With the Mac OS X, do most people upgrade every time a new one gets released?

L

leh18621

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jun 18, 2008
Messages
1,082
I am very new to the Mac world so forgive me for my lack of knowledge. My wife got a Mac Book Air in April of this year and it came with Lion OS and it has been problem free. I see that Mountain Lion is out now and keep debating if I should upgrade it or not.

Do most people upgrade the OS every time a new one gets released for the sake of staying current?
 
I do given that it's cheap.

Also Mountain Lion is quite a bit nicer than Lion IMO.
 
Yes, new OS X releases are adopted pretty quickly. Mountain Lion was installed on 10% of all Macs within a month after release, for example. Low price plus digital distribution plus increasing sales of Macs equals fairly rapid adoption.

As for me, I upgrade because each release is better than the previous. Though I'm starting to worry that my 2010 MacBook Pro is going to be cut off for support before a sufficiently appealing replacement (Broadwell-equipped rMBP) is available.
 
Well you won't see any major changes really. I have it installed on my 2011 11" Air and it's performance is generally the same with minor changes.

It really depends on how much you value the $20. Don't expect anything revolutionary. But if you use iMessage (across iPhones and iPads) and Facebook ( integration with Notification Center) a lot, then it will be worth the jump.
 
Terpfen said:
Yes, new OS X releases are adopted pretty quickly. Mountain Lion was installed on 10% of all Macs within a month after release, for example. Low price plus digital distribution plus increasing sales of Macs equals fairly rapid adoption.

As for me, I upgrade because each release is better than the previous. Though I'm starting to worry that my 2010 MacBook Pro is going to be cut off for support before a sufficiently appealing replacement (Broadwell-equipped rMBP) is available.
Click to expand...

So with our MBA that we bought new in April, it won't always be available to upgrade to the newest OS eventually? We can upgrade to Mountain Lion, maybe the next one, maybe the next one after that but eventually they will put out a new version that we won't be able to install on our MBA? Interesting to know. On average, how many new OS upgrades do they generally make available for a particular computer before that computer is no longer eligible to be upgraded?
 
leh18621 said:
So with our MBA that we bought new in April, it won't always be available to upgrade to the newest OS eventually? We can upgrade to Mountain Lion, maybe the next one, maybe the next one after that but eventually they will put out a new version that we won't be able to install on our MBA? Interesting to know. On average, how many new OS upgrades do they generally make available for a particular computer before that computer is no longer eligible to be upgraded?
Click to expand...

Yes, just like with Windows, eventually there's going to be a cutoff period. Right now the cutoff is devices made roughly around 2008; they're able to run Lion, but some may not be able to run Mountain Lion. 10.9 will likely raise its minimum requirements as well.

You can expect to get about 4 years of OS upgrades out of one Mac these days, maybe 5 depending on when you buy and what changes Apple makes. Note that we're just talking about upgrades; Apple will still issue security updates for the previous OS for at least a few more months.
 
Depends - not if the update breaks needed apps.

For example, I was on Snow Leopard due to compatibility issues with ExamView (test writing app).

Also, given the changes they made to SMB in 10.7 - I know a few others still running 10.6.
 
I usually wait for 1 or 2 service packs to be released before upgrading as there is usually growing pains. But other than that, I do pick up upgrades.
 
I appreciate all the info and I am definitely learning. If most Macs can get updated OS's for four years I still think that is pretty good.
 
UnknownSouljer said:
I usually wait for 1 or 2 service packs to be released before upgrading as there is usually growing pains. But other than that, I do pick up upgrades.
Click to expand...

That's the vibe I was getting as I have been reading various things online. Has Mountain Lion gotten an offical service pack yet? I saw an update recently came out (10.8.2) but I don't think that is considered a service pack since it was a small update but I'm not sure.
 
some of these should not be new versions, they really are "service packs" in many cases, but people are willing to pay for it at such a low cost..
 
MrGuvernment said:
some of these should not be new versions, they really are "service packs" in many cases, but people are willing to pay for it at such a low cost..
Click to expand...

Not really. New versions of OS X have always weighed in somewhere between the size of a Windows service pack and full release. Just because you may not sufficiently impressed by the change log doesn't somehow lessen the release.

Mountain Lion changed more on my Mac than Windows 7 SP1 did on my PC, that's for sure.
 
leh18621 said:
That's the vibe I was getting as I have been reading various things online. Has Mountain Lion gotten an offical service pack yet? I saw an update recently came out (10.8.2) but I don't think that is considered a service pack since it was a small update but I'm not sure.
Click to expand...

Now that Apple has moved to a yearly release cycle, I guess I should mention, that I picked up Mountain Lion a lot sooner than I did Lion, or Snow Leopard before it.
 
For the sake of aurguement, what about the flip side of this: what if you never upgrade the OS on your Mac? If you don't want the new features and all you use your Mac is for internet browsing and MS Office, is there any harm to not upgrading as the new versions come out of OS X? I mean, could you run your Mac for 5-6 years without upgrading the OS and be fine for basic use? Or would you run into compatibility issues?

Again thanks in advance, I am still trying to learn all the ins and outs of the Mac world.
 
leh18621 said:
For the sake of aurguement, what about the flip side of this: what if you never upgrade the OS on your Mac? If you don't want the new features and all you use your Mac is for internet browsing and MS Office, is there any harm to not upgrading as the new versions come out of OS X? I mean, could you run your Mac for 5-6 years without upgrading the OS and be fine for basic use? Or would you run into compatibility issues?

Again thanks in advance, I am still trying to learn all the ins and outs of the Mac world.
Click to expand...

Eventually you will run into an inability to install new software. Most major software is supported for a full major version behind and then usually the last released version of the major version behind that. (ie. much current software requires 10.6.8, 10.7.x or 10.8.x, once 10.9 comes out, expect 10.6 to be dropped) You can usually get by just fine updating every other version. But if your hardware supports it, there's not much reason to be more than two major versions behind, especially now that you can run Lion for free in a VM on Mountain Lion if you really need it.
 
leh18621 said:
For the sake of aurguement, what about the flip side of this: what if you never upgrade the OS on your Mac? If you don't want the new features and all you use your Mac is for internet browsing and MS Office, is there any harm to not upgrading as the new versions come out of OS X? I mean, could you run your Mac for 5-6 years without upgrading the OS and be fine for basic use? Or would you run into compatibility issues?

Again thanks in advance, I am still trying to learn all the ins and outs of the Mac world.
Click to expand...

You could run into compatibility issues with newer programs written say for OS 11 or above.
 
Note to anyone thinking of upgrading to Mountain Lion on a server machine: Wake on LAN is not properly implemented at this point in time.
 
I appreciate all the info. Our MBA is just a home computer and the only installed software we have on it is MS Office 2011 which we will never upgrade (at least on this Mac). Other than that it is just used for internet browsing so I'm thinking we shouldn't run into any compatibility issues (unless the Safari web browser becomes incompatible with certain websites???).

I am still probably going to go ahead and upgrade as each release comes out considering they are only $20. I have read that performing a full install is better than installing it as an upgrade over the top so each time I guess I will have to back up whatever files are on it and then reload Office after each upgrade.

I asked the questions just because I am trying to learn all the pro's and con's to this and learning along the way. I'm an I.T. guy but I am sure there are a lot of differences to learn about Mac OS vs Windows.
 
leh18621 said:
I appreciate all the info. Our MBA is just a home computer and the only installed software we have on it is MS Office 2011 which we will never upgrade (at least on this Mac). Other than that it is just used for internet browsing so I'm thinking we shouldn't run into any compatibility issues (unless the Safari web browser becomes incompatible with certain websites???).
Click to expand...

Safari uses the Webkit renderer, which is the same renderer that powers Chrome and both Mobile Safari and Mobile Chrome. It's not going anywhere and it's basically the standard now. Safari will have no compatibility issues for the foreseeable future.

I am still probably going to go ahead and upgrade as each release comes out considering they are only $20. I have read that performing a full install is better than installing it as an upgrade over the top so each time I guess I will have to back up whatever files are on it and then reload Office after each upgrade.
Click to expand...

OS X automatically performs a clean install when you upgrade. The user directories (~/JoeBlow for instance) are copied to another section of the drive, the existing OS X installation is blown away, a clean OS X installation is placed on top, and then your user profile is copied back over. This happens transparently as part of what appears to the Windows-only user to be an upgrade. Since all preferences are stored in your user profile rather than the System directory, Apple can get away with nuking everything and reimporting your profile. Thus there's no need to reformat and do a "clean" install, since the installer will do all of that for you to begin with. (And people who report improved performance by doing a reformat and fresh install are victims of the placebo effect.)

Way too many people are used to the upgrade processes Microsoft crapped out a decade ago. Awful upgrade installs from 98/2000 to XP or XP to Vista don't happen anymore, at least not on the OS X side.
 
Terpfen said:
Safari uses the Webkit renderer, which is the same renderer that powers Chrome and both Mobile Safari and Mobile Chrome. It's not going anywhere and it's basically the standard now. Safari will have no compatibility issues for the foreseeable future.



OS X automatically performs a clean install when you upgrade. The user directories (~/JoeBlow for instance) are copied to another section of the drive, the existing OS X installation is blown away, a clean OS X installation is placed on top, and then your user profile is copied back over. This happens transparently as part of what appears to the Windows-only user to be an upgrade. Since all preferences are stored in your user profile rather than the System directory, Apple can get away with nuking everything and reimporting your profile. Thus there's no need to reformat and do a "clean" install, since the installer will do all of that for you to begin with. (And people who report improved performance by doing a reformat and fresh install are victims of the placebo effect.)

Way too many people are used to the upgrade processes Microsoft crapped out a decade ago. Awful upgrade installs from 98/2000 to XP or XP to Vista don't happen anymore, at least not on the OS X side.
Click to expand...

All good to know, thank you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top