Apple cuts OS X Mountain Lion support for some older Macs
The release of OS X Mountain Lion is rapidly approaching. It’ll happen sometime this month, so you’ll be able to purchase, download, and install the latest iteration of Apple’s desktop operating system soon – if you own a supported Mac.
Apple released the list of Macs that support Mountain Lion, and you can read that list right here:
- iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
- 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)
If your Mac is on the list, you’ll be ready to upgrade when Mountain Lion is released this month. However, there are quite a few Intel-based Macs that aren’t on the list. Apple didn’t say anything about its reasons for dropping support for any of the Macs not included in the list, but Ars Technica believes it comes down to graphics drivers and chipsets.
All of the unsupported Macs use GPUs with 32-bit drivers, not 64-bit. Mountain Lion works with every Mac that runs 64-bit hardware – not 32-bit – so any Mac that is incapable of doing so is now unsupported.
[MacRumors | Ars Technica]
