Back in June at the WWDC 2014 conference Apple unveiled OS X Yosemite. It has been built from the ground up with a completely new look and feel for Apple’s desktops and laptops. There are a handful of new features as well but keep in mind that they may not work on all Macs that support the new software. Some of the features that may not be supported include the likes of Handoff and Continuity which Apple itself has positioned as the biggest features in Yosemite.
OS X Yosemite was finally released for all supported Macs a couple of days back after going through a beta process with developers and even the general public. It is possible to install Yosemite on Macs dating back to 2007 but then they won’t support everything that Yosemite has to offer.
Features like Instant Hotspot and Handoff require Mac machines that were shipped no later than 2012, or a Mac Pro from late 2013. This applies to all MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iMac configurations. It won’t be possible to AirDrop between Mac and iOS on these machines as well.
The feature which allows a Mac computer to be used as a speakerphone for phone calls requires iOS 8.0 at the very least on the iPhone. For SMS and Instant Hotspot users will require an iPhone with iOS 8.1. These restrictions don’t mean much to those who use other smartphones since they don’t offer these features with Yosemite to begin with.
Apple lists all of the feature requirements in detail on its website so do check that out in order to get a complete idea of what you can and cannot do with Yosemite on your Mac. If you’re using a Mac that’s over a year old then you have nothing to worry about.
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