Upgrading to Mountain Lion

I have a 5 year old iMac running OS 10.4.11 and recently purchased an ipad. To use iCloud I apparently need to upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion. All the info. I can find on the web requires a later OS than what I have. What do I have to do to do the upgrade?

Technically you'd need to obtain Snow Leopard media which Apple has removed from the supply chain. Then upgrade to Mountain Lion through the App Store since they have also removed Lion from availability.

A gentle reminder to all Mac users would be to always buy the upgrade, even if you don't plan on upgrading right away for what ever reason. The upgrade prices are very aggressive and by obtaining the media (now in download form) you save yourself from these situations.

IMO Apple should still be supplying Snow Leopard, but they want you to buy new Macs. This is why they also put features into new hardware as well, like Air Play and PowerNap.

That said, Tiger 10.4 was released on 4/29/05. Your hardware may not even be supported by the new operating system. I have an iMac from '07 (2.8ghz extreme) and it can run ML 10.8.

System requirements for OS X Mountain Lion

Amazon.com: Mac OS X version 10.6.3 Snow Leopard: Software

You can call Apple and purchase a SL disc to be mailed to you.

But as mentioned, first confirm if your Mac can even run ML.

Find your iMac specs below to see if it can run Mountain Lion

Apple iMac Specs (All iMac Technical Specs) @ EveryMac.com