Mac OS X Lion on a Late 2006 iMac

Upgrading your old computer to run current software always risks a performance decrease that could potentially make everyday use painful. Now Mac OS X Lion (10.7) has been released, users of old Macs are faced with another difficult decision to either upgrade or not.

In this video, I show a 17" Late 2006 iMac (the first generation to use the Lion-supported Core 2 Duo processors) running Lion performing various everyday tasks (startup, application launching, UI animations) to help you in your decision.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Mac OS X Lion
• Lion
• Mac OS X
• OS X
• OS X Lion
• Snow Leopard
• Leopard
• Tiger
• Apple
• upgrade
• Mac
• Macintosh
• app
• application
• software
• old

[TeddyScan95]

Do you have the magic trackpad for the gestures? I am really surprised, yet happy, that the multitasking swipe gestures were so smooth on an older iMac!! =D

[JNArthur13]

@TeddyScan95 I agree! I currently use the Magic Mouse (not at the time of this video), and the animations that accompany the gestures run surprisingly well.

[Ve3troGamesMedia]

Did you install this from the App Store or a disc? For some reason I cant upgrade my parents iMac with Lion since its "too old". They have a mid 2006 20" 2.0Ghz Core 2 Duo.

[JNArthur13]

@Ve3troGamesMedia I did use the App Store, however I suggest you check the processor again. I believe the mid 2006 iMacs used Core Duo processors that are not supported by Lion (it requires Core 2 Duo or higher).

[superchargedturbo]

I have a 20 inch iMac, also late 2006, 2.16 Ghz CPU, 250 GB HDD but only 1GB of memory. Stick with SL or go for Lion? On my other iMac i7 2.8 Ghz 21,5 inch with 8 GB it's a different story :D

[JNArthur13]

@superchargedturbo You’ll need to upgrade your RAM to at least 2GB before installing Lion. Snow Leopard is great, but if you really want to use the new features of Lion on that Mac then an upgrade is certainly worth it.

[dbeaver317]

@c4pt1n54n0 Just HOW did you come to that conclusion?

[TapTapFreak]

WTF, this is seriously Lion! damn, didn't knew an 5/6 year old mac could do that.

[jejack123]

do you think that the imac G4 can do the same

[virginboy92]

too bad ur machine may not run mountain lion. but nice vid !!

[valentijnpetiet]

@nihadkomigen yes it wil work if you have 2gb of ram

[nihadkomigen]

1,83 ghz intel core duo 2 gb 677 MHz DDr2 sdram..will it work whit lion?...

imac 2006/2007 inch

[TijdTekort]

I suggest sticking with snow leopard. Lion drains performance and is more focussed on multitouch trackpads etc. For instance expose from dock doesn't work anymore and the OS uses much more RAM. I suggest when you upgrade, buy an SSD and at least 4 GB of RAM, 8 GB or more recommend if you want to use VMware/parallels.

[TeddyScan95]

Wow, I just noticed that you do not have a magic trackpad from the beginning of the video. Then, how do you do have the multitasking screen switching gesture? =O

[HiriamAbiff32]

@ve3trogamesmedia 2.0 core 2 duo's were mid september 2006.. It could be a RAM issue, you have to at least have 2 GB RAM to run lion 10.7... I believe it uses 667MHz DDR2 if I'm not mistaken. Throw you 2 1GB sucks & you should be ready to roll... Are you running 10.6 Snow Leopard? I would suggest not stacking your OS's if possible... Download 10.7 Lion to flash drive & clean install...