SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—For the first time since Mountain Lion was released in 2012, a new Mac operating system release will end support for older hardware. Older Macs, mostly models from 2007, 2008, and 2009, won't run this fall's new macOS Sierra.

To run Sierra, you'll need:

MacBook (late 2009 and later)

iMac (late 2009 and later)

MacBook Air (2010 and later)

MacBook Pro (2010 and later)

Mac Mini (2010 and later)

Mac Pro (2010 and later)

Many of these Macs were already missing out on Yosemite and El Capitan-era features like AirDrop, Continuity, and the Metal graphics API.

Apple typically supports older OS X releases with security updates for a couple of years, so theoretically you can use El Capitan Macs without fear of security holes until 2018 or so (well, without fear of security holes that aren't also present in newer OS versions, anyway).

The older hardware had a pretty good run, but it's always sad when the end of a computer's useful life is dictated by Apple rather than by the user who bought the machine.