This question has probably been debated to death, but I need some advice. I have a mid 2010 15" MBP with i7 dual processor and 750 gb (7200rp) hard drive, which is currently running on Snow Leopard. I would like to upgrade to Lion so my quandary is do I download from the app store ( my broadband is a mobile router) or go for the the thumb drive. I have purchased a new WD studio 2tb portable hard drive toback up to. I am moving abroad permanently in 6 weeks to live and work and my thought was that if something went wrong then I would at least have a physical copy of Lion to sought out any problems that might come up. Also how go you all rate Lion compared to Snow leopard? Any advice or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Jenko.
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OS Lion to upgrade or not?
- Thread starter Jenko
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I would honestly stay with Snow Leopard if I were you. When I upgraded my computer I noticed a slight speed decrease plus I didn't really like that it makes it so you can't go back to Snow Leopard.
I mean it is honestly personal preference but you could save 40 bucks unless you need iCloud. That is really all you gain. There are some other changes but it doesn't really change the functionality.
I mean it is honestly personal preference but you could save 40 bucks unless you need iCloud. That is really all you gain. There are some other changes but it doesn't really change the functionality.
While I know people who use Lion and love it, I'm personally sticking with Snow Leopard and my jump to Mountain Lion when I upgrade from my Late 2008 MBP to a new MBP with ML pre-installed. I still use Final Cut Studio 2 for DVD Studio, and Lion is not happy about that. My 2009 Mac Mini may be a Snow Leopard holdout until I can get away from burning DVD's. I've slowly been upgrading my old software to versions that are Lion and Mountain compatible, but it takes money that I don't have freely flowing due to my upcoming wedding.
You don't really need to jump to Lion, unless you need a feature, such as iCloud. I found ways to get around that limitation enough for me to not miss it so far.
You don't really need to jump to Lion, unless you need a feature, such as iCloud. I found ways to get around that limitation enough for me to not miss it so far.
I love Lion, but I was only a Mac user for a month before it came out, so I had no emotional ties to Snow Leopard 
I'd suggest downloading it, then making your own flash drive. Something like this - http://lifehacker.com/5823096/how-to-burn-your-own-lion-install-dvd-or-flash-drive
The 2TB you got is a good idea though. I have one for backing up my iMac daily using Time Machine. Saved my behind plenty of times!
I'd suggest downloading it, then making your own flash drive. Something like this - http://lifehacker.com/5823096/how-to-burn-your-own-lion-install-dvd-or-flash-drive
The 2TB you got is a good idea though. I have one for backing up my iMac daily using Time Machine. Saved my behind plenty of times!
I'd strongly suggest you stay with Snow Leopard. That's what I have my entire network centered on, several recent Macs (just before they were shipping with Lion) and the rest of my Apple eco-system.
The only exception, is my 2011 MBA with Lion from Apple, I bought it for the sole purpose of testing Lion on a new Mac to see what it was like when shipped on an appropriately equipped MacBook.
I'm not a hater, or one that bashes Apple, but I do speak my truth as experienced personally. No guessing, no speculation, no operating off others reports.
For me, Lion is simply not that great, too slow and cumbersome (I have maximum ram too). Too many consumer oriented changes and eye candy. Certainly not even close to use for mission critical engineering, scientific, research and development work like I do.
Having all my others (15 & 17" 2010 MBP's, Mac Pro, etc) centered on my highly optimized 10.6.8. I'm not about to disturb a well sorted out network, and series of Macs.
Fast forward to today. It appears that Apple is working more aggressively than ever to put Lion out to pasture, getting it behind them. Replacing it with Mountain Lion which I'm guessing must be a better more reliable OS.
I'm going to continue to take a wait and see approach, and with luck perhaps Mountain Lion will be a good, stable, reliable, secure OS. One that's worth upgrading to for business and personal. Then I will migrate just one MBP and evaluate it before undertaking the big project of converting my entire network, NAS and all computers.
The only exception, is my 2011 MBA with Lion from Apple, I bought it for the sole purpose of testing Lion on a new Mac to see what it was like when shipped on an appropriately equipped MacBook.
I'm not a hater, or one that bashes Apple, but I do speak my truth as experienced personally. No guessing, no speculation, no operating off others reports.
For me, Lion is simply not that great, too slow and cumbersome (I have maximum ram too). Too many consumer oriented changes and eye candy. Certainly not even close to use for mission critical engineering, scientific, research and development work like I do.
Having all my others (15 & 17" 2010 MBP's, Mac Pro, etc) centered on my highly optimized 10.6.8. I'm not about to disturb a well sorted out network, and series of Macs.
Fast forward to today. It appears that Apple is working more aggressively than ever to put Lion out to pasture, getting it behind them. Replacing it with Mountain Lion which I'm guessing must be a better more reliable OS.
I'm going to continue to take a wait and see approach, and with luck perhaps Mountain Lion will be a good, stable, reliable, secure OS. One that's worth upgrading to for business and personal. Then I will migrate just one MBP and evaluate it before undertaking the big project of converting my entire network, NAS and all computers.
If you work on your computer and need Rosetta or Expose or something to finish your job, then keep Snow Leopard. If youre just a home user and you just want the new features, then upgrade to Lion. Its much better than Snow Leopard, in my opinion.
Or you can have both. I have a 500GB hard drive and partitioned it.
I downloaded Lion from the MAS on Snow Leopard partition and made a Lion USB boot drive, which I used to install Lion on the other partition.
I quite like Lion but need to keep using some legacy software on the Snow Leopard side. I like Snow Leopard a lot, but it's nice to be able to use Lion too.
I downloaded Lion from the MAS on Snow Leopard partition and made a Lion USB boot drive, which I used to install Lion on the other partition.
I quite like Lion but need to keep using some legacy software on the Snow Leopard side. I like Snow Leopard a lot, but it's nice to be able to use Lion too.
Thanks for the advice. One other thing if I wanted to upgrade to Mountain Lion would I not need to upgrade to Lion first anyway as with Snow Leopard and and Lion?
I know how you feel. If SL works for you, stick to it for a bit longer.
Initially I did not want to move to Lion either (indeed seemed too much eye candy and I did not want my iMac UI to look like iOS...) but the MobileMe to iCloud move more or less forced me to.
Lion was at 10.7.2 by then and I must say Lion is a lot better than I expected. The migration - both a 2008 iMac and a 15" MBP - went smooth, there are some nice new features (annoying ones can often be turned off), and things have been just as stable as SL so far. Booting seems a bit slower, but other than that no noticeable difference.
I would not go back, even if it was easy to do.
Initially I did not want to move to Lion either (indeed seemed too much eye candy and I did not want my iMac UI to look like iOS...) but the MobileMe to iCloud move more or less forced me to.
Lion was at 10.7.2 by then and I must say Lion is a lot better than I expected. The migration - both a 2008 iMac and a 15" MBP - went smooth, there are some nice new features (annoying ones can often be turned off), and things have been just as stable as SL so far. Booting seems a bit slower, but other than that no noticeable difference.
I would not go back, even if it was easy to do.
I feel the same way about staying with SL. After spending so much time optimizing it for my work flow, it's very fast, efficient, and doesn't have any traces of iOS.
Even though I was using MobileMe, once I got wind of the upcoming iCloud (back when it was just a rumor) I knew I had no interest in it, till it was proven as better than MM.
Now I'm so glad I spent the last year creating, testing, and refining my own Cloud strategy using Non-Apple services, I have freely let MobileMe go.
I never say never, embrace change well when it makes sense, but right now there's nothing compelling about either Lion or Mountain Lion that I want. Worse is the iOS "look & feel" which I like on my iPhone & iPad, but detest on the desktop.
Yet that said it's obviously Apples chosen direction, and one I rather dread. So...who knows where I may be going with all this. I am in no mood to give up on Apple. Yet as a very happy long time user, the "New iOS Apple" is very...very disappointing.
Oh yeah, I was panicking initially when Apple decided to axe MM, but I've switched over to Google's services + dropbox. After that, no regret at all.
And yeah, the iOS-ification of MAC OS X is sad to see but inevitable. Then again, if they can put MACOS on iPads, that would be interesting...heheh
Yes, you can skip from SL to Mountain Lion according to OS X Daily & MacWorld:
http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/09/yes-you-can-upgrade-a-mac-with-snow-leopard-directly-to-os-x-mountain-lion/
iCloud
If you have devices such as the iPhone, iPad, etc., then I would recommend upgrading to Lion - mostly for iCloud. Small things such as sharing calendars, contacts, photo stream, etc., do make life a lot easier.
I agree, that from a strict Mac OS standpoint, there are no huge changes or improvements. However within the iOS ecosystem, the changes are worth it, imho. In fact, I sold my daughter's iPhone 3G and got jailbroken/unlocked iPhone 3GSs (TMobile) for both my wife and her. Now, along with my 4S, we are all on iOS5 and iCloud and that is very productive for us. There are other such cloud/sync solutions but nothing that works as simply and unobtrusively.
It took me several months before I upgraded to Lion; I am not one of the early adopter types...
If you have devices such as the iPhone, iPad, etc., then I would recommend upgrading to Lion - mostly for iCloud. Small things such as sharing calendars, contacts, photo stream, etc., do make life a lot easier.
I agree, that from a strict Mac OS standpoint, there are no huge changes or improvements. However within the iOS ecosystem, the changes are worth it, imho. In fact, I sold my daughter's iPhone 3G and got jailbroken/unlocked iPhone 3GSs (TMobile) for both my wife and her. Now, along with my 4S, we are all on iOS5 and iCloud and that is very productive for us. There are other such cloud/sync solutions but nothing that works as simply and unobtrusively.
It took me several months before I upgraded to Lion; I am not one of the early adopter types...
If I were to move over to Lion would I be better off getting the Thumb drive rather than the download from the app store. My broadband is a mobile router so it might take a long time to download plus with emigrating it might be handier to have a physical version just in case of any unforeseen problems. Thanks again.
Only if you want to pay twice as much for Lion than otherwise.
You can buy an 8GB USB stick off Amazon, download Lion from the MAS, then (before installing Lion!) following the instructions posted higher up in the replies (or by googling), --make your own USB Lion installer for a lot less money.
And yes, you're correct, it is a very good idea to have a physical version of it in case of future problems. Something which you can easily do yourself.
Although it's only $30, Mountain Lion is almost here and will also likely be $30. Might as well wait. Your laptop meets Mountain Lion's system requirements so you're good.
At the very least, I would do what's already been suggested and get an 8 GB USB stick (you can get one at Best Buy for like 10 bucks or so) and download Lion from the MAS and put it on the thumb drive. This is how I've been installing Lion. Very fast install from a USB stick.
At the very least, I would do what's already been suggested and get an 8 GB USB stick (you can get one at Best Buy for like 10 bucks or so) and download Lion from the MAS and put it on the thumb drive. This is how I've been installing Lion. Very fast install from a USB stick.
There's nothing wrong with Lion; it doesn't blow up, it isn't slow, it isn't buggy, and it runs well on my 4gb RAM 2011 macs. The only issue is that Mountain Lion will soon be out, I'm guessing at the same $29.95 price. Don't know about the upgrade path, that is, can you upgrade from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion. If that path is available, I'd say go ahead and wait a few months. Otherwise (or if you just want to go ahead and get it), download Lion from the app store, then follow this procedure (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2389178,00.asp?obref=obinsite) to create a bootable usb Lion key; that'll save you the extra $40. Even then, I didn't use the key to install Lion on my 2 systems. I just copied the downloaded Lion .app file from one system to the other one, and it installed fine on both. I only have the Lion key now so that if I'm on the road for business and find for whatever awful reason that I have to reinstall the operating system (road warrior mentality: carry every thing you need with you to regen your computer from nothing if you have to), then it's there in my bag ready to use. Otherwise, I haven't had to go to the Lion key at all.
FYI, you can upgrade to Mountain Lion from Snow Leopard as long as it's 10.6.8 or above.
You're making a very wise decision.
It's the lack of patience, planning & research that leads many people to get caught up in the hype. They upgrade immediately without a second thought. Then when problems arrive we see these threads asking how to downgrade.
I will simply wait. Once I've read a few weeks worth of feedback, both here, and on the web, then & only then will I make my decision. The 10.6.8 powered network & plethora of newer Macs I have all run fast (SSD's) smooth, and completely trouble free.
While others are dealing with bugs, I'm enjoying the satisfaction of getting things done.
Hmm..as long as we're on this topic: I have a maxed-out MBP (early 2008 refresh--got it in May that year). I never upgraded the OS at all, so I'm still running Leopard (not Snow Leopard), 10.5.8.
Machine still works great, so I intend to keep using it for another year or two. However, one thing I've learned since I started stepping into the world of Mac is that OS upgrades become a necessity at a certain point. So many apps simply are not supported on any OS older than 10.6.
What's my best upgrade strategy? Should I buy a copy of SL, and if so, in what form? Or am I better off going straight to Lion via one of those memory stick gizzies? Or should I wait the (presumably) six weeks or so until Mountain Lion comes out? I'm assuming that my maxed-out MBP will be able to handle any upgrade through Lion, although of course we wont know for sure about Mountain Lion until we get closer to the release date.
Machine still works great, so I intend to keep using it for another year or two. However, one thing I've learned since I started stepping into the world of Mac is that OS upgrades become a necessity at a certain point. So many apps simply are not supported on any OS older than 10.6.
What's my best upgrade strategy? Should I buy a copy of SL, and if so, in what form? Or am I better off going straight to Lion via one of those memory stick gizzies? Or should I wait the (presumably) six weeks or so until Mountain Lion comes out? I'm assuming that my maxed-out MBP will be able to handle any upgrade through Lion, although of course we wont know for sure about Mountain Lion until we get closer to the release date.
