...to upgrade to mountain lion or not?

[halfmonkey]

I currently have Snow Leopard on my iMac and I've been debating whether or not to upgrade to Mountain Lion or stick with SL. I don't have a specific reason at this moment to require the upgrade as my workflow is doing just fine with SL. The main reason why I'm even considering it is because I'm planning on upgrading my camera in the near future and I'd like to shoot in RAW and either use Aperture or Lightroom. Aperture requires 10.7, I believe and I think Lightroom requires 10.8. So if I stick with SL, I can't get either of those programs on the computer to process RAW. Also, it is believed that Apple will release an Aperture Pro X like they did with their other apps and I'm sure it will require ML at the very least if not the newest OS coming soon.

So my question is, for those of you that have upgraded to ML from SL, was it trouble free? I've read plenty of posts where people have had so many problems with the upgrade from bricking their computer to apps not working that I'm afraid of messing with a good thing.

I do have time machine on my iMac and I don't have very many apps on their from the ones that came with the computer. Also, ML should now be quite mature in it's development that I would also hope that developers would have by now made their apps compatible with ML without any issues.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

If you do not mind the lack of a coloured Sidebar in Finder (can be remedied with TotalFinder and other apps) and the lack of proper Spaces (Mission Control is a bit **** when it comes to more than four Spaces, but TotalSpaces can remedy that a little bit), OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion might be just fine.
But you could always wait a bit longer until 2014 to get OS X 10.9 Mavericks, since it seems to be quite a bit better than OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion instead of spending 19 USD now and 19 USD then.

 

[maflynn]

At this point in time, I'd recommend you hold off until Mavericks comes out next month.

 

[halfmonkey]

At this point in time, I'd recommend you hold off until Mavericks comes out next month.

I've thought about that option and I don't think that I'm really considering that option just because I want to wait until all of the bugs are worked out and because I'm not sure how compatible my "old" computer will be with Mavericks. Like I said, I think by now ML should be an easy upgrade because it has had time to mature and developers have worked out all of the kinks but I just wanted to ask for some feedback from people that have actually upgraded to see how smooth it went.

 

[Miguel Cunha]

I'm not sure how compatible my "old" computer will be with Mavericks.

Mavericks is compatible with same machines as Mountain Lion.
So if you can upgrade you machine to ML you will be able to upgrade to Maverics.
About the bugs in Maverics, from what I'm experiencing in the beta releases, I'm very optimistic.

 

[Miguel Cunha]

Mission Control is a bit **** when it comes to more than four Spaces.

I totally agree with you.
The first thing I asked myself when I first used Mission Control was "Where did Spaces go?"
They are very handy and I miss that feature.

 

[minisuds7]

Personally I upgraded my late 2009 iMac from SL to ML last year (didn't really like Lion a bit after throwing that on the old MacBook) and haven't regretted it. It feels rock solid and I haven't had any major issues with it. I dare say it feels more responsive than Snow Leopard. Granted, Mission Control is no Spaces but once you get the hang of it it's not so bad.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

I totally agree with you.
The first thing I asked myself when I first used Mission Control was "Where did Spaces go?"
They are very handy and I miss that feature.

Look at TotalSpaces then, as it gives back some of the features of Spaces, though it is still in its infancy, but I can live with it (I had to, since I built a Hackintosh, and it is much easier with OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion than with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard).

----------

Granted, Mission Control is no Spaces but once you get the hang of it it's not so bad.

When those responses came, I always posted this, but again, TotalSpaces (and now two 24" displays) remedy that a bit.

Imagine going from Spaces in Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, looking like this

to Mission Control in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, looking like this

Of course, not everyone uses that many Spaces, but Mission Control seriously hampers the usefulness of more than four virtual desktops.

 

[Miguel Cunha]

Look at TotalSpaces then, as it gives back some of the features of Spaces, though it is still in its infancy, but I can live with it.

I've heard about TotalSpaces but i never tried it.
What do you mean when you say its in its infancy?

When those responses came, I always posted this, but again, TotalSpaces (and now two 24" displays) remedy that a bit.

I like Mission Control and Spaces.
It would be nice if Apple (wanted to) came up with a way of integrating them together.

 

[whitedragon101]

I suspect (hope is probably more accurate) Apple may actually be reworking the GUI as we speak. When Apple produced Snow Leopard it was all about power features then came Lion and it took away spaces and replaced it with the awful mission control. Then mountain lion added a few toys and bug fixes.

However now with Mavericks they seem to be focusing on usability and power features. Making finder better, multiple screens, real performance gains http://www.apple.com/uk/osx/preview/advanced-technologies.html

I think when they have made such a good a turn in focus like this I hope they have realised that Mission control needs to go. The post from simsaladimbamba demonstrates just how poor of a job it does at displaying multiple desktops. Hopefully they will either bring back a dolled up version of Spaces or put something new and better in its place. Fingers crossed for next year.

 

[MeUnix]

I upgraded from SL to ML on my machine around the time 10.8.3 was released. I haven't regretted it at all, I really enjoy using ML, it is a solid OS.

Everyone's experience must be different though considering I am always reading threads from people who seem to have endless troubles with their machines running ML. Makes me wonder (sometimes) what they are doing with their machines (For the record I do realize that stuff happens when it comes to technology and nothing is "perfect")

 

[halfmonkey]

ML download update

So I just finished updating to ML after about 30 minutes of backing everything up and updating everything to its most current version. It took about 30 minutes to download ML from the app store and about another 30 minutes to actually install ML. I literally just finished and all seems to be ok. I'll be able to give better feedback once I have some more time to play with it's new features but it seems to be ok.

I already checked my iTunes and iPhoto. I expected those to be ok since I keep those files on the iMac HD. I was worried about my movies though because I do keep those files off the HD on multiple external firewire 800 drives. I just checked those and they seem ok. The only other apps that I've downloaded are Comic Life 2 and Turbo Collage and they seem fine as well. I have MS Office 2011 and it's working as expected so it seems that I had an easy experience with the update.

The only other apps that I have are from my camera apps and I won't know if those are working 100% until I have some photos to upload. As of now, the apps are opening without issue so I'm hopeful that all is well.

If all goes well, then I will be buying the Airport Extreme in the near future and if Apple releases Aperture Pro X, I'll be buying that too.

Now if only Sony can release the RX2 with a 50mm prime, I'd be all set. This way, I could get that and either the RX100 or some other camera with a variable zoom lens. Maybe the Fuji X-Pro 1 or the Oly O-MD E-M1. Excited to see what's in store in the near future for camera users!