Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Came with Snow Leopard...should I upgrade?

J

Jrv

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 17, 2011
112
0
Long Beach, California
My recently purchased 13 inch pro came with snow leopard, though I have the option to upgrade for free(even if they're being very, very slow about it). Question is, is it worth it? I've heard NOTHING but problems with Lion and I don't have an external harddrive to work with in order to do fancy file transfers and clean installs.

Is it worth it when their seems to be a 100% issue rate?
 
I am going to be upgrading when I receive my new 13" MBP, hell it's free you might as well.. you can always downgrade if you dont like Lion
 
You've certainly missed a lot of posts if all you're seeing are 100% problems!! The reality is far from that. As always with forums, you will see primarily posts with issues. Very few, by comparison, post with positive stories.

Quite a few complaints are about some of the new features and ways of working with the UI, but most of those they're talking about are optional and can either be disabled or reconfigured to be more SL like or just fit a persons preferences better..

Taking all that into account, the majority of Lion users have few, if any, problems with Lion.

No matter which OS you stay with, you really, really, need an external drive to (at least) use for Time Machine backups. Even better - a second one for bootable image backups.
 
I like Lion. Yes it is DIFFERENT in many ways, scrolling, Launch Pad, Mission Control, etc and yes there are some quirks and bugs. But, if you take the TIME to learn the new way, customize it to meet your likes and use a few free apps that help improve on the short falls (like BTT, Maximizer, LaunchPadContro, Firefox because Safari has issuesl and Lion Tweaks) Lion is a very VERY nice OS for the everyday user. I know power users have some issues with Mission Control and Spaces, but for me, I like the new Mission Control and Launch Pad. For me, being able to encrypt my HDD, SDD and Time Capsule ALONE made the update worth it. If someone steals my machine, they are not getting my data!!!!!

The bugs that are there, like any other OS release, will get fixed over the next month or two I am sure. None of the ones I have encountered are show stoppers, just annoyances. That said, there is nothing wrong with SL, it is stable, mature and works well.

Me, I upgraded to Lion, customized it to meet my desires and am VERY happy with it 99.1% of the time.
 
I'd suggest downloading Lion for free but not installing it until the 10.7.2 release comes out.

I don't mean to say it's nothing but bugs--it is not--but there ARE valid issues that go beyond simple UI changes and just getting used to it. Also, there are a number of applications that don't yet work well with Lion. They will in the fullness of time, but . . .
 
I would agree with Naimfan. Lion is nice but buggy, buggy, buggy.

The impact of Lion's buggy-ness is dependent on the work you do with it. I depend on my MBP for my job and life. I use it all day, every day. I enjoy it much and while Lion has some nice features it has some issues I wish they would have worked out before releasing it.

If you are just doing basic work you may find the bugs do not impact you at all.

You might want to jump in at 10.7.2. 10.7.0 was a real mess and 10.7.1 fixed some of the more serious issues.

My personal hope is that 10.7.2 fixes Finder issues, Bluetooth issues, and the LDAP security issue.

Cheers!
-P
 
Naimfan said:
I'd suggest downloading Lion for free but not installing it until the 10.7.2 release comes out.

I don't mean to say it's nothing but bugs--it is not--but there ARE valid issues that go beyond simple UI changes and just getting used to it. Also, there are a number of applications that don't yet work well with Lion. They will in the fullness of time, but . . .
Click to expand...

Like what have you seen. Never mind what you have read, what have you seen? I have been using Lion since it was released and other than occasional oddities it is working fine. So instead of just spewing blanket statements, why shouldn't the OP upgrade, based on WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN? Also, who is to say YOUR issues, if any will be fixed in the next release.

So, wireless issues? Never happened to me. Battery life, no problem. Rosettanet, don't use it and it is not a bug, just gone. Icon in Launchpad rearranging, no big deal once you create folders for them....

Yes there are some minor issues for day to day users, but none that I and many others have seen are show stoppers. Most of the people bitching and moaning are doing so over Spaces, Expose and complete lack of understanding of the new UI.

To just make a blanket statement that say a number of applications do not work well with Lion is so misleading to the OP. Since you nor I know what apps he or she uses, why should we caution them against upgrading? In fact, every single app I own works just fine with Lion, in fact even better.
 
I got lion pre-installed on my MBA. I HATED it at first. But after spending some time with it, and *some* of the bugs ironed out with the last update, I am loving it.

It was really tailored towards the MBA/MBP lines, anyway.
 
I've yet to discover the "battery life" problems people are having on here. My 2011 MBP 13" hasn't had any issues with Lion so far.

If you want a good primer on the design of Lion, I'd point you at ArsTechnica. Their review was quite thorough.
 
i remember 10.6 had a few issues for me until about 10.6.4. I'd wait until around then to upgrade to any new version of osx.
 
You can download it for free since you just bought it, so do so, you don't have to install it right away if you don't want to.

Edit: And definitely buy an external hard drive, if only for back up purposes. One day your hard drive is going to fail with important documents on it, and you'll kick yourself for not having backed up.
 
Last edited:
you get the download for free. take it, and then don't use it if you don't want to.
 
"My recently purchased 13 inch pro came with snow leopard, though I have the option to upgrade for free(even if they're being very, very slow about it). Question is, is it worth it? I've heard NOTHING but problems with Lion and I don't have an external harddrive to work with in order to do fancy file transfers and clean installs."

Here's what I would do in your place:

- Get an external drive (see alternative below)
- Use the _free_ CarbonCopyCloner to create a bootable clone of your original Snow Leopard installation (and apps, clone the entire drive as you have it set up for SL) onto the external drive
- Now, try the Lion update and see what that does for you.

If you can't adjust to Lion, you can just re-initialize your internal drive and then "re-clone" Snow Leopard _back to_ your primary drive. It will be "just like it was before".

Or, if you want to retain the capability to run "Rosetta" in the future (for PowerPC apps that don't have native Intel code), you can keep the Snow Leopard backup and use it as an "alternative boot drive". Easy as pie. In fact, I would recommend this as the preferred course of action.

Alternative to an "external drive":
Instead, get one of these:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=usb+sata+dock&x=0&y=0
(many items shown, they all work the same. Some are under $20)

... and then buy one (or more) "bare drives" from the vendor of your choice (I like newegg.com).

- Hook dock to Mac
- Put drive into dock
- Power up
- You will need to initialize drive using Disk Utility
- Use CarbonCopyCloner to "dupe" internal drive to docked drive
- You can even boot from docked drive, it will behave same as an "external drive" in an enclosure
- These become VERY handy gadgets to have around.
 
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I would stick with Snow Lion. Your not missing much with OS X Lion. Different keyboard layout, instead of hitting F5 for webpage refresh, I now have to hit CMD-R because on the Lion keyboard, F5 now controls the back lit keyboard lighting. I dont use Mission control either, I'm still old fashion.

You may hear that some CPU's run hotter when they upgraded to Lion however, on my 2011 MBP 17" 2.3Ghz with Lion, it runs cool with the internal fans running at about 2000rpms.

If you really want to upgrade to Lion, I recommend exchanging it where you bought it from and get your MBP already pre-loaded with Lion. It will run better and not hotter.

When I owned the 2011 MBA 13", I had Wifi drops with pre-loaded OS X Lion 10.7.0. I didnt get a chance test the wifi connection with 10.7.1 because I returned my MBA for the MBP 17" before the update came out. I'm not experiencing and wifi drops on my MBP 17" with OS X 10.7.1. Maybe they've corrected the problem.

All the best,
Darren
 
Use the up to date program to download the lion installer if you're still within the time range.

I upgraded to 10.7.0 without issue. Snow Leopard was much easier on my battery so I keep thinking about reverting but I must say I'd much rather continue progressing forward.
 
Well if I were you Id stop.
After upgrading to Lion, I have more cons then pros.

Problems:
Slow, like VERY slow booting.
Very heavy multitasking especially on multi windows.
EXTREMELY heavy on Safari but chrome nor Firefox doesnt support gestures anymore.
MANY MANY crash/ kernel panic.
Fav gestures disappeared from Mac and no you cant change it as much.

Only pros are,
multi desktop/ mission control
nice dashboard
 
SL = Just works
Lion = nice new features / GUI but problems ( You can't even install Apple's own Jam Packs for Logic & Garageband with Lion :O )
 
i have lion and i can safely say that you're not missing out on anything good. but if you've never used osx before, you might as well start with lion.
 
marc11 said:
To just make a blanket statement that say a number of applications do not work well with Lion is so misleading to the OP. Since you nor I know what apps he or she uses, why should we caution them against upgrading? In fact, every single app I own works just fine with Lion, in fact even better.
Click to expand...

Well, you should make sure that any programs you rely on for work, if you work on your MBP (which since its a "pro" it would seem most people would), are able to run on lion before making that leap.

I know a couple of programs in my field that do not yet have compatibility with lion. Plus, I had a hell of a time just today getting some of the command line programs I use working on lion. These where things that took a few minutes to install on Snow Leopard, but it took me a couple hours to figure out the issues with Lion. Though in reality it was Xcode 4.1's fault, but that's nested with lion, so its a bit of a distinction without a difference.

I'm sure lion will mature into a nice operating system with all these issues resolved, but in my opinion, its not there yet and Snow Leopard is just better. Lion is cute for casual use, with all the app integration, but ideally it would have had these issues worked out before it came preinstalled on Macbook Pros and Mac Pros. There is certainly no shame in preferring to use what is a beautifully polished operating system in Snow Leopard, while everyone else works out the issues with what will likely because something even better.
 
Firefox Crashes and Lion (UGH)

My new mac crashes OFTEN when i use Firefox. the new lion is horrible. complicated and pretentious and graphically overloaded. I hate it. wish i had my old mac but of course they cleverly made that obsolete. it was a graceful machine. the new iMac is not.
 
Of all the people complaining here, I quite like lion (although the reboot app saving thing is doing my head in)

I quite often use photoshop, develop in Virtual Box a Linux OS named MineOS+ and other stuff like that.

Basically, I never touch launch pad (naff and un-necessary), the app store has too many restrictions (too walled), and full screen apps are only supported (and useful) in safari and possibly iTunes.

Version saving has yet to even be seen on my system so I can't comment on that ... office 2011 user myself.

iOS inverted scrolling annoyed me -- easy fix though. Same goes for my library being 'protected' from me...


Those being the bad bits, I quite like safari resuming where I left off, and my boot times on my 2010 i7 MBP have gone down drastically with Lion ! Mind you I did a clean install -- not an in place over SL upgrade.

I run hyper dock, and better touch tool to make it just as good an experience if not better than SL.

Not much has changed, stuff 'hardened' users would never touch has been added, and some general improvements have been made.

Oh, one last thing -- my RAM usage has been ridiculous with Lion -- much higher than in SL, especially noticeable with my high use of virtual machines.
 
If your important programs will all work with Lion, then I recommend the upgrade. I have Lion on my MBA and like it. I still keep SL on my MBP because of one program!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back