Apple shortened the name to "OS X" in 2012 and then changed it to "macOS" in 2016 to align with the branding of Apple's other operating systems, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS.
Ī prominent part of macOS's original brand identity was the use of Roman numeral X, pronounced "ten" as in Mac OS X and also the iPhone X, as well as code naming each release after species of big cats, or places within California. Apple's mobile operating system, iOS, has been considered a variant of macOS. All releases from Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard and after are UNIX 03 certified, with an exception for OS X 10.7 Lion. The first desktop version, Mac OS X 10.0, was released in March 2001, with its first update, 10.1, arriving later that year. During this time, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs had left Apple and started another company, NeXT, developing the NeXTSTEP platform that would later be acquired by Apple to form the basis of macOS.
MacOS succeeded the classic Mac OS, a Macintosh operating system with nine releases from 1984 to 1999. Within the market of desktop and laptop computers it is the second most widely used desktop OS, after Microsoft Windows and ahead of Chrome OS. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Most developers work hard to make sure their software is compatible with the new version of OS X, so often updates are released prior to the upgrade’s released date.MacOS ( / ˌ m æ k oʊ ˈ ɛ s/ previously Mac OS X and later OS X) is a proprietary graphical operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. Check for updates to your important third-party apps
You can do this either in the Updates section of the App Store or through Software Update in the Apple menu. It’s a good idea to update your pre-El Capitan OS to the latest version (for example, as mention earlier, from Snow Leopard 10.6.6 to 10.6.8). If you find a problem using these tests, you may need to see a Genius at your local Apple Store. To perform a more thorough examination of your Mac hardware, you can run Apple Diagnostics (for Macs released on or after June 2013) or Apple Hardware Test (for Macs released before June 2013). Snow Leopard users can use the installation disc as a boot drive and run Disk Utility. You can then use Disk Utility to repair your storage device. Lion Recovery in Lion) by holding down Command-R at startup. Lion, Mountain Lion, and Mavericks user can boot into OS X Recovery (a.k.a. Older versions of OS X eligible for upgradeĪccording to Apple, these older OS X operating systems can be upgraded to El Capitan.Īny problems require you to boot from a different startup volume in order to make repairs. For example Handoff and Continuity, which were introduced with OS X Yosemite, require hardware that supports Bluetooth LE. Keep in mind that the older your Mac, the greater the possibility that some features won’t work. Here are some tips for freeing up storage space. As for available storage space, 8GB is enough to run the installer, but more is always better.
You can run a Mac with 2GB of memory, but this is a good opportunity to upgrade to 4GB or 8GB. The general minimum requirements call for 2GB of memory, 8GB of available storage, and an Internet connection for some features.
These Macs are compatible with El Capitan.