'14 MBP 15" shipped with Mavericks. Worth contintuing to use, or upgrading to either Yosemite or EC?

[emilioestevez]

What do you think?

 

[DeltaMac]

I think there's advantages to staying with what you know.

I also think that, if you are concerned about security issues, that upgrading is one way to help keep your Mac more secure.
Or, you may have an opportunity for new apps that would require you to upgrade.
El Capitan has a distinctly different appearance and feel, which I happen to like.

Suggestion: get an external drive, preferably with an SSD/external case that supports UASP. Install Yosemite or El Cap on the external. Migrate your software files to that external. Try it out for yourself. You will get a better idea than hoping for random opinions here. You know what they say about opinions

 

[AZhappyjack]

As long as there are no software restriction (i.e., software that you need not being compatible with the latest OS X release), there is no reason NOT to upgrade. All four of our Macs are at least running El Capitan 10.11.1. I have been running 10.11.2 beta (currently #5) on my 2012 rMBP.

 

[T5BRICK]

Upgrade. I see no compelling reason not to.

 

[emilioestevez]

I was reading about updates. Apparently there is an EFI firmware (not sure what that does exactly) that, if updated with newer OS X versions, will prevent reverting back to the OS that the Mac shipped with. That's what I'm sorta worried about accidentally updating.

I kinda like the older, non flat look, too. Office 2016, though (Yosemite exclusive)... *shakes fist at M$*

 

[FWRN]

I'd update personally. If you like the UI, then yes, the security patches should be efficient. Otherwise, El Capitan was a much better release than Yosemite.

 

[Bending Pixels]

Haven't had any problems with El Capitan

 

[emilioestevez]

I'd update personally. If you like the UI, then yes, the security patches should be efficient. Otherwise, El Capitan was a much better release than Yosemite.

Was it really akin to a Snow Leopard update like Apple claimed?

 

[Samuelsan2001]

Was it really akin to a Snow Leopard update like Apple claimed?

Depends what you mean by that and what apple meant as well. It was an update that aimed to sort out a lot of little bugs and niggles and increase the efficiency of the OS over adding new features, so in that way it was the same.

 

[maflynn]

Was it really akin to a Snow Leopard update like Apple claimed?

Yes for the most part, El Cap has very few new features, but Apple tighten up the code, and made it perform faster and is more stable.

 

[Spudlicious]

One reason to not install El Capitan, and it's why I've rolled back to Yosemite, is that it has trouble with some network drives. It just works, except when it doesn't. Maybe the OP has no NAS, but in any event it's advisable to have a fallback position, a TimeMachine backup of a setup that works fine for you.

 

[TheEnthusiast]

If you use PDFs regularly, I would stick with Mavericks. It's why I reverted. I found PDF performance on both Yosemite and El Capitan to be rather poor compared to that of Yosemite. Overall, I was pleased with El Capitan.

 

[Erdbeertorte]

I reverted back to Mavericks too a few weeks ago, but I missed receiving and writing SMS on my MB and I had to use an older version of 1Password, also my new iMac came with El Capitan and isn't able to go back.

Do you have any iOS device on a version higher than 7.x and do you use iCloud? Then you are not able to synch everything like the calendar for example.

 

[redheeler]

What do you think?

If you're unsure about updating Mavericks, I recommend you install El Capitan on another partition and try it first. For the most part I am happy with El Capitan on a Retina Mac, it performs similarly to Mavericks while being improved in some areas such as memory management.