Apple Tech Woez

[chomiji]

Part of the reason I am posting this is so that I have all this info in one place.

SO! My iMac is about 6 years old: mid-2007 is what comes up when I put the serial number in on the Apple site.

I'm not sure how far I can upgrade the operating system on it past my current version, which is Mac OS X 10.5.8. This is nowhere near the current version. I can buy the 10.6 version, but I have to buy disks: no download apparently available, at least not from Apple. And then theoretically I can download additional upgrades and maybe bring it up to the current version. (Actually, I have already downloaded them, before I realized that they wouldn't work with my current OS X.)

I really wish I knew for certain whether the 10.6 is installable on my current iMac. I think so, because I'm right on the edge of the limit for the latest version. (Which is, again "mid-2007.")

The reason I even care is that the version of iTunes that I currently have will not play properly with the new iPad Mini. Which means that I can't simply sync up the two devices, as I do with my iPod. The iPod, which is named Yumichika, is a 4th-generation Nano, with the click wheel. So it's not exactly state-of-the-art either.

The current version of iTunes is 11.0.5. It requires OS X 10.6.8 (or later). (I currently have iTunes 10.6.3. It's confusing that the iTunes version numbers are so close to the OS X version numbers ... .)

One possible solution is to use the iCloud. There's an option for a subscription that wil allow you to obtain any song you currently have in iTunes, even if you ripped it from a CD or bought it from Amazon or something, as long as iTunes has it. But the iMac may not be up-to-date enough to use that, either. (I'm trying to figure that out from Apple's site. It's not easy.)

Oy vey iz mir. Dammit.

Comments

[qem_chibati]

10.6 should be fine - anything later than that, I'd have my doubts.

I think you can upload things onto icloud manually, if it helps?

[qem_chibati]

FYR a shitty, but easy to understand explanation:

10.6 is pretty much identical to 10.5 just it has a lot more networking options. 10.6 is where the business client base basically bullied Apple into upgrading a bunch of options because "WTF are we in the stone age?" effectively.

All software that works with 10.5 should be compatible with 10.6.

10.7 is something quite different, basically where apple put their foot down and said "OUR PLAYGROUND, OUR RULES, NO MORE SHITTY PORTING, either you design it specifically for us, or not at all, kthxbai" and a lot of software designed for 10.6 or earlier is no longer compatible (mostly things that were a quick port from a windows product - now you need to use the cocoa engine instead of the rosetta stone).

[theskywasblue]

I wish I could help!

I, too, lack the current version of iTunes because my computer is too ancient. Thus, I can't sync my recently acquired iPhone. Not that I really care...but it's sort of mildly irritating not to be able to keep everything together in one place.

Although, this may not be an issue soon, since my computer went Blue Screen of Death on me last night for utterly no reason at all...I think it will very shortly need replacing...

[sekaiseifuku]

There's an option for a subscription that will allow you to obtain any song you currently have in iTunes, even if you ripped it from a CD or bought it from Amazon or something, as long as iTunes has it

*perk* Oh hello ... what? I'm generally anti-Apple, but this could be a complete game changer for me. You wouldn't happen to know if this includes Japanese songs or if they're still maintaining that idiotic "wall" between Japanese iTunes and US iTunes? (I've not used either in years)

[blueraccoon]

This is called iTunes Match, and it's $25/year - I paid for it because I use multiple computers, and this way I have my entire iTunes library on all of them so long as I'm signed into my iTunes/Apple account. As far as I know it'll work with everything--I mean, once I set it up on my home computer (which is where my music library resides) it even synced songs from local bands in NJ I listened to in like the 90s.

The trick is that you do need to sync it with whatever library holds all your music, otherwise it'll just sync what it recognizes you have which is likely whatever you bought from Apple, maybe a few random CDs. And it doesn't download the music to your computer, although you can do that; when it shows up in iTunes it's in iCloud, so if your internet connection is wonky or if the connection to iTunes Store is wonky you may have problems buffering and streaming music.

But overall I'm very pleased with it, and I like being able to listen to all my music at work. HTH!

[chomiji]

Thanks so much for the explanation! I had no need to go above 10.6.8, really, and the installation I ended up doing (see today's post) didn't try to take it any farther.

It does mean that I can see the wall, though. From what you're saying, if I upgrade to a newer workhorse system in the next couple of years, I may not be able to use the MS Office suite I got as part of a deal from work, nor my (very expensive) Photoshop. And the latest Photoshop is all weird: you run it from their site, in the cloud.

[chomiji]

I'm so glad you had the details: I had never heard of it before the other night, when I was trying to figure what in the world to do!

(I have everything all fixed up, although it occurs to me that maybe I should check how my iPod works with the upgrades I have installed.)

[chomiji]

I have a Droid, because when we bought SmartPhones, iPhone wasn't yet available on our long-time carrier. If they need replacing, we may switch. But I'm not sure how I would then port over all the miscellaneous crud (eBooks, address lists, etc.) that I have on the Droid.

(I got the iMac squared away: see today's post.)

[qem_chibati]

Unless it's MS office 2011 - yeah you won't be able to use it, sorry. I'm not sure about the photoshop, I'd need to research that, if it's portable. FWIW, if you buy a new computer, you can network the two together and migration assistant is the BEST [and will work from a time machine back up, if you can't physically plug one computer into the other] - it's point and click and you can copy all your profile information, and all the software and data etc to a new computer - just if the software isn't compatible when you upgrade/migrate it will have a (\) symbol on top.

The other thing is 10.7 and 10.8 are more resource heavy. I generally don't recommend running 10.8 on less than 4 gigs of ram (I'm sure you can, I just don't recommend it.)

I've started telling (business) clients who are on 2008 imacs - if it works for you, that's fine, there's no need to upgrade, just try removing old software you no longer use to help speed things up and various other clean up tricks; but if it starts not working at all for key tasks, my recommendation is to plan look at buying a new computer & office package rather than upgrading ram/software packages to try and fix.

I don't deal with personal computers as much, though, so your requirements may be less intense.