Mountain Lion update page confirms incompatibility with older Macs

Why is virtually the same story that was posted on CultOfMac… also linking to the less-informative page where this stuff is detailed?

http://www.apple.com/osx/specs/

That's where you can learn everything. How to upgrade is just… how… to upgrade.

Oooo... Right on the cusp of eligibility!

so no black macbook?

Which side of the cusp?

I am going to have one splintered OS family in my household.

 

My 2006 MacPro 1,1 will end its journey at Lion. My MacBook Air currently runs Mountain Lion (DP). However, I need to keep my company MacBook Pro at Snow Leopard.

 

I'm sure all those cats will get along. 

I've an idea for 10.9.

Snow Mountain Leopon. Works sort of like 'Snow Mountain Syndrome'.

Take the best things about Mountain Lion (feature set) and the best things about Snow Leopard (it's wicked fast and incredibly optimized) and combine them. One last spectacular hurrah for the mouse+keyboard combo before…

I'm in a similar boat. My original intel 20" iMac's last eligible upgrade was SL...no Lion or ML for me. I do have an iP4s and an iPad 2 though.

 

I recently went into an Apple store to look at my website on an iMac and I have to say...the subtle changes to the OS in Lion, Safari, etc., are really neat. But I don't think another iMac is in my future. Maybe an 11" MBA though. Shame.

 

The "How to upgrade" page also tells users how to check which Mac they have so they know if they will be able to upgrade. 

I love my iMac much more than my Air- but of course, I sit at a desk 95% of the time.  The cloud features are fantastic if you use your contact and calendars often.  I use them daily for business, and I can't tell you the convenience I now have updating client information in my address book, and my wife scheduling my appointments (or telling me when I have to be at a family function) on my calendar. 

 

No way.

 

OSX 10.9 Liger!

 

 

Also: what amazing new graphical improvements are to be found in Mountain Lion versus Lion, that would make 2008 models no longer compatible? Aside for the ridiculous and useless notification bar, what's changed?

Uh-oh.. Not supporting some three years old hardware sounds like heavy code to me..
Anyone running Mountain Lion here?
Is it snappy and optimised?

 

MacBookPro 3,1 = Mid/Late 2007.

 

I got it on close-out in early 2008 and saved several hundred dollars, but at the risk of getting something a tad out of date (it was superseded by an identical-looking MBP with a minor processor spec bump). In this case, my MBP meets the minimum requirement. Still a great laptop.

 

There's only one logical choice for OS 10.9:

 

Yeah, snow leopard had optimimised code at its heart! Lion is incredibly sloppy compared to Snow Leopard. I hope they get the attitude back with Mountain Lion... rather than waiting for 10.9 pink panther or whatever.

He he.. Makes me wonder.. Are iOS versions named after birds?

 

Running the GM of Mountain Lion now on my 2009 13" MBP, and while it's not what I'd call snappy, it's miles ahead of Lion in the fact that it doesn't crash every five minutes, and it seems like they've finally fixed that photo scrolling bug, in which pictures would go all whacky while scrolling down the webpage. The best analogy I can come up with is Mountain Lion is to Lion what Windows 7 was to Vista.

 

The only real annoyance is the new Sandbox architecture for apps, which while good for security in the long run, sucks right now because most apps haven't been updated to support it. Case in point: Toast can't see my superdrive, so I can't burn DVD's at the moment. Once the program API's are updated, everything should be right as rain.

Cost to Apple to update integrated graphics drivers to 64-bit: $50,000

 

Cost to 1000 customers forced to upgrade their still useful hardware: $1,000,000

 

Benefit of this policy to Apple executives and shareholders: $1,050,000

 

Apple to customers: "Screw you."

 

Customers to Apple: ?????

The MacPro1,1 and MacPro2,1 do not have integrated Intel graphics and cannot run Mountain Lion. The problem is primarily the 64-bit kernel needing 64-bit EFI. Apple has stated this and has not stated it having anything to do with specific GPU's.

Great chart! I hope Apple moves away from cats and starts aiming towards Science and/or Astronomy. Lots of cool names to choose from!

I also liked that black hole for the trash icon in the NeXT OS.

OSX 10.9 Panzerkampfwagen VI Ausführung H !

I wonder what the limitations are that prevent the older Macs from running ML?? Does ML require THAT much horsepower just to haul it around?

 

Too bad, my old late 2006 MBP is still running like it was new. However I never did upgrade it from Leopard since it only has 2Gb of RAM. I wasn't too sure it would be very spunky on the newer OSX versions.

Is my MBP Retina covered?

 

 

Did this make anyone else besides me scratch their heads? 

All intel Macs can run Snow Leopard. I do not understand the point they are trying to make with this paragraph. 

Edited by l008com - 7/12/12 at 3:17am

By the way this new forum totally sucks. I can't edit my posts, it took me 10 minutes to find where the sig editor is. It does all this crazy inline editing bullshit. Like OS spell check is over written by the forums built in copy and paste functions. Why would you even need copy and pasted built into the web app when every OS natively supports copy and paste. This sucks. FYI.

 

Mathematical Wall updating Chipsets that aren't OpenGL 3.x, PRICELESS.

Absolutely nothing to do with that at all. Upgraded Mac Pros don't work when they have GPUs that support OpenGL 4.

It's an entirely artificial limitation, as per usual with Apple, trying to force people to upgrade. Only thing is, there's so little in ML that people really need, they're not gonna plonk down $2000+ to upgrade a perfectly usable (and fast) 2006/7 Mac Pro to some "new" Mac Pro that's not been updated in years, which may well end up being unsupported three years down the line. Back in the classic OS period, Macs were supported for 7 years or more, now you're lucky to get 4. Windows 8 can run on 10 year old Machines, because Microsoft doesn't add in artificial limitations.

There's no reason Apple couldn't either fix the firmware on the Mac Pros they claimed back in 2006/7 to be fully 64 bit, to really be fully 64 bit, or include a 32 bit kernel with ML. It's possible to run 64 bit Windows and Linux on the 32 bit EFI systems, so why can't Apple get OS X to run?

 

Aren't pumas and mountain lions the same animal?  I think we're just getting a reworked version of OS X 10.1 this month!

Forced to upgrade? You mean Apple is holding a gun to your head or your 5+ year old Mac will suffer a seizure and stop working on the day ML comes out?

To quote from an Ars Technica article concerning Windows 8 minimum requirements, "there’s a wide gap between a system that can run Windows 8 and a system that can run it well." From their perspective, the run it well machines would be in the neighborhood of 5 years old and earlier. I've been running Windows 8 preview on a Dell Inspiron e1705, circa 2007 and I'd classify it as run it mediocre. As such, I'd be reticent to tout Microsoft's support for old machines.

Even Macs that can run Mountain Lion are not all able to enjoy all the features. Many 2010 Macs that can install 10.8 still won't be able to run Air Display to mirror the Mac screen via Apple TV to their HDTVs. I was looking forward to that but sadly have a mid 2010 MBP.
Edited by digitalclips - 7/12/12 at 4:54am

It is horrible to use on an iPad!

The longer they continue to distribute both a 32-bit kernel and a 64-bit kernel, the longer they'll need to spend money developing for and testing both configurations.  By limiting themeslves to only the 64-bit code base, they can be more agile responding to future maintenance of the product, while at the same time needing to devote fewer development resources to the task.

 

Apple supports booting 64-bit Windows on a 64-bit-CPU/32-bit-EFI Mac via Boot Camp because the 32-bit EFI first boots into a BIOS emulation layer, and then the BIOS emulator boots 64-bit Windows.  The same technique can be used to install 64-bit Linux on a 64-bit-CPU/32-bit-EFI Mac.  In this case, a second-stage bootloader (aka the BIOS emulation layer) interfaces directly with the EFI, and then reverts the CPU back to the legacy 16-bit real mode before loading the real operating system.  Once the operating system has made it into its true 64-bit operating mode, all of the legacy runtime services which would have been provided by the 16-bit BIOS have been replaced by OS-specific 64-bit implementations.

 

Windows supports booting directly from EFI only if you're using UEFI 2.0 or above, and only if it's a 64-bit UEFI.

 

Linux usually does not directly boot from either EFI or from BIOS; instead, a second-stage bootloader (like GRUB) is booted directly, and then Linux is loaded from there.  GRUB supports booting from either 32-bit EFI or 64-bit EFI, but the specific version of GRUB you boot from must be compiled to match the version of EFI:  a 32-bit version of GRUB for a 32-bit EFI, and a 64-bit version of GRUB for 64-bit EFI.  If you then boot into a 64-bit Linux, then that operating system will not be able to interface with any of the runtime services (http://wiki.phoenix.com/wiki/index.php/EFI_RUNTIME_SERVICES) provided by a 32-bit EFI.  (There is work on bypassing the second-stage bootloader to boot directly from EFI to Linux, but it is probably best identified as "experimental" at present.)

Edited by lfmorrison - 7/12/12 at 5:26am

Oh, good. So if there's nothing that users of older systems need, there's no harm in the fact that they can't upgrade. I'm glad you established right from the start that you're whining about something that isn't a big deal.

Of course there's a reason. It costs money, diverts resources from other projects, and adds complexity. Supporting 2 kernels is time consuming, expensive, and error prone.

I don't doubt that Apple considered that and weighed the advantages against the disadvantages - and concluded that continuing to upgrade the older hardware isn't worth the effort. Part of that is undoubtedly the fact that people with older hardware tend not to be as quick to upgrade as people with newer hardware. If they haven't upgraded to Lion, why would you expect them to upgrade to ML?

Yes, you can look at it that way. The other way to look at it is that part of the reason OS X is a better choice than Windows is that they don't make an effort to support every POS hardware that has ever been created. At some point, the benefits are too small to outweigh the disadvantages. Supporting older Macs costs money that could better be spent on developing new stuff. It creates problems that affect everyone - not just those who use the older kernel. It adds complexity which slows everything down.

Besides, it's pretty much a moot point. Systems that don't have a 64 bit EFI (like my 2006 MBP) didn't run Lion, either. So if you managed without upgrading to Lion, inability to upgrade to SL probably isn't a big deal - at least for people who don't make a career out of whining about Apple's every move.

Oh, and if you want to talk about costs, let's talk about the people who actually DO upgrade. OSX - $19.99 which you can install on every Mac you own (for personal use). Windows - could be up to 10 times that amount or more, depending on which version - and that's PER computer. So instead of whining about the potential cost for someone who probably wasn't going to upgrade, anyway, why not talk about the costs for the people who actually will do so?

Which eliminates PPC Macs - but they were eliminated a long time ago. If your system can't run SL, then it's hopelessly ancient and you probably weren't going to upgrade, anyway. How many people with systems too old to run SL would even be considering ML?

I've seen quite a few people saying how well it runs on their old machines, actually. People've been running it on P4s and it's pretty speedy.

Of course Apple's so strapped for cash they can't hire a couple of devs to fix/compile/test the 64 bit kernel on 32-bit EFI machines. The kernel doesnt really change much between releases anyway, so there wouldn't be that much to test. It's mainly the frameworks above the kernel that are modified.

Why was Apple advertising the Mac Pros in 2006 as full 64-bit machines when they weren't? I smell a class action lawsuit ahead. As others have said, if a couple of script kiddies can get ML working without source code on a 1,1/1,2 Mac Pro, why can't Apple do it officially? I am aware of how the BIOS emulation works, but I'm sure Apple could get the 64 bit kernel loaded from a 32 bit EFI if they put their minds to it. They've done some pretty impressive feats in the past, on much less capable hw/sw.

Apple needs to be careful, people pay the "Apple tax" because they expect their machine to be reliable and have a long life; if after a couple of years they starts ditching customers that've spent thousands on a Mac, it's not going to go down too well. It does seem the Mac is getting more and more neglected (400 days without an iMac update?) in favour of iPad and iPhone. Apple's Mac market is small, they can't go about slapping loyal customers in the face lest they lose what share they have. Windows is really starting to look mighty good to many a Mac owner.

You obviously care enough about it to "whine" in the other direction. What about devs who want to write iOS apps? If Apple's previous actions are anything to go by, the version of Xcode released after ML won't support Lion, so devs're going to need a new Mac to submit apps to Apple. Another artificial limitation to try to force people to fork out more for new hardware.

That's silly. They're supporting machines 4 years old and newer.

Since very few people upgrade older computers, anyway, it's really a non-issue.

I'm not whining about anything - but rather pointing out the flaws in your logic.

As a developer, the cost is minimal. A Mac Mini is $599 and you can sell the old one for $400. So a couple hundred dollars every couple of years. And that even assumes that your negative assumptions are true.

In return for minor inconvenience (inability to upgrade hardware that I never intended to upgrade, anyway and a slight cost for developers), we get the best, most stable, most efficient, most usable consumer OS on the planet. Most Mac users are happy with that trade-off.

I think you'll find many people with a $5000 Mac Pro 1,1 are on Lion. Even the oldest Mac Pros are fast, faster than some of Apple's latest machines. My Mac Pro 1,1 runs Rage at 40fps no problem, but it needs Lion. What happens when apps are updated to require ML, and autoupdate and break like Apple's botched iPhoto update few weeks back? As I said before and you ignored, why could they support machines for 7 years in the classic era, but not now on a modern OS?

Oh dear! A friend running ML GM tells me a Mac MBP 2010 running Lion with Final Cut Studio and Aperture 3 running, when updated to Mountain Lion GM continues to run both fine. However a fresh installation of ML on the same MBP refuses to install either.

Update. I suggested turning off auto graphic switching ... Waiting to hear if that helped.
Edited by digitalclips - 7/12/12 at 6:58am