Yosemite on Macbook Air 2017 (silent upgrade)

[mrkapqa]

Hello ,

i was thinking on buying an Macbook Air and my preferred choice fell on the 2015 model as it was released with Yosemite 10.10.x i believe.

it seems that in the meantime Apple made an "silent upgrade" to the MBA Lineup and sells with an somewhat boosted or upgraded processor.

My question is if i would buy this 2017 model, would i still be able to install Yosemite on it (VERY important).


Thank you

Richard

 

[Glmnet1]

Not through any official means. You could run it on a VM or use some workaround but then you could end up with driver issues.

Why do you need Yosemite? A specific app that doesn't work on HS or afraid of using the latest OS after reading forum complaints?

 

[mrkapqa]

Hello, thanks for your answer.

Yes, i have my "favorite setup" on SL/Lion which acts still beautifully on Mavericks, little less elegant on Yosemite , and is broken on ElCapitan. (it has to do with Quicktime Plugin being disabled).

As the machine is really the same it seems, besides the processor that went up from 1.6 to 1.8 Ghz, i am wondering why it should not be possible, even by official means. I do have an Yosemite installation media on USB.

 

[oldhifi]

I have El Captain on a external disk running on my 2009 IMac, but it will not install it on my IMac HD, I thought about wiping out my HD and see if it will

 

[mrkapqa]

I have El Captain on a external disk running on my 2009 IMac, but it will not install it on my IMac HD, I thought about wiping out my HD and see if it will

i too have an Imac early 2009 and ElCapitan installs, but not Sierra. I prefer Mavericks as it does not have an SSD yet, so it is more speedy, overall. But ElCapitan is also fine, only taxes the GPU bit more, which can be problematic on my Model (which has a famous GeForce GT130 GPU that is prone to overheating)

 

[oldhifi]

i too have an Imac early 2009 and ElCapitan installs, but not Sierra. I prefer Mavericks as it does not have an SSD yet, so it is more speedy, overall. But ElCapitan is also fine, only taxes the GPU bit more, which can be problematic on my Model (which has a famous GeForce GT130 GPU that is prone to overheating)

Don't know, I think I will have to wipe Macintosh HD and install El Captain..Apple had made this so hard..

 

[MSastre]

If you want to keep Yosemite, but still want a new Macbook Air, get an external drive and make a bootable clone using SuoerDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. Then whenever you need the apps that only work with Yosemite, you can boot from the external to use them. It's always good to have bootable cloned system drives anyway.

 

[mrkapqa]

I have El Captain on a external disk running on my 2009 IMac, but it will not install it on my IMac HD, I thought about wiping out my HD and see if it will

i don't know , either, it seems if you are on a lower OS, lower than Mavericks, you would need to upgrade in steps, but i am not sure about this. There is this security system in ElCapitan that sometimes inhibits the direct upgrade to ElCapitan, although the system might be eligible. You should find information about that on the net.

You can also make a direct USB Stick with ElCapitan on it once you downloaded an installer, using this donationware
http://diskmakerx.com/

Then you should be able to make easily a clean install after you wiped your entire disk.
[doublepost=1524763519][/doublepost]

If you want to keep Yosemite, but still want a new Macbook Air, get an external drive and make a bootable clone using SuoerDuper or Carbon Copy Cloner. Then whenever you need the apps that only work with Yosemite, you can boot from the external to use them. It's always good to have bootable cloned system drives anyway.

yes, thanks, but i would prefer to install Yosemite directly onto it, it should not be so difficult, my understanding is that it is the same machine, same internals, only better CPU, so why should it not function?

 

[MSastre]

If the new one comes with HS, you will have to boot from your old system clone before you can clone it back to the new machine. Advise to clone both new and old before putting old system on new machine's drive. To clone the old system to the new, you must first boot from the old, then erase the hard drive then clone old to the new. CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper will make bootable clones of your system.

 

[Macdctr]

The speed boost applies to the i5 processors (1.6GHz to 1.8GHZ). The 2.2GHz i7 processors from the 2015 model thru 2017 models are the same logic board from a functionality standpoint as far as I know. My "2015" 13-inch MBA 2.2GHz i7 logic board just turned 1 years old this week.

 

[mrkapqa]

How do you enjoy your experience with the Macbook Air? Do you have enough space on your desktop? How is the battery life on the i7 model with Yosemite? Am attracted to this model because it seems to offer a good typing experience when compared to the newer ones with the flat keys. How would you rate audio-quality for playback ?

 

[Macdctr]

How do you enjoy your experience with the Macbook Air?

Of the other Mac laptops I own and use (15" MBPr i7 2.7GHz / 13" MBP i7 2.9GHz), I tend to use my 13" MBA the most. Not sure if it's because my MBA is my newest acquisition or that it is very light and powerful enough to do whatever I wish. I have a Samsung 950PRO NVMe M.2 512GB drive installed and so far it has been more than plenty for my use.

Do you have enough space on your desktop?

Compared to my 15" MBPr the 13" has much smaller size but I am currently running SwitchResX and am able to change the resolution of my 13" display and so far I have no complaints using my MBA. Here is the link to get SwitchResX: http://www.madrau.com/

How is the battery life on the i7 model with Yosemite?

I don't know about Yosemite but using the 2013 or later MBA you have incredibly long battery life (13+ hrs usage) so I would guess that since you're hellbent on using Yosemite you should also enjoy long battery life.

One thing to point out is that if you're getting a 2017 MBA there is a possibility that you might not be able to install Yosemite on it because of the identifier on the computer. The installer checks the computer identifier against it's list of installable computers and if the installer ID from your computer does not match against the installer's list then you're unable to install the OS. You can try installing Yosemite but in the event you can't this is why...
EDIT: I stand corrected

Am attracted to this model because it seems to offer a good typing experience when compared to the newer ones with the flat keys. How would you rate audio-quality for playback ?

I have seen the newer Mac laptop offerings and although the new style keyboards look cool, I prefer the feel of the keyboards found on the MBA. The audio playback from any laptop is crap however with that said, you have decent audio output from the 13" MBA as compared to the other laptops that Apple sells. For real audio quality, you're better off getting a really good set of headphones or external computer speaker/amp setup.

 

[iMacC2D]

My question is if i would buy this 2017 model, would i still be able to install Yosemite on it (VERY important).

This is one instance where I believe the answer is yes.

When the MacBook Air was updated from the 2015 to 2017 revision, Apple essentially bumped the processor from 1.6GHz to 1.8GHz, but kept the architecture the same (Intel Broadwell), the motherboard identifier the same (Apple Inc. Mac-937CB26E2E02BB01) and the machine identifier the same (MacBookAir7,2). Even the Boot ROM versions are the same.

The only identifier that differentiates between a 2015 and 2017 model in About This Mac is the machine serial number. (It checks this serial number with Apple to get the model name, hence why it won't display the specific year and model in About This Mac without an internet connection.)

So essentially other than the spec bump, the 2017 MacBook Air is the 2015 model, and should retain the same OS compatibility as the 2015 revision. I also recall booting Yosemite on a 2017 model MacBook Air without any issues.

 

[Macdctr]

@ iMacC2D thanks for your clarification.