OS X - MacBook Pro

[ol' boy]

Without going into detail, the latest the best, IE: Yosemite

I have a Late 2011 13" MPB with Lion 10.7.3
It does everything i want, no real need to upgrade.

Was helping my cousin yesterday, he has an older MBP with 10.6.3.
He needs 10.7.0 and above to run an application that came with his new watch (RipCurl Surf GPS watch)

I have spent the night and morning reading the Mac Forums, picked up some help, but no real answers.
What i find strange, is you can download the latest OS X (Yosemite) for free, but if you want a previous version, say, Mountain Lion it will cost you $24.95?

I do understand some OS X versions require a min hardware level, both our machines are capable of the upgrades out there.

My cousin runs iPhones, so the update would also be more relevant to him.
Being i use Android phones, some of the updates in Yosemite will mean nothing to me.

[mandc]

I personally don't like Yosemite and much prefer Mavericks. Apple used to always charge a small fee to update but started making updates free after Mountain Lion. I am sure that if you go the official Apple update path they will insist on a full upgrade to Yosemite.

The last disc that was released for upgrade/fresh install was Snow Leopard 10.6 which was still available from Apple Store
That disc iso should be easily downloaded if you were so inclined.

10.8 Mountain lion was also $24.99 but I think it was no longer on a disc.

You can also download Mavericks and convert it to a bootable usb using diskmakerX. Lots of options available

I can help with some of these upgrades if you get stuck as I still have a few dmg files of the different OSX versions around the place

[ol' boy]

Yes, after all my reading, seemed most people were happy with Mavericks or even Mountain Lion, but no further back.
I read a lot of issues with Yosemite, WiFi etc

[mandc]

Yeah. Yosemite does not look as good or go as well in my opinion. After further checking I had to edit my first post to clarify a few things..(I am overseas at the moment so not sure what I have at home but will be back in a few days)

I even think I have a snow leopard disc at home I can copy if you want

[ol' boy]

Thanks mandc, but Snow Leopard is a step backwards for both of us, i'm fairly sure.
I think its amazing and pretty dam decent, that Apple provides a FREE OS X update service in store, for those without an ADSL connection.
Lets see Microsoft do that!