List of Macs Compatible With macOS Sierra

With previous OS releases, drops usually made sense from an engineering perspective. I've always felt that it's better to drop support from old hardware than bloat the OS to keep it running- a longtime Windows issue.

Apple usually made drops for good reason. Dropping PPC Macs. Dropping 32-bit Macs (2007 MacBook with Core Duo). Dropping Macs without the GPU to run Metal well. And most recently, dropping support for 64-bit Macs that had 32-bit controller chips (2007 Mac Pro),l.

But this time it seems so...arbitrary. A 2008 MacBook isn't supported, but a Mac Mini with the same chipset is?

And to me, the worst is the removal of support for 2008/2009 Mac Pro's. These things were top to bottom 64 bit and outperform Apple's CURRENT Mini and MacBook lines, competing with low end current iMacs in multicore benchmarks. An eight core 3 GHz Xeon Mac Pro with a modern PCIe NVidia graphics card should absolutely be able to run Sierra.

While the answer may be that Apple didn't want to bother testing and supporting, it feels like a way to force users happy with their machines to upgrade. I get pushing a 2008 MacBook owner to modernize, but the Pro?

Macs remain the computers with the shortest OS support. Windows, Linux and *BSD are unmatched. Quite different from what Apple is doing on mobile.

Still quite a few generations that are supported to sole extent. At some point, progress must overrule legacy support.

If progress were the reason, they would have made a consistent cut, based on discernible hardware constraints. Yet the late 2009 MacBook is still supported, while it has the same CPU, GPU and RAM as some older MacBook models or even MacBook Pro models of the same year. This appears to be an arbitrary policy choice, not based on hardware considerations.

People keep complaining about this but please realise that it's been four years since there has been any OS drops, and prior to that every two-yearly (and even yearly) OS release dropped some of the old computers

That is not a reason. Do you think Apple should drop hardware just because it is time again to drop some?

My Mid-2009 MacBook Pro just sent over an overly large emoji...

Generally, it is not always about raw CPU performance. Technology can perform exceptionally well, but still be considered old. The latest GPUs have tons of features that older ones don’t have. It is reasonable to drop support in order to use these while cutting out technically obsolete code. The problem I have here is that Apple seems to be making an arbitrary choice, given that they do support old technology.

Agreed that it's not always about raw performance. But there's absolutely nothing about a 2008 Mac Pro that doesn't exceed a 2009 MacBook. There's no logic here from a tech standpoint.

My 2008 Mac Pro is eight core 2.8 GHz Xeon, 32 GB RAM, with a SSD and a GeForce 760 GTX. There's absolutely zero reason it couldn't run the latest OS.

What does a 2009 MacBook have that my 2009 MacBook Pro doesn't? Confused.

You do realise how many features are already unavailable on other Macs? Do you think Apple intentionally prevents that? No, it's just that it would run like ****. Better just drop it entirely at this point. And you better actually check the specs of the OS before judging like that.

Yep, keep buying that company line. The shareholders love you guys.

There is literally no hardware difference between a 2009 and a 2010 Mac pro besides it's installed CPU and firmware to support said CPU.

A 2009 MacBook with a dual core cpu, with integrated graphics, is supported... but an eight-core Mac Pro machine with discreet GDDR5 graphics can't cut it? Yeah that's right, cuz AirDrop would run like "****" on that. Yeah right.


Past cutoffs have made technical sense. 32-bit. Graphics capabilities. This one is just arbitrary, and what I'd expect from Apple in 2016.

what's wrong with a 2009 mac pro?

You do realise how many features are already unavailable on other Macs? Do you think Apple intentionally prevents that? No, it's just that it would run like ****. Better just drop it entirely at this point. And you better actually check the specs of the OS before judging like that.

If a fully maxxed out Mac Pro from the 2009 can't run Sierra that says more about the "worlds most advanced desktop operating system" than anything else, don't you think?

Unless of course it's sales politics...

At this point, I'm not buying it anymore.
The OS is free, that's quite the change. (or "free" as I should put it)
Windows isn't nearly as much of a slouch anymore, sure it has its problems in many other areas, but OS X isn't exactly perfect either.
Yet Windows manages to stay compatible with a wide range of computers and OS X is sitting here getting dropped from still perfectly viable computers.

Historically, there has been many "unsupported" models able to run that OS, sometimes with a little hack to fool the installer. "Unsupported" often means that Apple stops testing on that machine. Unless there are technical specifications (like when 32-bit was dropped), you most likely will be able to run Sierra.

I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't even allow any tricks like that anymore.
Then again maybe you're right.
Guess we'll have to wait and see, but it's hard to be optimistic these days.

Glassed Silver:mac

At the slow pace they are updating the Mac's these days, I am starting to worry the current generation will be unsupported before a new one comes along!

o_O

You do realise how many features are already unavailable on other Macs? Do you think Apple intentionally prevents that? No, it's just that it would run like ****. Better just drop it entirely at this point. And you better actually check the specs of the OS before judging like that.

Heh, Apple always claims the latest OS is the fastest, but the higher spec requirements obviously show that it's not. Doesn't matter anyway. The 2009 Mac Pro isn't supported, but some piece of junk MacBook Air is just because it came out later.