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Mavericks is a massive improvement.

C

cookies!

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 3, 2011
456
132
I've been running Mavericks for a day now (upgrade, no clean install), and I'm really impressed. Here are some big improvements that are very noticeable:

1) Battery life. My new Macbook Air now gets over 14-15 hours on a single charge.

2) Safari. The browser absolutely dominates the competition now with it's battery saving features and perfect smoothness on all websites, many of which used to be choppy in all browsers (Buzzfeed, HuffPo, etc). Streaming videos use very little CPU power too! Using the omnibar is as fast as Chrome now, and pages don't reload when you go back to them. Basically, Safari is perfect now.

3) OS speed improvements. Everything loads faster. Boot and shutdown are much quicker— all of my background apps open way, way faster after login.

4) iCal is much prettier and more functional.

5) iCloud is updating much more smoothly.

6) Time Machine backs up much faster.

Basically, 10.9 has fixed almost every major complaint I had about 10.8. Some of the problems should've been fixed a long time ago, but I'll take what I can get. This is a must-have upgrade.
 
Yes! Networking is much better, which is probably behind the time machine improvements. And Apple finally fixed the Airplay issue so I can actually select all of my Airplay systems from the menubar!
 
The overall improvements in memory management and CPU distribution makes it a joy to develop on. I have used a 2011 MacBookPro with only 4GB RAM and it works flawless.

The core OS team has done a great jib improving so much small things that you can't even point to, but the overall system performance is so much better.
 
Mavericks is what ML should have been. It has made my MBPr the joy to use that I had expected when I got it. Too bad it took a year :/
 
I agree. ML feels clunky now - been using Mavs since June in dual boot with ML and have hardly touched the old OS.
 
Quick time wants to convert certain mp4s now, so its compatibility has got worse:roll eyes:

they have removed High@L4.1 clowns
 
Last edited:
pmau said:
The core OS team has done a great jib improving so much small things that you can't even point to, but the overall system performance is so much better.
Click to expand...

I agree with you 100%. My overall system performance is much better with Mavericks then with Mountain Lion.
 
ultraspiracle said:
I agree. ML feels clunky now - been using Mavs since June in dual boot with ML and have hardly touched the old OS.
Click to expand...

Same here. Mavericks is just a huge improvement and you can really tell the difference when you go back to ML.
 
Under Mavericks GM, when I run the benchmark apps Luxmark, Unigine Heaven, and Valley, I get significantly lower scores (more so with Heaven than Valley). I was hoping that OpenGL and OpenCL had improved more. What makes it even stranger is that the 10.8.5 supplemental update improved my Luxmark scores.

Also, for some odd reason, Vmware Fusion keeps popping up as the frontmost app even when I don't click on it which is a bit annoying.

Everything else seems good.
 
pastrychef said:
Under Mavericks GM, when I run the benchmark apps Luxmark, Unigine Heaven, and Valley, I get significantly lower scores (more so with Heaven than Valley). I was hoping that OpenGL and OpenCL had improved more. What makes it even stranger is that the 10.8.5 supplemental update improved my Luxmark scores.

Also, for some odd reason, Vmware Fusion keeps popping up as the frontmost app even when I don't click on it which is a bit annoying.

Everything else seems good.
Click to expand...

I'm sure it's got nothing to do with OGL/OCL. Possibly Appnap getting in the way? Compressed memory could perhaps be an issue, too.
 
Agree - Nice update. Calender is so much better. Maps is not bad and should be a good tool with the iphone.

Typically, you don't feel much of a speed bump out of the gate with the first Sys release, but this does feel faster right away. Well Done Apple.
 
I'm going to second the improved battery life. I've never really taken Apple's advertised battery life estimates seriously knowing it is based on different usage patterns and I'm not the one to obsess about battery life - it's there to use and I never worry about trying to get close to Apple's advertised time (in my case for the Late-2008 MacBook Pro it was 5 hours).

With Leopard and Snow Leopard, I was able to easily get 4-4.5 hours with the battery, that includes mid-brightness, Wi-Fi, Safari, iTunes and Office applications.

Battery time took a hit with Lion and didn't really improve with Mountain Lion as some may have suggested with the same usage, I was getting no more than 4 hours of battery life, was probably averaging 3:45 on one charge (note that during the Lion/Mountain Lion period, I did replace the battery so aging battery did not affect my observation).

Today, did a test with Mavericks and I was able to get 4.5 hours (4:26 to be exact before I had to recharge) with the same usage.

I was skeptical when Apple announced that Mavericks would result in better battery life especially with a Late-2008 MacBook Pro and knowing that software could only do so much. I would understand if most of the power savings would benefit users with more recent hardware but it seems like the OS overall is doing a good job with power savings especially for a .0 release. Can't wait to see what updates will do.
 
Mavericks is a huge improvement but it's clear that the GM still has a number of bugs and general fiddly bits.

A few I've noticed:

1. Elevation gesture in Maps is awkward, often bounces back instead of moving.
2. iBooks page change animations are too fast; looks absolutely horrible and makes it unusable for me. I'd like a continuous scrolling option, too (as on iOS).
3. Finder icon mode size could be adjusted by pinching in Lion. Disappeared in ML and still gone in MVKS. I'd like to see it come back, the tiny slider control is too fiddly.
4. Menu bar icons won't show their menus if you click one item then hover over the rest. You need to click each item individually to make it show its menu. You can just hover for the App's menus, though.
5. Need to keep entering AppleID information after update. First iCloud asked for my password, then I got email notifications about signing in to the account, then I had to sign in to iBooks, then iTunes. Single sign-on would be swell.
 
springsup said:
3. Finder icon mode size could be adjusted by pinching in Lion. Disappeared in ML and still gone in MVKS. I'd like to see it come back, the tiny slider control is too fiddly.
Click to expand...
3. I agree, I liked this better also, worked better/easier.

Reading this and other threads about Mavericks, I may not be able to wait until x.x.3 to update, like I have been...I miss the speed & battery life I had w/Snow Leopard. I too have found Lion & Mtn Lion to be slower and drain battery faster on my mid-2010 MBP 13. I'd go back, but, I like the iCloud/iOS integration, notifications in Mtn Lion, so, for the first time in a long time I'm eagerly looking forward to an improved Mac OS X! ...This used to be the pattern, Mac OS X used to be a better performer each 10.x update, then they started adding things to it for iOS compatibility with Lion to Mtn Lion which bog down the OS. I'm glad to see they have gone back to adding features and performance, not just more, more, more at the expense of losing performance.
 
pastrychef said:
Under Mavericks GM, when I run the benchmark apps Luxmark, Unigine Heaven, and Valley, I get significantly lower scores (more so with Heaven than Valley).
Click to expand...
I get higher score on my system. It could be that Mavericks enables tessellation (only in Heaven, Valley doesn't support it), which decreases frame rates. My GPU doesn't support tessellation.

----------
djtech42 said:
I think it is incorporated in every type of Mac
Click to expand...
App nap only affect windows that are not visible, and application need to be modified to enable it. So it cannot affect your benchmark apps.
 
ultraspiracle said:
I agree. ML feels clunky now - been using Mavs since June in dual boot with ML and have hardly touched the old OS.
Click to expand...

Same here with dual booting I am now using the new GM of OSX Mavericks What and How do I get rid of the "old " Mountain Lion to reclaim my disk space taken up by the Mountain Lion partition
 
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