Will you upgrade to OS X Lion?

jtwrace · « **on:** 5 May 2011, 12:38 am »

As the tittle asks...

jparkhur · « **Reply #1 on:** 5 May 2011, 12:45 am »

Yes, and as soon as ssd drives become the norm, a new desktop too.

JohnR · « **Reply #2 on:** 5 May 2011, 12:52 am »

Nope

Quote

Rosetta, software which makes possible the execution of PowerPC software on x86 hardware, is no longer available.

jparkhur · « **Reply #3 on:** 5 May 2011, 12:55 am »

John, partition your drive and run both

Nels Ferre · « **Reply #4 on:** 5 May 2011, 01:17 am »

Nope. Our Snow Leopard units are the most reliable computers we have ever had. If it isn't broke....

skunark · « **Reply #5 on:** 5 May 2011, 01:54 am »

Yup, there were past rumors of the mac osx server also included in this upgrade for free, which i'm also looking forward to.

I'm curious if there's a performance improvement like snow leopard had.

JohnR · « **Reply #6 on:** 9 May 2011, 05:46 am »

Quote from: jparkhur on 5 May 2011, 12:55 am

John, partition your drive and run both

Hm.... well, that's a bit inconvenient...! I wonder if 10.6 could be run in a Fusion VM. I don't use Photoshop or Office very often (not often enough to justify buying updated copies) but every now and then I need to use them.

jrebman · « **Reply #7 on:** 10 May 2011, 02:49 pm »

Will most likely upgrade on my MBP, unless I sell it and get another mini when the new ones come out, but that's for general purpose use.

Will not be touching my Mach2 Mini, and I'm pretty sure Darrell will be recommending that people don't upgrade their mach2 minis.

Really also looking forward to see what additions they add to VoiceOver on both the macs and in the new IOS when it comes out. Just a couple of tweaks here and there and VO could bea fantastic screen reader, as opposed to the very good one that it is now.

-- Jim

toocool4 · « **Reply #8 on:** 10 May 2011, 04:29 pm »

No, i am using 10.6.5 and i'm happy with it.

Lion has some nice new features and tricks up it's sleeve but it has other bits which are too much of a pain or annoying, so i will stick with Snow Leopard 10.6.5

Pez · « **Reply #9 on:** 10 May 2011, 04:31 pm »

Snow Leopard/Leopard are such great OS's it's hard to look at Lion and not feel like it's a little gimmicky. Are multitouch abilities really where the desktop/laptop need to go? I think the minimal multitouch on laptop trackpads for snow leopard is nice, but I guess it's hard for me to imagine it being much more useful.

doorman · « **Reply #10 on:** 10 May 2011, 05:04 pm »

Will wait & see. Snow Leopard has proven useful & reliable so far--
don

wgscott · « **Reply #11 on:** 10 Jun 2011, 05:01 am »

Yes. I think it will be rather like the 10.6 upgrade, in the sense that it will be more like a point update than a traumatic rearrangement of everything. I always keep all of our computers at home and at work updated to the latest everything, or else it becomes an administrative nightmare. Some people as a policy wait for the first point update after the major upgrade, which typically addresses the most troublesome problems. I have a lot of external pressure to update, so don't have that luxury.

wilsynet · « **Reply #12 on:** 10 Jun 2011, 05:32 am »

New Mail client that comes with Lion is too good to ignore. Given how critical email is to me and how much volume I get every day, I'd pay $30 just for that.

Lion Server will be another upgrade option. $50.

teros1 · « **Reply #13 on:** 10 Jun 2011, 09:05 am »

I already have (Apple Developers Program).

I am currently listening to Pure Music through my Prism Orpheus.

Absolutely no problems (so far).

Note: If you use the Apple productivity apps (e.g., Mail, etc.), it is a *significant* upgrade.

Bob

dB Cooper · « **Reply #14 on:** 10 Jun 2011, 11:02 am »

I like the idea of partitioning and running both (except for Lion wasting space by creating a restore partition I don't need at all; I have a clone of my startup disk on an external HD). I have some apps I like which are older and may break under Lion. F that. I like to use the GIMP within X11. When the OS transitioned from Tiger (10.4) to Leopard (10.5), X11 was broken for almost six months. And inevitably there will be other apps broken, totally or partially.

There are things I like (and don't) about Lion. I like having the ability to resize windows from any edge like Windoze users have been able to do since 3.1. I think the Dock is an inefficient screen-space waster and Lion gives better ways to accomplish the same tasks (All it does is open and close things after all, at a hefty cost in screen space. Not such a bother on a 27" iMac but on an 11" or 13" it uses about 15% of your display at the larger settings)
General impressions:

Launchpad: Don't need it. I use Launchbar. Works fine.
Resume: May be useful. Is it really such a big deal though? I can reopen anything recent from Recent Items though. Is that so hard?
AutoSave: I kinda like this, but Versions, that sounds like something to eat your HD. Edit HD video in Final Cut? Better get that 750 GB!
AirDrop: I can see the usefulness but don't need it personally.
Mail: Has needed an overhaul for awhile; kinda interested in that. Has some useful added functionality
Server: No need whatsoever.
Rubber band scrolling: Bounces the window view back to the bottom (or top) when you reach the top (or bottom). Not even sure what the purported benefit of this is. What if I want it to stay there? I can already jump to the top or bottom of a scroll with a three finger vertical swipe in most windows (except Finder, oddly).
Full screen apps: Like this.
Drag and drop from Spotlight results list: This looks useful. Would be more useful if you could open items in Finder from that results list to perform other operations on them.
Time Machine changes: don't care. I don't use Time Machine. It's a dumbed-down solution IMHO. I use Carbon Copy Cloner, which does something Time Machine can't: Creates a bootable backup.That way if a disaster happens I'm not dead in the water until my HD gets replaced.
Overlay scroll bars: Kind of like this.
Autocorrect: Hope to God it works better than in ioS (or can be turned off.)

I have seen little acknowledgement of one of the biggest implications of Lion: It at least partially obsoletes the traditional mouse. Much if not most of the new functionality relies heavily on multitouch gestures that cannot be implemented on a conventional mouse. To fully exploit it you will need a multitouch trackpad, either built in as on the laptops or external like the Magic Trackpad.

I sell Apple computers and iOS devices. I see people every day that have not figured out- after using menu-and-scroll based GUIs for 27 years- how to organize things, find things, save things, rename things, switch between apps or windows etc. I don't know that all the new razzle-dazzle will help them. Some things, like Autosave, may benefit the obstinately computer illiterate. But other things, like switching between apps in fullscreen mode and scroll bars that disappear and reappear, are likely to bewilder them. We shall see; I am keeping an open mind but am very satisfied with Snow Leopard and will not be an early adopter unless I go with the dual boot approach.

MaxCast · « **Reply #15 on:** 10 Jun 2011, 01:47 pm »

Quote from: dB Cooper on 10 Jun 2011, 11:02 am

I sell Apple computers and iOS devices. I see people every day that have not figured out- after using menu-and-scroll based GUIs for 27 years- how to organize things, find things, save things, rename things, switch between apps or windows etc. I don't know that all the new razzle-dazzle will help them. Some things, like Autosave, may benefit the obstinately computer illiterate. But other things, like switching between apps in fullscreen mode and scroll bars that disappear and reappear, are likely to bewilder them. We shall see; I am keeping an open mind but am very satisfied with Snow Leopard and will not be an early adopter unless I go with the dual boot approach.

I have been using an imac for 6 months and this is exactly how I feel. So much so that the second computer will be a windows machine. We have iphone, ipods and touches and think ios5 will be great.

jrebman · « **Reply #16 on:** 10 Jun 2011, 01:48 pm »

Well, it looks like there are some interesting enhancements to VoiceOver, and some of the other features such as the full screen apps can be very useful to we blind computer users. It will also be interesting to see how VO gestures have changed or if any have been added, but in general, right now this looks like it will be a more productive environment for screen reader users. Certainly worth $30 especially if the basic productivity apps are improved. The single-letter web navigation feature in VO is probably enough on it's own for me to switch -- have had this for years on windows screen readers and it really helps productivity a lot.

Of course, this will be for my MBP only and the modified mini music server will stay with snow leopard.

-- Jim

dmccombs · « **Reply #17 on:** 15 Jun 2011, 09:43 pm »

Quote from: jrebman on 10 May 2011, 02:49 pm

Will not be touching my Mach2 Mini, and I'm pretty sure Darrell will be recommending that people don't upgrade their mach2 minis.

Lion will be a nice upgrade for most Mac users but not for dedicated music servers, (at least in the short and mid term).

Lion has increased security (which has additional background processes). Some of these will be things that can be turned off. Some won't.

Lion has lots of new business and house cleaning tasks that work in the background. Again, these will need to be hunted down and killed.

iTunes does promise some neat functionality for some music lovers (streaming and iCloud/256kb stuff), but so far I haven't seen any big positive changes for high-end audio.

The net result is that from a music perspective, Lion will have more things going on in the background that will negatively impact the sound. Lion may not ever sound better than 10.6.x. because of the extra background processing. I recommend people look closely at what they use thier Music Server for and if possible do tests before blindly upgrading to Lion, thinking newer is better.

Notes:
- Mach2 will only offer a Lion build if we make it sound as good or better than 10.6.x This could take months or never be. We are happy to offer 10.6.x builds until Lion is a good replacement.
- Mach2 customers should not upgrade to Lion. It will overwrite our mods and your machine will sound noticably worse.

Darrell
www.mach2music.com

simon wagstaff · « **Reply #18 on:** 19 Jun 2011, 01:00 pm »

I am just upgrading to 10.6 today on my main iMac. I did the upgrade to my mac mini (intel core solo) yesterday, primarily to be able to run Decibel.

Looks like Lion might be just a little more complicated and complex than I want. The main reason I am updating to 10.6 is it seems a little more stable and will run Decibel. I don't need more than that.

dB Cooper · « **Reply #19 on:** 21 Jun 2011, 02:23 am »

On further reflection: I am still on the fence. Lion wants half the RAM on my Macbook just to run. I am quite satisfied with 10.6 overall. Apple seems to write better bloatware than MS, but it is becoming bloatware nonetheless.

I wouldn't give Lion a second thought for a music server machine; in fact I would probably rule it out entirely and opt for an earlier OSX version, or one of the lighter weight Linuxes for that matter.