I am planning to buy a new iMac. I understand that the iMacs Apple is selling now will not run 10.8. While I can afford to buy a new iMac I can't affordto buy and relearn all the key software which will not run on Maverics. I recently went through that when updating to 10.8 after waiting years for software to become compatible.
What is the latest iMacs I can buy that will run 10.8?
If you can find one that has 10.8 pre-installed late 2013 models will work. Almost all apps that run on ML will also run on Mavericks, you should double check with the developers of your apps.
If it can run Mountain Lion then it can run Mavericks, so that is what will be installed unless you buy a used one. The most recent iMac will run a special build of 10.8.5. 10.8.5 retail should work on all eligible iMacs which are the same models that can also run Mavericks.
Upgrading to Mavericks
You can upgrade to Mavericks from Lion or directly from Snow Leopard. Mavericks can be downloaded from the Mac App Store for FREE.
Upgrading to Mavericks
To upgrade to Mavericks you must have Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or Lion installed. Download Mavericks from the App Store. Sign in using your Apple ID. Mavericks is free. The file is quite large, over 5 GBs, so allow some time to download. It would be preferable to use Ethernet because it is nearly four times faster than wireless.
OS X Mavericks- System Requirements
Macs that can be upgraded to OS X Mavericks
1. iMac (Mid 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 7,1 or later
2. MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 5,1 or later
3. MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
4. MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 2,1 or later
5. Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
6. Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
7. Xserve (Early 2009) - Model Identifier 3,1 or later
To find the model identifier open System Profiler in the Utilities folder. It's displayed in the panel on the right.
Are my applications compatible?
It was the "almost" that created the problem for me last time. Some key apps that I depend on decided not to upgrade; like Bryce and Quickbooks for example.
FInd replacements for those two apps, otherwise you will continually be chasing an uphill battle. I would also recommend contacting the developers of each app and asking when they intend to update their apps. Quicken (QuickBooks) is notoriously slow and seems to only developed OS X products when they are forced to. I dropped them as a vendor years ago.
QuickBooks Pro 2014 15.0.4 R5 works with Mavericks.
Bryce is not compatible, but there are substitutes you might look at.
What are the substitutes for Bryce? How much woudl they cost? How long will it take me to learn them?
I already paid for Quickbooks and sent many hours and dollars learning it. I lost that investment as a result of the upgrade. I am not inclined to remake that mistake and buy software from that company again. But thanks for the thought.
Well, I tried to help. Apparently, you are not interested.
rkaufmann87What replacements for those app would you suggest? Hypothetically your suggestion makes sense. But, putting aside the cost and time of replacing and learning these "new" apps and the loss of investment in time and money for the old apps, I have not found replacements for these and others.
I don't mind upgrading when the upgrades offers some return on the investment of time and investments. But I havent seen any problem that I needed fixing that Maverics fixed, so I am looking for a way to prolong that upgrade until the bugs are worked out and all the software critical to my work flow is working smoothly with it.
Of course I am interested Kappy. But Quickbooks is $200 and I can't find a substitute for Bryce. And these were just examples, not the full list.
Also looks like we are cross posting; the thread doesn't accurately reflect our responses.
Kappy, does this mean I have to upgrade to Mavericks to find out if I have incompatible software? If I find some important ones are incompatible, how easy is it to downgrade to 10.8?
If you navigate to the below link, click a particular model of mac, and near the bottom it will state the particular OS the mac shipped with. Then you could just look for someone advertising this model online etc and it should come with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.
http://support.apple.com/specs/
🙂
Regards,
MiiCK.
Thanks MiiCK, that was helpful.
vinegarman wrote:
What is the latest iMacs I can buy that will run 10.8?
Why don't you just install OS X Mountain Lion 10.8 into Parallels on your new Mavericks iMac and continue living life just as you like it!?!
Here is an example of my use of Parallels to continue running Snow Leopard on a Lion Mac Mini, so that I could run the older PowerPC versions of software that were important to me:
[click on image to enlarge]
The same structure will work for you to utilize Mt. Lion in Mavericks and continue using your software base without upgrading.
Just get plenty of RAM!
What is the latest Mac running 10.8
