if able, then can I get the other updates such as 10.8.1 and so on? Thanks guys!

(Normally a windows user with iPhones and iPads. I love mac but this is frustrating. I want to upgrade to help get apps out there from my son and I! Any and all info is helpful! Thanks again!

Altemose said:

Why not start him with Lion and as his needs grow upgrade to a newer Mac. Xcode is still available for Lion, and Lion is still widely supported.

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Altemose, I read that the apple stores isn't accepting apps created in Lion anymore. If this isn't true then I can definitely upgrade to Lion and have him start there. He wants to create games for kids and of course, i will have to code it for him but I really want him to create apps for the app store. So as long as the store still accepts xcode written from Lion then I'm game! (Currently working with 10.6.8 right now.)