Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
...
In my experiences with Macs and Macbooks, I have learned the painful lesson of never upgrading OSX beyond the point releases from the version that the device ships with.

eg. if a device ships with 10.9, upgrade to 10.9.1, 10.9.2, but not to 10.10. In place update or wipe and reinstall, doesn't make a difference.

Opposite anecdotal experience: I've always updated all my Macs to the latest versions of everything, basically when they come out. Never had any significant trouble doing this.
 
In my experiences with Macs and Macbooks, I have learned the painful lesson of never upgrading OSX beyond the point releases from the version that the device ships with.

eg. if a device ships with 10.9, upgrade to 10.9.1, 10.9.2, but not to 10.10. In place update or wipe and reinstall, doesn't make a difference.

That's an interesting policy to have. What would you do with a machine that shipped at retail with 2 different systems? For instance, I bought my 2013 Air in July. That machine was released in June with 10.8 Mountain Lion. But if you purchased that same machine in November, it would have shipped with 10.9 Mavericks.
 
Opposite anecdotal experience: I've always updated all my Macs to the latest versions of everything, basically when they come out. Never had any significant trouble doing this.

Yes, I understand that my experience is nothing more than that, my experience. I wish it wasn't so.


That's an interesting policy to have. What would you do with a machine that shipped at retail with 2 different systems? For instance, I bought my 2013 Air in July. That machine was released in June with 10.8 Mountain Lion. But if you purchased that same machine in November, it would have shipped with 10.9 Mavericks.
If it arrived with Mountain Lion, I'd be sticking with Mountain Lion. If it arrived with Mavericks, then Mavericks.

My iMac and 11" MBA both shipped with Mavericks. They'll stay at Mavericks (until I reach a point where I don't care if they perform well and don't mind risking the upgrade).

That means that I'll be shut out of some newer versions of software, like the new Office 2016 for Mac. I have a significant amount invested in Apple devices and I no longer trust them to protect my investment. Not only do I have quite a few "doorstops" caused by upgrades to OSX, but I have a few iPads (2 and 4) that were beautiful machines that now limp on iOS 8. (If I could go back to iOS 6, I would)

I've come to these decisions based on my first hand experiences. It wouldn't make sense for someone else (who had a different experience) to do the same.
 
  • Like
Reactions: thekb
Yep. That's why I'm waiting for Snow Yosemite. ;)

Exactly and that`s what Apple should do, go into a "Tick, Tock" rhythm same as Intel and stop trying to reinvent OS X every year. Yosemite broke too much for too many. I am certain the majority of users would prefer a incremental approach focusing stability, security and usability. Adding in new features when they are ready not half baked...

Q-6
 
My MacBook Air 11" came with Yosemite and it runs fine. Recently I upgraded my MBP (early 2011) to Yosemite from Snow Leopard and I'm happy to report that it runs fine as well.
 
In my experiences with Macs and Macbooks, I have learned the painful lesson of never upgrading OSX beyond the point releases from the version that the device ships with.

eg. if a device ships with 10.9, upgrade to 10.9.1, 10.9.2, but not to 10.10. In place update or wipe and reinstall, doesn't make a difference.


I agree whole-heartedly with this sentiment. My older machines run beautifully on their original Snow Leopard. My Mountain Lion MBP that I upgraded to Mavericks runs like a dog. My iphone 5 runs very slowly on iOS 8. Apple tempts you with new features, but I have made a vow to never "upgrade" software beyond original again.
 
Yes, I understand that my experience is nothing more than that, my experience. I wish it wasn't so.



If it arrived with Mountain Lion, I'd be sticking with Mountain Lion. If it arrived with Mavericks, then Mavericks.

My iMac and 11" MBA both shipped with Mavericks. They'll stay at Mavericks (until I reach a point where I don't care if they perform well and don't mind risking the upgrade).

That means that I'll be shut out of some newer versions of software, like the new Office 2016 for Mac. I have a significant amount invested in Apple devices and I no longer trust them to protect my investment. Not only do I have quite a few "doorstops" caused by upgrades to OSX, but I have a few iPads (2 and 4) that were beautiful machines that now limp on iOS 8. (If I could go back to iOS 6, I would)

I've come to these decisions based on my first hand experiences. It wouldn't make sense for someone else (who had a different experience) to do the same.
I agree with you. I have an iPad air 2 that I will keep on iOS 8 and also luckily have an iPhone 5 that is still blazing fast on iOS 6.
 
I have an Early 2014 MBA Base Model dual booting Yosemite and Mavericks. Mavericks just runs absolutely perfectly. Yosemite is about 90% of Mavericks' performance. There is some occasional stutters and some quirky graphical things, but overall it runs fine. I am currently on my Yosemite partition because Continuity is very handy.
 
Yosemite all the way, runs great on my new MBA and my 2010 iMac

To alidstone,

So lucky to hear those who have a good Yosemite on their mac. Just have trouble lately with my Yosemite on my MacBook Pro (13", Late 2011) as it is always playing beach ball. I've tried so many times and almost weekly reinstalling the OS but after the next day it turns to be the same. Keep rolling the beach ball. What's suppose to be the problem with my old macbook?

Below are the specs:
OS X Yosemite
Version 10.10
Processor: 2.8GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 512MB

Does this specs too fast to run for my old macbook? I'm gonna switch back to OS X Mavericks seems I really like the old icon design.
 
To alidstone,

So lucky to hear those who have a good Yosemite on their mac. Just have trouble lately with my Yosemite on my MacBook Pro (13", Late 2011) as it is always playing beach ball. I've tried so many times and almost weekly reinstalling the OS but after the next day it turns to be the same. Keep rolling the beach ball. What's suppose to be the problem with my old macbook?

Below are the specs:
OS X Yosemite
Version 10.10
Processor: 2.8GHz Intel Core i7
Memory: 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 3000 512MB

Does this specs too fast to run for my old macbook? I'm gonna switch back to OS X Mavericks seems I really like the old icon design.

How fast is your hard drive, 5400 or 7200 rpm? I bet a hybrid or a solid state hard drive would fix you right up!
 
Computers are complex systems, and the OS is just one factor contributing to system performance. As a computer ages it accumulates apps, kernel extensions, browser plugins... and some of that becomes obsolete when you update the OS.

So yes, "freezing" your system on an older OS means that those older apps, kexts, and plugins won't be left in the dust. But the flip side is also true - newer apps may not be fully debugged for older versions of the OS.

Meantime, even if you leave your system exactly as it came from the factory - no new apps, no new nothing, system performance can degrade due to accumulated disk errors, caches that didn't flush when they were supposed to, etc.

"Change nothing" or "stay on the old one for as long as possible" may seem to be the lower risk course, "I changed something once, and it turned out poorly, so I'll never change again," but on the other hand, "No risk, no reward." And for many, they'll face a steep learning curve when they are finally forced to assimilate four years or more of cumulative updates.

Back in the early days of MS DOS (when I was IT guy for a large office), I came to the conclusion that every $50 update was worth the cost - there were always new features that ended up saving time and money. And I still find that true today. (More so, because Apple's not charging for updates.) Example, Mavericks brought RAM Compression to OS X - that brought an immediate boost to many older, RAM-starved systems. The expansion of iCloud/iOS integration with OS X (iCloud Keychain and SMS forwarding, WiFi cellular calls, for example) have been great time-saving conveniences (no need to switch back to iPhone - and the iPhone keyboard - to reply to SMS messages, answer/place phone calls, etc).

I have an early 2008 iMac running El Capitan quite nicely. I've had to do some work from time to time (trashing caches, searching out obsolete startup items, running disk utility, etc.). I recently did a full erase/reinstall/restore from Time Machine. Currently, it's running far better than it ran two years ago, when I replaced it as my primary machine. At that point, it was running so badly, anything but web browsing was painful.

So... Was Mavericks a horrible OS? Is El Capitan brilliant? If one ignored all the other factors, one might come to that conclusion. But you can't ignore all those other factors. Even Macs need maintenance.
 
How fast is your hard drive, 5400 or 7200 rpm? I bet a hybrid or a solid state hard drive would fix you right up!

Hi! Regarding the HDD, I'm not so sure but I guess no one wants to have 5400rpm with that kind of mac specifications. By the way, I tried Mavericks (OS Size: 5.93GB size if I'm not mistaken). During installation, I'm always looking for the log so I can see the error which usually appear "missing CoreServices". After installation and I'm so shocked how fast is my mac because I was able to open applications altogether such as iWork and AutoCAD 2014 without any glitch. It's a flashing fast from the beginning but after few hours using, the problem returns. The spinning beach ball of death comes. I'm trying to think to try the SSD. So far, it's about a month - weekly I am reinstalling my mac. Even OS the only installed, after the next day, death ball is appearing.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.