Is Mountain Lion a worthy upgrade?

The only thing I know of that I consistently use in ML that I didn't previously have is Notification Center and the integration with the Reminders app.

With that said, I find this a very useful feature and would certainly pay $20 for the functionality.

I don't think I expect nearly as much out of my OS as a lot of people on here do.

I've been perfectly okay with the incremental updates.

bigpoppamac31 said:

Well i guess that could be a whole other discussion. Kinda ridiculous though. So I'd have to slug it out with the Mac I have until Apple comes out with a Mac and an OS I want. Seems kinda dumb. Cause if I were to get a new Mac that came with ML I can plug in my external HD running Lion and it would run just fine. But if I take that HD and put it into my new Mac it would not work?? Seems silly to me.

Click to expand...

Thats not true, for the same reasons I stated earlier. If a mac came with ML originally, and that model was never sold with Lion, then it cannot ever* run Lion nor SL. Not through an external, not through a hard drive swap. It's simply a matter of supported hardware. SL, for example, only supports the cpus that it was ever sold with. So a cpu that that apple put into a computer that it sold with Lion would not be supported by SL.

* there are complex workarounds fir some computers to get SL onto models that shipped with Lion. The solutions aren't perfect, and frankly not worth the trouble.

bigpoppamac31 said:

So if I bought a copy of SL which was re-released on the Apple online store it would not work on my Mac?? I have a Macbook Pro (early 2011). Lion came out in the summer following the release of this MBP. However I purchased my mac refurbished on the Apple online store in September 2011 and it shipped to me with Lion. Would this Mac not support SL even though it was introduced when SL was the current OS??

Click to expand...

Your mac does support SL.

I've been very happy with the upgrade from Lion to Mountain Lion.

on my early 2011 15", vs lion things I have noticed

- graphics switching is more intelligent - i no longer bother with gfxcardstatus
- fan ramp up is more gradual / less noisy - the machine will ramp fans a bit earlier to lower levels before the machine gets to the point where it needs to run them at 6000rpm
- memory management is better, though Lion 10.7.4 got most of that too
- safari is improved
- launchpad is more useful - you can simply pinch and type to launch an app

stability for me has been same as or better than lion



edit:
i tried to boot SL on my machine a few days ago out of curiosity when I upgraded my hard drive (the free version from apple a while back) and my MBP 2011 would not boot it. 3 beeps and no dice.

Blank hard drive... so either the version i was shipped won't run on my macbook pro 2011, or ML had done an EFI update or something which would prevent it from booting.

Even though my machine is an early 2011, it shipped with lion (bought just after lion came out).

I have no issues with mountain lion performance-wise. At the price, it is cheap enough to be a no-brainer, even if all it did was introduce a new wallpaper.

Thing is, not that many of the newer features appeal to me. Of the lot, I get the most mileage out of airplay mirroring (already have an ipad, plan to use this with an Atv in my classroom teaching next year), iMessage (easier to compose lengthier smses), and safari's icloud tabs (so I can pick off easily from any of my 4 apple devices), plus notifications to a much lesser extent.

Notes is kinda redundant when you already have the vastly superior evernote, I still favour office over iworks (vastly cheaper thanks to education discount in my country), and dictation is too inaccurate.

It seems more of a service pack than a full OS update.

bigpoppamac31 said:

I wouldn't mind some of these "improvements" you mention. I just don't care for all the iOS type stuff coming over to the Mac. I'd prefer to leave them separate. I may snag a copy of SL and see how it goes. I have a blank extra laptop HD I can try it on.

Click to expand...

Ignore the iOS stuff?

throAU said:

Ignore the iOS stuff?

Click to expand...

That's not the point. It's the direction Apple is heading with OSX that's troublesome.

In short,

SL = XP
Lion = Vista
ML = 7

I just upgraded my 2009 MBP 17" from Lion to ML. Speed increased due to cleaned caches I imagine as well as the operating system software itself. Some small items broken, and easily fixed with ML-specific updates. I agree with others that this is an incremental improvement of Lion and that waiting for the first or second revision is always a good policy unless there is an overriding need.

anyone think ill have issues with the upgrade (see image attachment) ? I think I've waited long enough.

bigpoppamac31 said:

Okay how about this. Is it "stable" enough?? I've heard some people say ML is Apple's equivalent of MS Windows. That it wasn't that stable and had lots of issues. I guess that's what's I'm trying to get at. I don't care about the features. Will it screw up my Mac or is it a solid and stable OS like Apple claims it is (as they always do)? My Mac came with Lion as opposed to Snow Leopard as I was hoping. I bought it off the Apple refurbished site.

Click to expand...

If you got macpro, yes it's worth it.
If you got macbook pro, it's worth it..because it's only 20 bucks.
Stable-wise, it's not stable compared to snow leopard. Compared to lion, it's little slow.

Safari 6 gets stuck during loading website..so you have to keep refreshing it to get to a website.

Features, it's okay..mostly if you want to use icloud thing or connecting with other idevices like ical or notes.

Conclusion: it's still yes if you're willing to deal with little slowness...
If Snow leopard or lion is normal person, ML is like someone who have Alheizmer's

bigpoppamac31 said:

I wouldn't mind some of these "improvements" you mention. I just don't care for all the iOS type stuff coming over to the Mac. I'd prefer to leave them separate. I may snag a copy of SL and see how it goes. I have a blank extra laptop HD I can try it on.

Click to expand...

Sorry for the wall of text, but I thought that I would explain why you can't do what you want to do. :/

In order to install 10.6 on your machine you will have to find someone that has the 10.6 that came on that machine. You can't just buy the 10.6 disk on the Apple website and expect to install it. It's 10.6.3, which doesn't have +any+ drivers for your machine. The installer will tell you, your hardware is not supported for this version 10.6. The MacBook Pro that machine used to is a special version of 10.6.8 for that machine. It had that machine drivers in that special version.

The 2012 machines are a mixed bag, you get a mid 2012 MacBook Pro before Mountain Lion came out, you can still run Lion on them. You either get the current version of 10.7.5 from the MacApp Store (call Apple), or you need to do the Internet Recovery because the 10.7.4 it came was a special version for those machines. Now all the new Macs come with 10.8 (Mac Mini (currently MacMini comes with a special version of 10.8.1) and iMacs will have a special version of 10.8.2, they can not install previous 10.8.2). You just install 10.7 on these machines (expect for the early mid 2012 MacBooks Pros), no drivers for USB 3.0 and other improvements in the hardware.

It's always down to that special build for the newer machines at the time why you just can't 'downgrade'.

Hugh

oneMadRssn said:

If your computer model originally shipped with Lion, you cannot downgrade.

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False, all 2011 Macs that shipped with Lion can run SL with the exception of the Air. I downgraded my 17 inch MBP without a hitch.

EDIT: It might be possible to run SL on a 2011 Air with the TB to FW adaptor.

InuNacho said:

False, all 2011 Macs that shipped with Lion can run SL with the exception of the Air. I downgraded my 17 inch MBP without a hitch.

EDIT: It might be possible to run SL on a 2011 Air with the TB to FW adaptor.

Click to expand...

No, not false. I said all mac models that originally shipped with Lion cannot run SL. The key words are "originally" and "model". It doesn't matter what your particular unit came with, I'm talking about what version OS that model number ever shipped with at any point.

Meaning: If the model of your mac was never sold with SL, then it cannot be downgraded to SL. If the model of your mac was ever sold with SL, but later was sold with Lion, then it can be downgraded. Most 2011 model macs were sold originally with SL, so of course they can run SL. As you noted, the only exception is the 2011 MBA which was only ever offered with Lion and cannot be downgraded. (It is technically possible boot into SL on a 2011 MBA, but it's an awful experience as many drivers are missing.)

This is not a new limitation. For the same reasons, a 2005 model ibook which originally sold with Tiger cannot be downgraded to Panther or Jaguar. (Not sure why you would want to, but the point is you wouldn't be able to anyway.)

koban4max said:

If you got macpro, yes it's worth it.
If you got macbook pro, it's worth it..because it's only 20 bucks.
Stable-wise, it's not stable compared to snow leopard. Compared to lion, it's little slow.

Safari 6 gets stuck during loading website..so you have to keep refreshing it to get to a website.

Features, it's okay..mostly if you want to use icloud thing or connecting with other idevices like ical or notes.

Conclusion: it's still yes if you're willing to deal with little slowness...
If Snow leopard or lion is normal person, ML is like someone who have Alheizmer's

Click to expand...

That slowness is something wrong with your computer. Mountain Lion was defiantly faster than Lion on my end. When I'm loading websites on Safari I never have to refresh it just to get to a website.

You might want to do a clean install on your computer.

oneMadRssn said:

No, not false. I said all mac models that originally shipped with Lion cannot run SL. The key words are "originally" and "model". It doesn't matter what your particular unit came with, I'm talking about what version OS that model number ever shipped with at any point.

Click to expand...

The 2011 Mini never shipped with anything outside of Lion and it's more than capable of running SL.

Namtaro said:

That slowness is something wrong with your computer. Mountain Lion was defiantly faster than Lion on my end. When I'm loading websites on Safari I never have to refresh it just to get to a website.

You might want to do a clean install on your computer.

Click to expand...

it had been clean install twice. it's the software.