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Oops! Maybe Your Mac Won't Be Able to Run Mountain Lion!

This article is more than 10 years old.

If your Apple Mac isn't in the list below you may be in for a big disappointment when the next version of Apple's OS X, code named "Mountain Lion", is released later this month.

Here's the list of Macs that will be able to upgrade:

  • 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)

Apple's Upgrade Your Mac to Mountain Lion page outlines the upgrade but you'll have to check out an Ars Technica article for the reasons why certain machines are exclude. In summary:

Apple has now confirmed via its Mountain Lion upgrade page that previously published limitations on some 64-bit Macs will extend to the final release. This means that several otherwise 64-bit capable MacBook Pros, iMacs, and Mac Pros will indeed be restricted from upgrading to OS X 10.8 when it goes public later this month. And according to information found in the recently released golden master (GM), the limitation appears to be related to graphics, as we originally suspected.

So, if running Mountain Lion is crucial to your work then you'll have no choice but to upgrade and Apple will, I'm sure, happily help you acquire new hardware.