These are the Macs you'll need to run macOS Sierra

macOS Sierra

As previous rumors indicated, yesterday Apple renamed its desktop operating system and turned OS X into macOS, but the name wasn't the only thing to change – the company also switched up the hardware requirements to run the OS.

The new version, macOS Sierra, is slightly more demanding than predecessor OS X El Capitan, and at yesterday's WWDC keynote, Craig Federighi, senior vice president of software engineering, showed off a slide that detailed the Apple computers which will play nice with the new operating system.

So if you want to run macOS Sierra, when it comes to notebooks, you'll need a MacBook from late 2009 or better, or a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro from 2010 or later.

If you've got an iMac, you'll be okay with a model from late 2009 or better, and as for the Mac mini or Mac Pro, you'll need one from 2010 or later to be home and dry with this new macOS.

Sadly, those of you with laptops or computers older than the specified models won't be getting any Sierra goodness, and will be left mulling a hardware upgrade rather than a software one.

Continuing with Continuity

Apple's macOS Sierra will be arriving this autumn in the form of a free update, as ever, and it brings Siri to the desktop, along with pushing forward with Continuity to tie iOS devices and desktop machines ever closer together.

So for example, with macOS it'll be possible to unlock your Mac simply by being near to the machine with your Apple Watch or iOS device, and you can copy and paste from one device to another with the new Universal Clipboard.

For the full lowdown on Apple's plans, it's worth taking the time to have a read of our macOS Sierra release date, news and rumors hub.

If you can't wait until the autumn, beta testing of Sierra will kick off next month, so you could always sign yourself up to be a tester.

Via: CNET

Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).