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OS X 10.11 Speculation on Requirements

axboi87

axboi87

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 31, 2006
213
157
Dallas, Tx
Yosemite is working great on a March 2007 iMac (with SSD, 6gb ram, 802.11ac upgrade). This is the oldest imac you can (officially) install yosemite on. I always assumed this would be it's last (officially supported) OS upgrade, but given how fantastic it's running and how 10.11 is rumored to be (mostly) an under the hood upgrade, it seems like IF it will support this mac, it will run that much better.

Given that it's supposed to be mostly under the hood improvements and "slimming" of the code, do you think they'll continue to support existing Yosemite compatible macs with 10.11 (but probably this last time for the earliest of machines)?
 
redheeler

redheeler

macrumors G3
Oct 17, 2014
8,423
8,845
Colorado, USA
I can hope so, as that would go along with it being a release with mostly bug fixes/improvements and my late 2008 MacBook Air is also at the bottom of the supported Macs list. Luckily there haven't been any huge changes in hardware like a switch from 32-bit to 64-bit CPU or EFI, which is the reason support for older, fully 64-bit Macs has lasted so long.

However, I can definitely see them trying to fore some supported Macs into obsolescence even though they'd be fully capable of running the OS otherwise. If this happens, someone is bound to find a way to install it despite, like what has happened for early Mac Pros and other unsupported Macs which can't officially run Yosemite.
 
E

Ebenezum

macrumors 6502a
Mar 31, 2015
782
260
I hope 10.11 has same requirements as previous few OS X versions.

Since Apple has very optimistic minimal System Requirements for Mavericks and Yosemite I am sceptical if they can improve 10.11 enough to work well with oldest supported Mac with minimal hardware.

I am not surprised if Apple decide to drop support for oldest 2007-2008 models since their current policy seems to be forced obsolescent of functional models.
 
grahamperrin

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
I expect some features to be enabled by default on notebooks, disabled by defaults on desktops.

Whether any of those notebook-oriented features will require a notebook, I can't guess.
 
grahamperrin

grahamperrin

macrumors 601
Jun 8, 2007
4,942
648
If any of the cloud-oriented technologies that are associated with Core Storage appear in OS X 10.11, then I should not expect desktop computers to use the remote storage by default.

Users of portable devices may be more likely (than users of desktop computers) to accept the relatively high cost of remote/cloud storage.
 
Z

Zarniwoop

macrumors 65816
Aug 12, 2009
1,036
759
West coast, Finland
If Apple is integrating OpenCL deeper in to the OS and apps, that might exclude hardware without support for OpenCL. Same goes with Mantle/Vulkan adaption. But I suppose it will take couple of revisions, maybe 10.12 or 10.13 before old hw is dropped. So Vulkan would coexist with openGL for some time, like Metal & openGL ES.
 
X

xmichaelp

macrumors 68000
Jul 10, 2012
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I bet anything it will be the same as last year's requirements just like Mavericks was.
 
definitive

definitive

macrumors 68020
Aug 4, 2008
2,052
895
I don't know.. Look at Windows 10 - it will require a 1GHz CPU and 2GB of RAM. One thing to keep in mind is that Apple has been removing support for the older GPU's. If OS X 10.11 loses support for Core 2 Duo systems, then Apple is doing it very wrong.
 
MacsRgr8

MacsRgr8

macrumors G3
Sep 8, 2002
8,288
1,781
The Netherlands
Like iOS 9 probably will support the same hardware as iOS 8, I think OS X 11 wil support the same hardware as OS X 10.10 supports (and thus 10.9 and 10.8, even 10.7 IIRC).

A good thing as older Macs keep support, newer apps will probably be able to run and the newest security features will be supported on those older Macs too.
OTOH, a bad thing is that more and more "new features" will only be supported on certain models. This could confuse users as to know which features their Mac support..?

The tendency on Macs and PCs is that the OS is free, gets long-life support and are "on par" with their mobile counter parts.
 
clukas

clukas

macrumors 6502a
May 3, 2010
990
401
If apple will deliver on the rumoured Snow Leopard release, then I wouldn't worry about specs. As long as your mac is reasonably new (i.e. around 5 years or less) then you should not have any issues running it.
 
bmxracer

bmxracer

macrumors member
Apr 19, 2014
75
1
Im hoping that the requirements will remain the same as Yosemite. With windows 10 being a free upgrade for windows 7 and 8 users I couldn't foresee apple cutting off users.
 
iamMacPerson

iamMacPerson

macrumors 68040
Jun 12, 2011
3,488
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AZ/10.0.1.1
MacsRgr8 said:
Like iOS 9 probably will support the same hardware as iOS 8, I think OS X 11 wil support the same hardware as OS X 10.10 supports (and thus 10.9 and 10.8, even 10.7 IIRC).
Click to expand...

I agree, but I just quoted to let you know that the official requirements for 10.7 and 10.8 and later are different. 10.7 will support any Mac with a x86-64 CPU. 10.8 forward will work on any Mac that is 64-bit that has any other GPU then the Intel GMA (1,1/2,1 Mac Pros are excluded because of their 32-bit bus).
 
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Traverse

Traverse

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Mar 11, 2013
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I will be really curious to see when Apple drops support for 2007-2008 systems. I was very surprised that they go Yosemite.
 
MacsRgr8

MacsRgr8

macrumors G3
Sep 8, 2002
8,288
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The Netherlands
iamMacPerson said:
I agree, but I just quoted to let you know that the official requirements for 10.7 and 10.8 and later are different. 10.7 will support any Mac with a x86-64 CPU. 10.8 forward will work on any Mac that is 64-bit that has any other GPU then the Intel GMA (1,1/2,1 Mac Pros are excluded because of their 32-bit bus).
Click to expand...
Thanks for clearing that up.
 
jamesjingyi

jamesjingyi

macrumors 6502a
Dec 20, 2011
848
155
UK
To be fair, I'm not sure whether some people will want the latest OS on their devices, even if supported. My MacBook 1,1 runs much better on SL than on Lion (its last supported OS). Heck, I even downgraded so that it would run faster and the icons on the dock wouldn't just bounce for 3-4 seconds before even doing anything (just to note that my MacBook has 4GB of RAM and a 7200rrpm HD (not SSD, too expensive)).

My main point among the rambling is that even though some people love to have the latest OS (which I do on new hardware), old hardware is usually dropped for a reason. The videos of people using their 1,1 MacBooks with ML just shows that (maybe they did lack a bit of optimisation..). If Apple stops OS support, it is because your hardware is not going to run it like Apple wants it to run, not that it is not powerful enough to do it.

Also from a critical and monetised point of view, they want you to buy new hardware :p
 
iamMacPerson

iamMacPerson

macrumors 68040
Jun 12, 2011
3,488
1,927
AZ/10.0.1.1
jamesjingyi said:
To be fair, I'm not sure whether some people will want the latest OS on their devices, even if supported. My MacBook 1,1 runs much better on SL than on Lion (its last supported OS). Heck, I even downgraded so that it would run faster and the icons on the dock wouldn't just bounce for 3-4 seconds before even doing anything (just to note that my MacBook has 4GB of RAM and a 7200rrpm HD (not SSD, too expensive)).

My main point among the rambling is that even though some people love to have the latest OS (which I do on new hardware), old hardware is usually dropped for a reason. The videos of people using their 1,1 MacBooks with ML just shows that (maybe they did lack a bit of optimisation..). If Apple stops OS support, it is because your hardware is not going to run it like Apple wants it to run, not that it is not powerful enough to do it.

Also from a critical and monetised point of view, they want you to buy new hardware :p
Click to expand...

MacBook1,1 can't run Lion. Not even if you hack it on there. Lion requires a Mac with a 64-bit processor. Trust me, I have a 1,1 MacBook and it has a Core Duo processor. Core Solo and Core Duo CPUs are x86. Core 2 and forward are x86-64. MacBook2,1 can run Lion, and a hacked version of 10.8 for the GMA GPU.
 
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