Q about upgrading from Snow Leopard

[Greenone]

Hello,

I have a MacBook Pro5, 3, using OS X 10.6.8. I think I may have gotten it new in 2009. I have the iphone 6 Plus coming and I know it'll have all this new fancy software. I've never been able to use iCloud cause all my software's too old, and besides I figure it's time to upgrade my Mac software so everything will work more smoothly with the iphone and vice-versa.

Can I just download the latest thing? What is it...Yosemite? I thought I read somewhere in the past that you can't just jump ahead like that - that you have to get the software you missed, before getting the latest. That seems silly though (hopefully I misunderstood what I'd read)!

I just don't know what to do and googling didn't give me any results. I backed everything up on my external HD as a first step, but now what? I also see that there's this Mavericks. Do I get that? Now, or after upgrading to something else first, if at all? Sorry to be so danged ignorant.

Thanks!

 

[atvusr]

First: Yosemite is the newest OS X (10.10). But it's still in Beta-status now and will be released probably mid-end of October 2014. It is the perfect companion for the new iPhone 6 (i.e. the 'Continuity' feature).

The 15-inch MacBook Pro is generally supported by Yosemite since Model mid/late 2007, but for the 'Continuity' feature you need a Mac with Bluetooth LE.

When Yosemite has been released, go into the Mac App Store on your MacBook Pro and download the Yosemite Installer (approx. 5 GB) for free.

You don't need the predecessors - simply make a clean install then. See the Thread here to create a USB Install Medium via the Terminal command 'createinstallmedia'.

Backup all your data, erase the Snow Leopard Partition and make a clean install from the USB-Drive then.

Please mind that 10.6 Snow Leopard was the last OS X which has supported the Rosetta Emulation. OS X from 10.7 onwards is not capable to run older programs written only for PowerPC Macs.