Although most of the details with regards to Apple’s much anticipated OS X Mountain Lion are already public domain, the Cupertino company has now revealed which specific Macs will be upgradable once the next iteration of its desktop operating system does emerge. If you’re in ownership of a MacBook released prior to 2007, you’ll be disappointed to learn that you’ll need to grab yourself some new hardware if you wish to sink your teeth into Mountain Lion, since it’s thought it will simply not run on 32-bit GPUs.
As such, if you’re a Mac Mini user and purchased your little computing box before 2009, you will also need to consider investing in a newer unit if you want to run the heavily iOS-influenced iteration of OS X.
Last year’s release of OS X Lion saw many old favorites left behind, and Mountain Lion will follow a similar pattern. With each iteration of OS X there’s always a list of machines that have been left behind, and Mountain Lion is no different, it would seem. Apple hasn’t stated any specific reasons as to why certain models have been left out of contention, but presumption seems to be that graphics on 64-bit systems are the main source of the problem.
The Golden Master seed of Mountain Lion, which dropped earlier this week, indicates the older machines depend on specific 32-bit GPU drivers, and it appears as though Apple has decided to leave the older devices out as opposed to going through the painstaking rigmarole of writing new drivers for each one.
Apple will obviously continue to support the older machines with security patches and performance enhancements, but from an OS X point of view, Mountain Lion is simply a step too far.
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