Keeping Up with the Jobs'
Quick—without looking at “About this Mac”—what version of MacOS X are you running?A lot of people have no idea what they have installed, or more importantly, they don’t know that the base operating system can be upgraded. Unfortunately, they often don’t find out until it’s too late.
A brief recent history of Mac OS X: Version 10.4 “Tiger” came out in April 2005 and was refreshed in January 2006 to support the new line of Intel-based systems. Version 10.5 “Leopard” was released in October 2007. Then in August 2009, 10.6 “Snow Leopard” was released. Originally, Snow Leopard was made available as a $29.99 upgrade to Leopard, offering many improvements such as better 64-bit support and a new printing subsystem. Life was good.
Each release of OS X drew a line in the sand, leaving some older systems behind. The Intel version of Tiger did not support the Classic Environment. Leopard did not support the G3 processor and required 512MB of RAM. Snow Leopard dropped support for PowerPC Macs entirely, so if you’re not running an Intel-based Mac, you can’t install Snow Leopard.
Problems can arise when you don’t follow the upgrade path. Based on the number of support calls and e-mails we receive, apparently a lot of people are still running 10.4. Now they are buying iPads and iPod touches that require iTunes 10, but iTunes 10 requires 10.5 or higher. They have a shiny new iOS device they can’t use, and they come to us for help.
On one side, you have the owners of Intel-based systems. The Snow Leopard “upgrade” disc requires that you already have Leopard installed, however Leopard is no longer sold by Apple. For these people, Apple released the Mac Box Set for $129.99, which includes a “full” version of Snow Leopard that can be used to upgrade Tiger. It also includes iLife ’11 and iWork ’09. I’ve heard several people saying that’s too expensive, when the original Snow Leopard release was only $29.99. Bear in mind that past OS X upgrade discs were always $129.99, and the “upgrade” version of Snow Leopard was a “special” for people who had just bought Leopard; you’re also getting iWork (which normally costs $79) for free. So, as long as you have at least 1GB of RAM and an Intel processor, you can use the Box Set to bring your system up to date.
The second group isn’t quite so lucky. They have a PowerPC-based computer running Tiger, but the Box Set only works on an Intel system. The highest release they could install is Leopard, but Apple isn’t selling Leopard anymore. It’s possible to find copies online, but you may end up paying upwards of $180 for a used (illegal or counterfeit) copy. You may also be able to find copies of the Leopard Box Set (Amazon lists used copies starting at $190). I’ve been sending people to eBay or Craigslist, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get a working (or even legal) copy of Leopard.
I’ve heard a suggestion that Apple make OS upgrades available via their new App Store. Good idea, but there are two major flaws in that: First, the App Store is only available if you already have 10.6 installed. Second, the download would require that you burn it to a dual-layer DVD in order to use it, and most of the systems still running Tiger don’t have dual-layer DVD burners installed.
Mac OS X 10.7 “Lion” is supposed to be released later this year. Don’t get caught out in the cold—upgrade early, and upgrade often!