macOS Sierra is heading to your Mac sooner than expected

MacOS Sierra

We've finally got a date for the arrival of macOS Sierra, and that date is September 20 – and most definitely not mid-October as some previous speculation had pointed to.

So you don't have much more than a week to wait for Apple's next desktop OS to turn up on your Mac complete with Siri along with various other treats like a Universal Clipboard (which facilitates direct cutting and pasting between iOS and macOS devices).

While announcing the launch of Sierra, Apple also clarified the machines which were compatible with the new operating system. They are as follows:

  • MacBook (Late 2009 or newer)
  • MacBook Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)
  • MacBook Air (Late 2010 or newer)
  • Mac mini (Mid 2010 or newer)
  • iMac (Late 2009 or newer)
  • Mac Pro (Mid 2010 or newer)

Those with older models of Apple computers or laptops are unfortunately out of luck – the hardware requirements of the operating system have been cranked up a little, as macOS is a little more demanding than the last incarnation of OS X (El Capitan).

Farewell to OS X

You can upgrade from OS X 10.7.5 or later, and you'll need 8.8GB of free drive space.

The new OS is, of course, a free upgrade, and when September 20 arrives, you can install macOS Sierra by heading to the Mac App Store.

Previously, some folks figured that Sierra might not launch until October, looking at the pace of beta releases compared to El Capitan the year before. But obviously enough, that speculation was off the mark.

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).