The downside of new Apple software is that it usually displaces old Apple hardware. With rare exceptions, new versions of iOS and OS X usually don't make it to a handful of older iDevices and Macs, leaving owners of those gadgets stuck with old software or pushed into upgrading.

Luckily, most iOS and OS X users are getting off easy with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite. Any Mac that can run OS X 10.8 or 10.9 can also run 10.10, a list that includes Macs from as far back as 2007. Here's the full list:

iMac (Mid-2007 or later)

MacBook (13-inch Aluminum, Late 2008), (13-inch, Early 2009 or later)

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid-2009 or later), (15-inch, Mid/Late 2007 or later), (17-inch, Late 2007 or later)

MacBook Air (Late 2008 or later)

Mac Mini (Early 2009 or later)

Mac Pro (Early 2008 or later)

Xserve (Early 2009)

This is the second year running that a new OS X version has supported the same Macs as its predecessor, following three releases that all dumped a handful of Macs. 10.6 dropped all PowerPC Macs, 10.7 dropped support for all Macs with 32-bit Intel processors, and 10.8 dropped support for all Macs without 64-bit EFI firmware and 64-bit graphics drivers.

The only iOS device Apple dropped with iOS 8 is the iPhone 4, and if you've used one with iOS 7 installed on it , you know why support is ending. Slow performance. Jerky scrolling. Inability to render all of iOS 7's graphical effects. Things improved somewhat with version 7.1 , but the A4 chip's single-core CPU and aging GPU just can't keep up with newer iDevices.

By contrast, the year-newer Apple A5 chip is slower than the A6 or A7 chips that replaced it, but it's still fast enough to render all of iOS 7's fancy visual effects, and it serves as a much better baseline for iOS 8. The A5 also powers three devices in Apple's current lineup—the iPhone 4S, the first-gen iPad mini, the 2012 iPod touch—and the recently discontinued iPad 2, which was on the market for three years before it was retired.

We'd expect anything with an A5 in it (and also probably the third-generation iPad and its A5X) to be dropped by the next version of iOS, but they should run iOS 8 about as well as they ran iOS 7.