Staygrade?

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There is obviously a lot of attention being given to Snow Leopard at the moment because it is new, but I have a different question.

How many people are deliberately running old versions of Mac OS X...or indeed older versions of any operating system? Why are you staying put rather than upgrading?

I don't think I'm going to bother with 10.6 just yet, but I couldn't imagine using 10.4 or earlier versions these days in much the same way I can't imagine me having stuck with Windows 98 for this long...
 

pigoo3

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How many people are deliberately running old versions of Mac OS X...or indeed older versions of any operating system? Why are you staying put rather than upgrading?

Some people are running older versions of the Mac OS for a number of reasons:

- they own older/slower hardware that may not be up to the task of running OS 10.5...such as older G3's or G4's.
- they own hardware that does not have an Intel CPU...so cannot upgrade to Snow Leopard.
- cannot afford right now to purchase newer OS software
- don't need the features of newer OS versions

There are plenty of other reasons as well.

- Nick
 
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I kept OS X 10.1.x until 10.3.x came out, skipping 10.2.x entirely.
I ran 10.3.x for at least a year and a half before I went to 10.4.x
I am still running 10.4.x and haven't had any need to go to 10.5.x yet.

You don't need to run the "latest and greatest" simply because it exists.
Use Apple stuff long enough (I'm coming up on 24 years) and you'll realize that the "bells and whistles" of something new aren't the life-changing, must-have updates that others might have you believe them to be.

Heck, I'm still running a 1st Generation Power Mac G5... the single 1.6 Ghz one and it runs 10.4.11 for the OS.
Sure, I could run 10.5.x if I wanted to, but I have no pressing need or desire to do so.
The machine still works and still does exactly what I need it to do.

I've never owned an Intel machine and they've been around for almost 3 years now.

Staying a step or three behind isn't going to slow you down or make your computing experience unbearable. It'll save you money and you'll still have a great computer.
Older hardware/software has stood the test of time and is still solid.

On the other hand, if you're one of those "early adopters" you are more likely to fall victim to the "rev. A blues" when you find that your shiny new whatzit isn't quite ready for primetime yet.
You'll have to wait for developers to catch up. You also pay the price of having something shiny and new... only to see the price drop (while the features stay the same) in a year's time.

To me, trying desperately to keep up with the Jones's simply doesn't make sense.
Keep what works until it no longer works for you.
 
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I'm afraid I'm one of these early adopter folk, but I'm trying to get out of the habit as it's becoming rather expensive. The computer world used to have a few new toys every year...now there are new toys out every day!

One of the main reasons for choosing a Mac was the amount of people on forums across the net who were using a Mac that they had bought years ago, and it was still going. I've only had mine for a few months and it looks like it's going to last for a while yet (I was touching wood when I typed that).

If only the same was true with all hardware...mobile phones is something else I appear to replace on a frequent basis!
 

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