iOS 12 And macOS 10.14: Which Apple Devices Won’t Be Supported?

Now that the dust is settling on Apple’s annual developer event, the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), individuals and businesses will be contemplating their upgrade plans. And while, for many, the big question is whether their critical apps will be affected, there’s also the question of whether their existing hardware will be able to receive the new operating systems Apple announced last week. Let’s take a look at what devices will be supported and, therefore which will be left behind.

When it comes to supporting existing hardware, Apple is actually pretty good. However, there comes a point when enough new features aren’t supported in the hardware that they won’t allow installation. I found that out last week when I tried install the beta version of macOS Mojave on my 11-inch MacBook Air. It’s no longer supported.

So, what’s the support situation for the latest operating systems from Apple.

macOS 10.14 Mojave

It’s a little tricky to draw a definitive line through a specific production year or hardware spec that Apple has chosen as the minimum level for Mohave. This is the specific compatibility list.

• MacBook (Early 2015 or later)
• MacBook Air (Mid-2012 or later)
• MacBook Pro (Mid-2012 or later)
• Mac mini (Late 2012 or later)
• iMac (Late 2012 or later)
• iMac Pro (all models)
• Mac Pro (Late 2013)
• Mac Pro (2010 or later with Metal-compatible GPU)

The key issue seems to be tied to GPU performance as much as anything. With Mojave deprecating OpenGL and OpenCL, it’s possible some of the new features are more GPU dependent and therefore not going to work optimally on some older hardware.

iOS 12

Apple has three devices that run iOS in the current range. They are the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

The following devices will be supported with iOS 12.

The 6th generation iPod touch is also supported

watchOS 5

All but the original Apple Watch, released in April 2015, will be upgradeable to the next version of watchOS.

tvOS 12

tvOS 12 can be installed to 4th generation Apple TV devices and later.