OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion Tops Lion as Most Popular Mac Operating System

[Larry-K]

Originally Posted by Lesser Evets

If Apple had a work-around for M-Lion on older Macs, they'd be having a lot less Lion users and a bit more cash.

Yeah, and if they had a workaround to put Snow Leopard on Newer Macs they'd have even more.

----------

Originally Posted by Frisco

Tiger is still the best OS X Operating System. Panther #2

You're probably right, but I'd flip the order.

[sectime]

Originally Posted by Larry-K

Yeah, and if they had a workaround to put Snow Leopard on Newer Macs they'd have even more.

----------



You're probably right, but I'd flip the order.

Maybe a case of fond memories. I just sold my MacPro 2.2, reinstalled the original OS. Looked like windows XP compared to my new Mac Mini

[SteveW928]

Heh, Snow Leopard is popular because it doesn't have the goofy new (confusing) method of opening and saving files, and because it is compatible with older versions of software (some which are still widely in use).

IMO, if it weren't for the iOS and iCloud compatibility, they'd have ZERO percent Mt. Lion. I'm running Mt. Lion because of that, but I'm not really loving it.

What ever happened to Apple doing usability testing and such... it's feeling more like circus clowns are designing the UI these days.

[Larry-K]

Originally Posted by macs4nw

"You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user". Tim Cook

Blame iOS-sification. OSX and iOS are two different animals, that are best kept separate. Here's where convergence is not desirable. What's intuitive on a phone or a tablet, is not necessarily so on a desktop. We're definitely not getting the best of both worlds. Although ML has some (very) useful features, I too will stick with Snow Leopard for now!

Yes, and when it comes to getting my work done Apple keeps trying to sell me a toaster and a refrigerator.

I'm sticking with Snow Leopard until Cook either brings me a MacPro that doesn't think it's a phone (If you keep touching your MacPro, you'll go blind), or announces the next Mini is now a workstation, just like it's a server, at which time I'm retiring.

[eXan]

Originally Posted by SteveW928

it's feeling more like circus clowns are designing the UI these days.

lol, thanks for reminding me about horrible Address Book's and iCal's UI in 10.8

[Larry-K]

Originally Posted by sectime

Maybe a case of fond memories. I just sold my MacPro 2.2, reinstalled the original OS. Looked like windows XP compared to my new Mac Mini

Those fond memories are of operating systems that worked day in and day out, without any problems.

I never made a buck off the looks of my OS, and I've never liked the look of OSX anyway. I don't know who the rocket scientist was, that thought reversed white type, broken into two lines, with a drop shadow, was easy to read.

[OLDCODGER]

Originally Posted by sectime

Maybe a case of fond memories. I just sold my MacPro 2.2, reinstalled the original OS. Looked like windows XP compared to my new Mac Mini

Being old, myself, I don't care about looks - I care about what it does, and how it does it.

I don't know how ML does it, because I don't like what it does, so won't use it.

[theBB]

Originally Posted by doctor-don

How does Safari perform on 10.6.8? On 10.5.8, after visiting news sites that have a lot of flash video, Safari crashes. Is it any better in 10.6.8?

I recently upgraded to 10.6.8, so that I could get iTunes 10.something that was required to sync with iOS6. I saved some disk space, as SL has a smaller footprint. Safari has been more stable for me on my core duo iMac, especially when tons of tabs are open. (I also use click to Flash.)

The only complaint I have is Preview. It renders photos very slowly. Slice after slice of a picture shows up progressively. They used to appear instantaneously. However, I don't know for sure whether this is all SL's fault. I have very little disk space left, so I am not sure if OS is running out of cache, considering I only have 1.5GB of RAM. I needed it for a few more months to tide me over until I upgrade to a new machine, so I am not gonna fiddle with it to figure it out.

[tdream]

Have they fixed broken Samba shares yet?

[ssmed]

I have downgraded to Server version 10.6.8. It has easier configuration, greater functionality and runs very well. Luckily the computer allowed this.

The laptops are all 10.8.2 which is much better than any version of Lion we have used in terms of stability, mostly because they can't run 10.6.8 and because of the axing of MobileMe and replacement with iCloud which we do use for calendar synchronisation.

Small changes in 10.8.2 which have annoyed me.
Can't remove notifications from the menu bar
Mail is very slow to close down, even with a small dataset of messages
Can't email from preview to default email client - has to be mail.app (outrageous)
No separate search engine text entry in Safari - I don't want my URL entries to be considered a search unless perfectly formed. This appears to be a potential privacy issue.

Currently a major bug in 10.8 stops Endnote X6 working at all well and there is no indication that this will get fixed!

[nightlong]

Reluctantly, I upgraded my late 2007 iMac last week, from Snow Leopard to ML. reluctant because that computer with SL has been so stable, never had any problem. But ... apart from my even older Mini Mac which still has Tiger, I want all the rest to be in sync in various ways.

[robeddie]

What we really need is a graph that shows us: Of the people who COULD run Snow Leopard, how many have upgraded to Lion or Mountain Lion.

Obviously, any person who bought a Mac in the past 3 years has had either Lion or Mountain Lion by default with no CHOICE to run Snow leopard... the new OS's have effectively been shoved down their throats.
>>> And I would guess a solid 1/3 of all macs in use right now were bought in the past 3 years.

So, if 60 percent of current Mac users have Lion or Mountain Lion, I would suggest that only 30 percent (15% for each operating system) has actually UPGRADED by CHOICE.

If you look at it that way, neither of these last two operating systems has been all that popular.

[a0me]

Would have stuck with Snow Leopard if I hadn't had to get a new Mac. Any easy way to "downgrade" from Mountain Lion?

[Manderby]

Wait a second... Duplicate is the same as Save As? Really, with all seriousness and no smiley at the end, since the first time I used Lion till today, I completely did not get that. Now it makes somehow sense... Man, I feel stupid. Or do I feel pissed? Confused.

About the different systems: It's mostly about personal preference, meaning, if one system works for what is needed and the other does somehow not, it is easy to say which system is "crap" and which is "best evah".

I owned all systems since 7 (the one before OSX) and even knew most before that. I am a SL guy. Tiger was pretty awesome aleready but with SL, I was able to reduce maintenance on 30 machines down to 1 hour per month. Rosetta was there so all external devices worked like a charm and even old software like (thanks for the previous posters to mention it) AppleWorks did work. SL also introduced great new API for us software engineers.

Lion was the same as saying "forget it". After having tested it deeply, I refused to install it on any machine in the company.

Mountain Lion is worth a look at. But the lack of support for older devices is just killing it. Period. Some people start using it nonetheless. It works for most of the tasks. We nonetheless already lost several files because of the unintuitive "Versions", I had to disable the MacAppStore because of the policy of the company and the notification center had to be killed due to reoccuring bugs because the MacAppStore had been disabled. Facebook and Twitter? Not used by anyone. So, in many ways, it's back to the functionality of SL.

Additionally, there is one particular (and pretty important) thing which still hinders everyday work on Lion and ML for all who installed it: XCode 4. But that is a different story.

[baryon]

Originally Posted by marsmissions

Did you even use leopard?! It was a buggy mess. Thats the whole reason Snow Leopard even happened.

Yes I used Leopard for two years, and for me, it was absolutely stable and perfectly fantastic. Snow Leopard, on the other hand, introduced a few minor bugs, and slowed down a few things. I really preferred the way Exposé and Spaces worked in Leopard instead of Snow Leopard.

I guess it's down to personal experience, but I always felt that Leopard was polished to perfection while every subsequent OS X was a bit rushed and the buggy new features always outnumbered the fixed old features.

For example, in Leopard, there was a major emphasis on gestures, and they worked very well. In Lion, these gestures were changed, but in a way that broke certain gestures (like 3 finger swipe) and introduced inconsistencies (the swiping direction was "in the direction of content movement" for most gestures, but remained the opposite for others, like 3 finger swipe).

Leopard also introduced Spaces, and it was absolutely perfect (for me) as it was then. Snow Leopard broke it somewhat, by introducing jerky animations and some minor glitches. Also, Exposé was changed to no longer preserve relative window positions and sizes, something we had to wait for until Mountain Lion to get fixed.

[Stiksi]

Snow Leopard was briefly the most popular Mac OS again in Nov 2012. 30,06% share vs. just under 30 for both Lion and MLion.

----------

Originally Posted by a0me

Would have stuck with Snow Leopard if I hadn't had to get a new Mac. Any easy way to "downgrade" from Mountain Lion?

No, Apple has made it impossible to install SL on new macs.

[AnonMac50]

Anyone notice that in 3 months more people adopted 10.6 than they adopted 10.7 or 10.8?

[Emanuel1]

I m using 10.8 and it rocks. Extremely satisfied so far no complains.

[AnonMac50]

Originally Posted by tigres

Image

What's this from?

[photographypro]

If you don't like the "fluff" in Mountain lion, you don't have to use it. But to me the dictation feature makes Mountain lion the best operating system yet. Just double tap the function key anywhere you wish to type, emails, Internet, Pages, Word, etc., and it even does punctuation! No need to copy and paste.

Snow Leopard still holds a big market share because older computers can't go beyond that. It's not necessarily because it's the best.

Plus, if you're using iCloud, I don't know why you wouldn't upgrade to Mountain lion, especially when it's under 20 bucks.

[Virinprew]

Originally Posted by baryon

Yes I used Leopard for two years, and for me, it was absolutely stable and perfectly fantastic. Snow Leopard, on the other hand, introduced a few minor bugs, and slowed down a few things. I really preferred the way Exposé and Spaces worked in Leopard instead of Snow Leopard.

I guess it's down to personal experience, but I always felt that Leopard was polished to perfection while every subsequent OS X was a bit rushed and the buggy new features always outnumbered the fixed old features.

For example, in Leopard, there was a major emphasis on gestures, and they worked very well. In Lion, these gestures were changed, but in a way that broke certain gestures (like 3 finger swipe) and introduced inconsistencies (the swiping direction was "in the direction of content movement" for most gestures, but remained the opposite for others, like 3 finger swipe).

Leopard also introduced Spaces, and it was absolutely perfect (for me) as it was then. Snow Leopard broke it somewhat, by introducing jerky animations and some minor glitches. Also, Exposé was changed to no longer preserve relative window positions and sizes, something we had to wait for until Mountain Lion to get fixed.

You are right about expose'. I never like expose' in SL. I want a relative size. And expose' in Lion is terrible because windows stack up and block each other. I like expose' in ML which is expose' in Leopard.

[AnonMac50]

Originally Posted by doctor-don

Buggy in what aspect?

My OS is still Leopard - 10.5.8, on my 2008 Mac Pro.

What I have asked for previously is a list of reasons to change to Snow Leopard or more recent systems. AppleWorks functions fine for me with word processing, spreadsheet, database and painting / drawing. As I have read, this won't work with 10.6 or greater.

Constructive comments are welcome.

Snow Leopard works with AppleWorks, I use it.

----------

Originally Posted by marsmissions

Did you even use leopard?! It was a buggy mess. Thats the whole reason Snow Leopard even happened.

I had Leopard and I love it. I still have Leopard on a MacBook.

[a0me]

Originally Posted by AnonMac50

What's this from?

The Breakfast Club

[MindsEye]

I'm on ML now and honestly the only thing that i miss from L/SL is legacy support. Did apple give an explanation as to why Rosetta was removed from Lion? or was it just the typical "nobody uses legacy applications" line of thinking?. Personally i think the out cry over AutoSave is quite overblown. restoring to a previous version of a file is fairly simple and user friendly. More so not all applications make use of it i.e. office 2011 & Adobe cs6

Originally Posted by macs4nw

"You can converge a toaster and a refrigerator, but those things are probably not going to be pleasing to the user". Tim Cook

Blame iOS-sification. OSX and iOS are two different animals, that are best kept separate. Here's where convergence is not desirable. What's intuitive on a phone or a tablet, is not necessarily so on a desktop. We're definitely not getting the best of both worlds. Although ML has some (very) useful features, I too will stick with Snow Leopard for now!

Agreed the two worlds should stay as far apart as possible but i will contradict myself by saying in the next iteration of OSX i hope we see Siri implemented. If done right it could be an extremely powerful tool. Imagine issuing commands via the terminal, searching spotlight, opening apps and webpages, Allowing third party devs to make use of it etc. Looking up and down iOS that along with an iBooks app would be the only features i would take.

[Manderby]

By the way, if you check on the link mentioned in the original post (Link) and select only North America, you will see, that SL actually still ist the most popular.