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If I were to venture an educated guess, I imagine this is related to accounting rule changes passed a few years ago, similar to how iOS updates for iPod touches required a paid upgrade. But, it doesn't explain why they're only just now getting around to it for these two releases.
 
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Just another money grabbing move from Apple! (you KNOW someone’s going to spin it that way :)
Forcing people to buy old Macs in order to use the FREE software. We’re ONTO you, Apple!
The switch to free updates came along with a change in Device accounting that accounted for the value of those updates being incorporated.
 
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I was one of many no doubt that was threatening to sue them. I paid for it many years ago and then was being told I had to pay for it again to download it. I urinate on Apple. I won’t buy their products any more. They poked me in the eye with this when I needed to rebuild a boot drive and lost my business forever. I was able to get around their ******** by using Dossudes method to bootstrap an OS update. When I have more time I will be downgrading to Snow leopard or one of the other option simply to use my final cut pro software. It was a tragic mistake to ever buy any Apple software. I am fed up with forced updates that break everything I rely on.
 
The switch to free updates came along with a change in Device accounting that accounted for the value of those updates being incorporated.

came here to say this - i remember steve jobs talking about this either in a product intro keynote or on an investor conference call.

there was something like this around iPhone as well, but i don't actually remember them charging for an iOS update. they may have changed this policy just to avoid having to charge for iOS. i do remember them worrying out loud about it at some point early in the days of the iPhone.

although this is good news, is it really a good idea to be using old OSs like this on internet-connected computers? there must be a zillion bugs in all of these OSs that are exploitable. i get it that you can't run anything else than these OSs on old hardware though.
 
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"Apple also used to have OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard available for a fee, but it is no longer purchasable."

Thankfully for those of us in the UK we can still grab a copy for 20 quid from CEX...

View attachment 1800126
I have a copy of that on DVD - I paid $30 at the Apple Store, way back when, when I was thinking about building a Hackintosh on a Dell laptop. I never could get that working, but I still have Snow Leopard.
 
Does nobody else find this odd?
Untitled.png
 
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This thread is chock full of "gimme for free!" thinking.

Current OSs are not "free". You get them "for free" with a device purchase, so that revenue is what helps to finance the current and future OS development.

There is no revenue supporting older OS's. Why should Apple have to pay for staff, support and bandwidth without getting a single dollar? Apple is a business, not a charity.
what in the hell are you talking about — as long as you have a mac — os is free. if you have the same mac for 5 years — you get all the new os downloads for free. and you used to have to pay for every new version of osx.
 
Wait... you had to pay for these for the last decade meanwhile the newer macOS variants were free?
This came up recently in a different thread. Blame Enron. The Sarblanes-Oxley Act means you can’t add a feature you didn’t originally offer after the sale is complete. Apple gets around this by treating hardware sales as a subscription. If you pay $240 for a new pair of AirPods they take it all up front but only declare it in financials as revenue in $10 per month increments. Then, because it’s still being paid for they can add new features with less restrictions.

We also saw this when Apple charged $0.99 for the 802.11N update to airport and for FaceTime for Mac (since it wasn’t part of the OS at launch).
 
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What @onetruevu said.
I hope they clarify this because my lady uses a 2015(?) iMac at her business and her computer is pretty darn slow and it might be worth to revert back to an older OS instead of having to buy a new computer.
 
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Good to see Apple is still supporting the older OSes.
They aren’t supporting it, you can’t get security updates for them at all. They are just giving it to people who want to use it.


I hope they clarify this because my lady uses a 2015(?) iMac at her business and her computer is pretty darn slow and it might be worth to revert back to an older OS instead of having to buy a new computer.
If she’s connected to the internet, it’s a bad idea. No security updates and for a business, that’s really bad.
 
It won’t install on my M1 Mac!
That’s only because Apple is forcing you to still have an Intel Mac in order to use this software. They want you to own an M1 Mac, an Intel Mac, an iPad, an iPod, an iPhone, an iPhone Pro, an iPac, an iPad Pro, an Intel Mac Pro, an iMac, an Apple Watch, an M1 iMac, an Intel iMac… umm… they’re just forcing folks to have all their stuff and it’s wrong.

/s
 
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Mac OS X Mountain Lion is compatible with the following Macs:
  • iMac (Mid 2007-2020)
  • MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
  • Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
  • Xserve (Early 2009)

This list doesn't seem right. Can a 2020 iMac really run ML?

Shouldn't the dates be "or older"? Macs newer than the OS are not able to run it
 
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I hope they clarify this because my lady uses a 2015(?) iMac at her business and her computer is pretty darn slow and it might be worth to revert back to an older OS instead of having to buy a new computer.
if its a 21" model Its most likely because it has a slow 5400RPM HDD, even a 27" may have shipped with just a spinning HDD, A 3rd party AASP (i.e. not the apple store) could install an SSD and give you a lot better performance when opening apps and paging RAM data to the internal drive, instead of buying a new machine. that way you can run the current OS and get all the latest security updates. Just keep in mind 2015 models are starting to go Vintage and will soon stop receiving software updates. May want to weigh that against a new system
 
Mac OS X Mountain Lion is compatible with the following Macs:
  • iMac (Mid 2007-2020)
  • MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
  • Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
  • Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
  • Xserve (Early 2009)

This list doesn't seem right. Can a 2020 iMac really run ML?

Shouldn't the dates be "or older"
you can run it in a VM like Parallels, VMWare, or Virtual box like I do with every version of macOS since 10.5
 
They aren’t supporting it, you can’t get security updates for them at all. They are just giving it to people who want to use it.



If she’s connected to the internet, it’s a bad idea. No security updates and for a business, that’s really bad.

Good call, I totally didn't even think about the security update aspect. I was somehow assuming that would be up to date.

if its a 21" model Its most likely because it has a slow 5400RPM HDD, even a 27" may have shipped with just a spinning HDD, A 3rd party AASP (i.e. not the apple store) could install an SSD and give you a lot better performance when opening apps and paging RAM data to the internal drive, instead of buying a new machine. that way you can run the current OS and get all the latest security updates. Just keep in mind 2015 models are starting to go Vintage and will soon stop receiving software updates. May want to weigh that against a new system

Yeah pretty sure its a 21" model. I was suggesting she just sell the iMac for a few hundred, then just pick up the new M1 mac mini and a screen and she would be solid.
 
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