iphone 4 and mac osX 10.4.11

The system requirements for the iPhone 4 call for Mac OS X v10.5.8 or later.

http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html

I can't say that it would be impossible to get it to work with Mac OS X 10.4.x, but Apple won't support it. I strongly recommend you upgrade your MacBook to Mac OS X 10.5 or 10.6 if you want to get the new iPhone.

Regards.

To upgrade to Mac OS 10.6, you need to buy the OS (from an Apple Store or online), then perform the installation. Technically, 10.6 is an upgrade for machines running 10.5 (and the $29 price is consistent with that), but you can go straight from 10.4 to 10.6, as long as you meet the hardware requirements:

Mac computer with an Intel processor +(all MacBooks do)+
1GB of memory +(the very earliest MacBooks shipped with 512 MB)+
5GB of available disk space
DVD drive for installation

The upgrade process is actually pretty painless.

As with any major OS upgrade, you should confirm before you upgrade that all your applications and peripherals are either compatible now with 10.6 or have upgrades available at a price you consider reasonable. That way you'll avoid any unpleasant surprises.

Regards.

To add to the excellent advice you have received so far, here's how I would recommend you back up your system.

1) Buy an external hard drive about twice the size of your internal drive (Firewire if you have a Firewire port on your Macbook; USB if not), and download and run Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything from your internal drive to the new drive.
2) Leaving the external drive attached, reboot your Mac and keep the Option key held down when the screen goes black. If the clone has worked, you'll see two startup options - the internal and external drives. Choose the external drive to test that the backed-up system works correctly.
3) Disconnect the external drive when you run the 10.6 upgrade. If the upgrade works, use it for a few days to ensure everything runs OK.
4) Connect the external drive again; use Disk Utility to erase and reformat it, and set it up as a backup drive using Time Machine (which comes with 10.5 and 10.6). You'll now have automated backups as long as the drive is connected.

Good luck!

Matt

You need the install disk in order to run Disk First Aid if needed for the OS X version installed.

I have never lost anything much less everything when installing an OS X upgrade. When installing an OS X upgrade, there are 3 options. Upgrade, Archive and Install, Erase and Install. I usually use the Archive & Install method and after confirming everything was available - I usually waited about 30 days or so, I would delete the Archive and I always update my computer's backup before installing an OS X upgrade. When I purchased my MBP a little over a year ago, it shipped with Leopard pre-installed. I was provided the Snow Leopard install/upgrade disk to upgrade to Snow Leopard at a discounted price off the standard $29. I installed Snow Leopard over Leopard as an upgrade install with nothing lost, but I updated my computer's backup immediately before installing Snow Leopard to be on the safe side.

Do you have a link where I can get 10.6 for $29.95? I've never seen that before on the Apple store! Thanks! CW in LB

Do you have a link where I can get 10.6 for $29.95? I've never seen that before on the Apple store!

That's because it's not $29.95
<http://store.apple.com/us/product/MAC OS_XSNGL>