upgrading from 10.5.8 to the latest OS

Is there no way to purchase an upgrade on line? Apple support says to make an appt. with the genius bar. I was hoping to upgrade I-movie for a project I am working on. The existing i-movie cause imported videos to run out-of-sync with the audio. Supposedly there is a work-around with i-movie 11 but I have an earlier version. Unfortunately I-movie 11 will not work on 10.5.8. So I need to upgrade but I can't find the help I need on the apple web site.

We need to know exactly what computer model you have…and what OS version you wanted to upgrade to.

- Nick

You cannot download an upgrade because you do not have the Mac App Store in Leopard (10.5.8). You need Snow Leopard to do that by download. Your only options are going to involve a purchase by phone or at one of those stores housed in a building somewhere.

thanks for the responses

Yes, I figured I would have to visit the Apple Store. I have a macbook pro (4 or 5 years old) 2.4 ghz with a 250g hard drive, 4 megs of ram., I use it a lot for music and have recently tried to edit some video.
I'm running OS 10.5.8 and it's about time to upgrade.. I did discover in i-movie that I could detach the audio track (under advanced) so that part is done. Now I'm trying to import some pics from power point and having more issues.
Again thanks for your help

pdeming said:

Yes, I figured I would have to visit the Apple Store. I have a macbook pro (4 or 5 years old) 2.4 ghz with a 250g hard drive, 4 megs of ram., I use it a lot for music and have recently tried to edit some video.
I'm running OS 10.5.8 and it's about time to upgrade..

Click to expand...

One question answered…one question not. What OS version do you eventually want to upgrade to?…since at this point you are potentially 3 OS versions behind.

- Nick

If your MBP is "four or five years old," that would put it at 2007 or 2008. I would politely suggest that not only is the OS overdue for an update, but so is the entire machine.

In any event, you may not qualify for Mountain Lion (the current version) on your old machine. I'm sure you mean GIGs of RAM and four is sufficient but if you can upgrade to 8GB that would be much better. If you're quite lucky you might be able to get Apple to sell you the Lion USB stick for $70 which would "jump" you to Lion without having to first get Snow Leopard, but it will be SLIGHTLY cheaper to go to Snow Leopard ($30) and then Lion ($30).

Thanks for the good advice from those who responded. I'm not sure of the actual age of my macbook pro.
I bought it from an used apple re-seller in St. Louis for $1,000 back in 2010 (with a trade-in). At the time I thought I needed an older model because of the fire-wire port. I used it at the time for my m-audio interface for recording with music gear. Since I'm not in a position to invest a couple grand on a new machine, I will ask the Apple store at the mall how close to current OS I can run on this machine. I'm no longer tied to the fire-wire port since it seems to be old technology and I'm only concerned with being able to record music and possibly do some video editing for my school. I'm a music teacher.
Thanks again everyone for the help.

If it is a 15in MacBook Pro that originally shipped with OS X 10.5 (the disks will be silver gray if they came with your Mac), then you can run the latest OS (Mtn Lion 10.8) providing you have at least 2GB of RAM (believe that is the spec, going off memory here).

pdeming said:

...I will ask the Apple store at the mall how close to current OS I can run on this machine.

Click to expand...

The reason why I asked what OS version do you want to upgrade to is…many times when folks want to upgrade their OS version they have a specific reason. Such as they just purchased some hardware or software…and it won't run on their current older OS version.

You mentioned that you have iMovie 11…and that it won't run with OS 10.5.8. So the first thing you should be doing is…looking up the system requirements for iMovie 11. You know that it doesn't work with OS 10.5.8…so what you want to know is…what OS version or versions does it work with…so do a search.

Once you find this out…then you will have a better idea what OS version you need to upgrade to so iMovie 11 works. Since you're currently running OS 10.5.8…you potentially have 3 OS versions to choose from (OS 10.6, OS 10.7, or OS 10.8).

- Nick