What I'm curious about is if you are on 10.4 or 10.5, you don't have access to the Mac App store , so how would you redeem the promo code they email you? If you are already on 10.6 and have access to the Mac App store, you could just go straight to Mavericks.
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Apple Selling $20 OS X Lion and Mountain Lion in Online Store
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You can't redeem the promo code without getting to (at least) 10.6 Snow Leopard first. I'm not sure why people are even talking about 10.5 and below. It's not mentioned in the original article.
Well, if you run a Mac capable of Mavericks that is still on 10.4, it should have qualified for free 10.5 back in Fall 2007 so your fault if you don't have it. 2007 MBP came out in June 2007 and Apple was pretty lenient as to what serial number got free 10.5 Leopard. From there, you'd have to source 10.6. Ebay, Amazon would be your only option aside from piracy. Maybe a friend who might have it or a local Apple retailer (not an Apple store) who would do you a favour.
I think the question they are trying to ask is "Are there still Macs, which originally shipped with OS X 10.5, capable of running OS X M...
I believe the answer is yes.. The only hardware I believe that has been eliminated so far is the Core Solo and Core Duo Macs (and of course the PPC's)... But I could be wrong....
My early 2009 mini is a Mavericks capable machine.
Didn't know they still sold it. I tried looking for it and couldn't find it on the Canadian store.
I'm sure there are people out there that value compatibility over having the latest thing. If you are in business, you verify all your applications with the latest version of OS X before you upgrade and verification isn't just starting the app once and seeing that it doesn't crash.
"I get still offering Snow Leopard and Lion, but Mountain Lion and Mavericks share the same system requirements.
There's no reason I can think of to run (let alone spend time and money installing) Mountain Lion, now that Mavericks is out...not to mention FREE."
At my uni, our IT crew won't update to new versions too quickly, as things happen, like when Snow Leopard came out as certain core programs for researchers stopped working with the Java thing. So most won't want to upgrade to Mavericks yet, but may be keen to finally try Mountain Lion now that enough patches have been applied. It makes sense to keep previous versions available for some people.
There's no reason I can think of to run (let alone spend time and money installing) Mountain Lion, now that Mavericks is out...not to mention FREE."
At my uni, our IT crew won't update to new versions too quickly, as things happen, like when Snow Leopard came out as certain core programs for researchers stopped working with the Java thing. So most won't want to upgrade to Mavericks yet, but may be keen to finally try Mountain Lion now that enough patches have been applied. It makes sense to keep previous versions available for some people.
I got the run around when trying to upgrade a few of my computers from 10.4. I wanted to get them up to 10.5 or 10.6 at least. They are only used for internet now but some web content does not work properly since they are limited to an older version of flash and other plugins. I tried to purchase a new OS but got caught in a situation where I could not upgrade by internet and physical copies were unavailable at the time.
perfect for those still buying iPad 2s apparently
I find it odd that the iPad 2 and the Mini with Retina 16 GB are the same price... I'm an iPad 2 owner and was thinking about getting a Mini with Retina, and that keeps throwing me for a loop.
More on topic: good call on Apple's part to not rip people off on the older OS's.
Because of incompatible software. For example, Parallels 7 will run on Mountain Lion but not Mavericks. I think Parallels 8 will run on Mavericks, but Parallels is pushing people to upgrade to 9.
I'm sure there are other apps out there that aren't compatible with Mavericks.
I have users on everything from Leopard to Mavericks. It's intriguing which software runs and which breaks when you upgrade.
These models originally shipped with 10.4 and can run 10.9.
- MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Mid 2007)
- iMac (Mid 2007)
There are lots of models introduced between October 2007 and August 2009 which originally shipped with 10.5 and can run 10.9:
- iMac (Early 2008)
- iMac (Early 2009)
- iMac (Mid 2009)
- Mac Mini (Early 2009)
- Mac Pro (Early 2008)
- Mac Pro (Early 2009)
- MacBook (13-inch, Aluminium, Late 2008)
- MacBook (13-inch, Early 2009)
- MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2009)
- MacBook Air (Late 2008)
- MacBook Air (Mid 2009)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Late 2007)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Early 2008)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Late 2008)
- MacBook Pro (17-inch, Early 2009)
- MacBook Pro (13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch, Mid 2009)
- Xserve (Early 2009)
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Apple has been selling Snow Leopard on DVD from the online store for a while.
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A/mac-os-x-106-snow-leopard
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There are several models that can upgrade to 10.7 but not 10.8 or 10.9, due to having 32-bit EFI or older Intel integrated graphics which never got a 64-bit driver. These all have Core 2 Duo or Xeon 64-bit processors.
The following originally shipped with 10.4 and can upgrade to 10.7 but not later:
- iMac (17-inch, 20-inch, Late 2006)
- iMac (24-inch - Late 2006)
- Mac Mini (Mid 2007)
- Mac Pro (original - Mid 2006)
- Mac Pro (8-core - Early 2007)
- MacBook (13-inch, Late 2006)
- MacBook (13-inch, Mid 2007)
- MacBook Pro (15-inch and 17-inch, Core 2 Duo - Late 2006)
- Xserve (Late 2006)
The following originally shipped with 10.5 and can upgrade to 10.7 but not later:
- MacBook (13-inch, Late 2007)
- MacBook (13-inch, Early 2008)
- MacBook (13-inch, Late 2008)
- MacBook Air (original - Early 2008)
- Xserve (Early 2008)
I feel like having other versions of OSX sold on the App Store does the OPPOSITE of encouraging people to use Mavericks... I get it. Make it available, but not obvious.. best of both worlds!
Yes, and also because if you are a developer of Mac apps you need to be able to test your app on older releases of OS X for backward compatibility.
Tempted to build hackintosh, for personal use
I've been interested in building a nice home entertainment center with OSX at the core, a hackintosh computer seemed like a great way to do it but I was hesitant to get started on one. Only because trying to build a system seemed to tiresome to keep updated.
Does everyone remember that Psystar was sued by Apple for selling computers with Leopard installed. Since OSX Maverick is free, can new companies start building and selling their own hackintoshes? If I remember correctly the issue was that Psystar violated end-user license agreement for OSX, but if it is a free OSX is that still a valid issue?
I am excited for the new rMBPs, the MP is outside my price range but a beautiful design. A quad core option in the 13' rMBP would be a personal wish fulfillment, as I travel a lot and the smaller size would be easier to travel and still have the heavy computer power for image and video processing, but the 15' will still make me very happy
I've been interested in building a nice home entertainment center with OSX at the core, a hackintosh computer seemed like a great way to do it but I was hesitant to get started on one. Only because trying to build a system seemed to tiresome to keep updated.
Does everyone remember that Psystar was sued by Apple for selling computers with Leopard installed. Since OSX Maverick is free, can new companies start building and selling their own hackintoshes? If I remember correctly the issue was that Psystar violated end-user license agreement for OSX, but if it is a free OSX is that still a valid issue?
I am excited for the new rMBPs, the MP is outside my price range but a beautiful design. A quad core option in the 13' rMBP would be a personal wish fulfillment, as I travel a lot and the smaller size would be easier to travel and still have the heavy computer power for image and video processing, but the 15' will still make me very happy
Agreed. Safari was acting funky as well on my MBP 17. Boot was slower, and general performance was slower and a bit clunkier with the power saving features, so I didn't hesitate to reload my ML clone back to my MBP.
I'll wait until a couple of point releases and try again, since Mavericks doesn't really give me anything I had to have. I mean, I don't need the features it offers, given my usage patterns at this time.
Plus it takes some of the fun, skeuomorphic styles away for several things, so I'm good as is. Looks like I've found my Snow Leopard.
Now, if only Apple would let me do the same for iOS 6, I'd be even happier. The "no backout" policy for that, well, sucks for those of us who find iOS 7 ugly...I mean...not to our liking. I'd buy iOS 6 for 20 bucks.
I'm curious to see if Apple will allow future hardware to run older OSes. I doubt it, but I wonder if there would be actual hw limitations that would prevent this. As it is, I need to grab another 17in MBP before they disappear completely; it is the perfect laptop for me and I've reached a point where I just don't see me needing any other PC; it's analogous to an old pickup truck, it does what I need it to, but I use the car (tablet) for most things.
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Maybe by chance the ability to redownload them is fixed. Yesterday I would hit "download" for Mountain Lion and it just had a grayed out box after clicking that and it was never initiated.
Well I don't really think anything in the "below" category is compatible.
I tried as well with the same result, and again today, still not working.