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OSX bugs...wait to buy?

Wait to buy for first update to Leopard?

  • Wait for 10.5.1?

    Votes: 9 22.5%

  • Buy when released?

    Votes: 25 62.5%

  • Buy when announced (free upgrade when release)?

    Votes: 6 15.0%
  • Total voters
    40
E

EngBrian

macrumors regular
Original poster
Feb 7, 2007
217
1
Ontario, Canada
I searched around and couldn't find something on this (not to say it isn't out there but my searches came up with nothing).

I am going to buy my first mac within a few months and willing to wait until Leopard is released. Based on past releases should I wait for awhile after the release to avoid a bugs (ie. 10.5.1 release)? or is the initial release, on the whole, reasonably good from the start? I just want to avoid my first mac experience being a pain because I am dealing with bugs.

Thanks for any advice.
 
It's hard to say because Leopard has been in development a bit longer than the previous point releases of OS X. I've personally not had any problems with 10.x.0 releases, but if stability is really, really really important and you can wait, then it probably wouldn't be a bad idea.
 
Timeline

I guess I should have included this in the original post but:

I realize that this is a variable but what is the typical timeline for 10.x.1 release? ie 1 month after initial release?

thanks
 
EngBrian said:
I guess I should have included this in the original post but:

I realize that this is a variable but what is the typical timeline for 10.x.1 release? ie 1 month after initial release?

thanks
Click to expand...

10.5.1 will probably be released 2-3 weeks later after 10.5.0 is released.
 
it'll work fine. don't worry about it. it's been tested, so you probably won't notice any bugs if there any, and you'll get the update the day it is available if there is a bug or enhancement.
 
taylorwilsdon said:
But who cares? Its going to be tiny things, just buy it and upgrade 2 or 3 weeks later. No point in delaying the inevitable.
Click to expand...

Ya i just wanted my first experience with something new to be the best. And not tainted with bugs. I do get where you are coming from though.

I guess in the end if i place an order the day it is released it would be awhile coming anyway even under normal circumstances. Prolly looking at a wait time of a week or two but with an assumed influx of new orders around that time the wait could be increased and this is a non-issue. Although that is based on some assumptions I suppose such as no foresight on apples behalf in terms of "stocking up".
 
I'd just buy

Why bother waiting?

It is not like Apple charges money for point release updates?

Besides if you need a computer, what are you going to get? Windows Vista? With no updates due out until the end of this year? All that trouble for the "wow"? :cool:

The moment the hardware in the line is updated with the new Socket P chips with Leopard and iLife 07 I'm sure many here will jump on board immediately.
 
iW00t said:
Why bother waiting?

It is not like Apple charges money for point release updates?

Besides if you need a computer, what are you going to get? Windows Vista? With no updates due out until the end of this year? All that trouble for the "wow"? :cool:

The moment the hardware in the line is updated with the new Socket P chips with Leopard and iLife 07 I'm sure many here will jump on board immediately.
Click to expand...

Ya I wasn't concerned about being charged for an update. And I am certainly not going for Vista. I am already set on purchasing a mac it is just a matter of waiting and I am willing to do that. I have done so for the past 20+ years I can wait another 2 or 3 months.
 
I'd say jump the gun as soon as it comes out. The bugs WON'T be major, so your experiance should be fine. Hardware and software are completely different when it comes to waiting, always wait for revision 2 on hardware, but software you should always be safe with the first release.
 
I guess I am getting a bit of both here: buy right away or wait a couple weeks. Although the buy right away crowd seems to have more support.

Who knows what I will do when the time comes but it will prolly be hard to calm the trigger finger.

thanks again for the responses all.
 
Add me to the 'go for it!' list :)

10.5.0 will most likely have some rough edges, but they're not going to be 'showstopper' bugs. If this is your first Mac, you're likely to spend the first few weeks experimenting with the system itself and the included Apple apps, which are going to be pretty reliable. 3rd party developers are historiaclly very good at getting their apps tweaked to run trouble-free on a new OS and there's always the excellent resource of user comments at sites such as macupdate.com which will give pointers about Leopard compatibility within days of the OS release.

(on a side note, that's one of the things I like so much about the experience of moving to a new major version of OS X. There's a real sense of the developer community pulling together to get their apps running great on the new OS. There's also going to be a raft of updates and new apps which take advantage of the cool stuff Leopard offers right from day one).
 
I used to get the new OS right away, but with Leopard and Tiger I waited, ran the .8 or .9 or whatever from the previous version for a few months, and then upgraded.

This left me with fewer problems, and all I lost was the thrill of loading up a new OS that most people hadn't seen yet.

I'm not saying the folks who tell you to buy right away are wrong, per se...but there's no question that, purely from an operational standpoint, you have nothing to lose by waiting, and you may have something to gain. Especially for a switcher...if I were you I would wait until Leopard is released, order a new Mac loaded with a nice happy stable version of Tiger, and then upgrade with the little voucher that they should include with computers purchased in the after-release/before-shipping window.

The enthusiasts posting here are PROBABLY right, Leopard will PROBABLY not be released with any major problems, but it's far from a sure thing.
 
Depends what you do

I upgraded to Tiger as soon as it was available. Mostly, it was a significant improvement over Panther but I did have a lot of trouble with opening shells in Terminal or xterm. As I am mainly a UNIX guy this was almost a show stopper for me and I complained directly to Apple quite a bit. In the end, it took until 10.4.5 before this bug was properly fixed. If you were not impacted by this (such as people who don't do command line stuff) then Tiger was probably pretty solid even at release.

I will probably buy Leopard as soon as it is available (family pack) and upgrade my machines one at a time and see how it goes. If I was in the market for a new machine now (OK, probably going to buy a Mac Pro in a few months) then I wouldn't worry. Tiger is very nice and stable and has lots of great features for any switcher. Buy Leopard later in the year once it has been out for a few months. I don't expect Leopard to appear before June anyway but am willing to be surprised :eek:
 
You also may have a problem with programs that are not yet optimized for Leopard. I remember when Tiger came out everything was just ready for Panther.. not so much Tiger until a few months after it came out.
 
It depends on what it will be used for, my macs are just for messing around on. so I will get 10.5.0 but I'm sure some people who use their macs for work may want to wait a while to make sure all known issues are sorted so they don't loose productivity.
 
I got 10.4.0 the day it was released and didn't have any major problems. There were a few annoying bugs, however. Then again, because these were fairly minor things they weren't fixed in 10.4.1 anyway. I think I had to wait 'till about 10.4.4 before I stopped noticing strange stuff.

Steve
 
GreatDrok said:
As I am mainly a UNIX guy this was almost a show stopper for me and I complained directly to Apple quite a bit. In the end, it took until 10.4.5 before this bug was properly fixed. If you were not impacted by this (such as people who don't do command line stuff) then Tiger was probably pretty solid even at release.
Click to expand...

I am mostly going to be using this as my home base computer. I want a media friendly computer that my wife and I can use (read: terminal is not really going to be touched unless it is to fiddle with minor things). So based on most of the above comments it would seem unless I am looking too closely I might not even notice bugs when I am just using iLife, safari and mail type stuff to start. Eventually I will get into 3rd party but as someone said the first few weeks will be playing around and wondering why I didn't switch earlier (or at least I hope that is my sentiment).

My school computer is a PC so that I can run the programs I need. The only reason it is a PC is that the purchasing guy only works with that and we didn't really need to pay the premium for a mac for the research I am doing.

GreatDrok said:
Buy Leopard later in the year once it has been out for a few months. I don't expect Leopard to appear before June anyway but am willing to be surprised.
Click to expand...

I guess I should add that I am also waiting to see what education incentives are available. I am expecting that if a promotion is available the timing would be around Leopard time anyway. I may not be an undergrad anymore but I still have that option available to me.
 
I took delivery yesterday of my first Mac ever (a 15" MBP)... For the past 4 months, I've waited to buy b/c I thought I'd wait until Santa Rosa & Leopard were released. I finally decided that the MBP, even though it'll be refreshed w/ Santa Rosa soon, was worthy of purchase precisely b/c it may be near the end of it's current life cylce--I figure the bugs should be worked out. Same thing w/ Tiger; I don't mind paying for Leopard once it's released, and the bugs are worked out. If worrying about your first Mac experieince being positive, and you can afford to buy Leopard later, my opinion is start out w/ Tiger as it's stable. IMO, it kicks the crap out of Windows (but you all knew that already). I have the feeling my windows machine won't be used very much...
 
cubbie5150 said:
If worrying about your first Mac experieince being positive, and you can afford to buy Leopard later, my opinion is start out w/ Tiger as it's stable.
Click to expand...

Well at this point (still starving student) I can't afford to buy leopard later. So my options are basically wait until it is released or wait until announced and see if they offer the voucher for free upgrade between announcement and release (as someone previously said).

The hardware is not the issue though. I agree that buying the first round of new hardware is probably worse than buying first round of software. I am happy with the current lineup especially because I will not be doing any intense computing. Likely looking at a 20" imac to start.
 
EngBrian said:
Well at this point (still starving student) I can't afford to buy leopard later. So my options are basically wait until it is released or wait until announced and see if they offer the voucher for free upgrade between announcement and release (as someone previously said).

The hardware is not the issue though. I agree that buying the first round of new hardware is probably worse than buying first round of software. I am happy with the current lineup especially because I will not be doing any intense computing. Likely looking at a 20" imac to start.
Click to expand...

I get what you're saying....been out of law school for (my god!!) 12 years now, but I still remember being a starving student.... Ahhh, loved those Ramen noodles...
 
I'd only hop onto 10.5.0 if I've done a complete back up that I can re-install if things get screwy. The odds of major malfunctions are low, but I remember when a new Mac OS (I think it was either Panther or Tiger) fubared some FW drives and people lost everything on them. D'oh.

I'd rather avoid things like that than be the first person on my block w/the new Mac OS. I'm more than happy to let other people find all the pitfalls. :D


Lethal
 
Why wait?

EngBrian said:
I searched around and couldn't find something on this (not to say it isn't out there but my searches came up with nothing).

I am going to buy my first mac within a few months and willing to wait until Leopard is released. Based on past releases should I wait for awhile after the release to avoid a bugs (ie. 10.5.1 release)? or is the initial release, on the whole, reasonably good from the start? I just want to avoid my first mac experience being a pain because I am dealing with bugs.

Thanks for any advice.
Click to expand...

You came from using a Windows PC correct? Well Windows IS a BUG. I will be purchasing Leopard the SECOND it is available. Call me crazy.
 
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