Yosemite, is it worth it?

[sailor#1]

My 78-year-old eyes with glasses do okay

I have a non-Retina MacBook Pro with not-great eyes, and I think Yosemite is BY FAR the best looking upgrade (and it is a pretty serious UPgrade) I've seen in years. I'm with Pug 100 percent and suggest the rest of you get new glasses.

Oh, and the designer was some nerd who's won every design award this planet has to offer, but of course its rubbish next to you geniuses ...

I installed Yosemite on both our MBP-13 and -17 and readable in both cases. But VERY SLOW with startup and quite a bit slower than Lion that it replaced.

If you have difficulty reading small fonts in browsers, try control/+ to enlarge image on the screen within the open window.

 

[sailor#1]

I found a way to go back to OS 10.9, and I'm glad I did!

I looked in the Apple store and could not find a Mavericks loader. Can you enlighten me please? I think I will try a reversion on my smaller machine and see if it works okay, then on the other MBP. Thanks.

 

[sailor#1]

Like many of you, I am very leery of upgrading computers to mew operating systems. I always try it after a few months go by and only on one computer before switching all computers. There have been OS that only one computer was upgraded because of all the glitches and crashes.

My background

I have 5 Macs, 2 iPhone 5, 1 iPad and 1 iPad Mini Retina. I am a real estate photographer, web designer, and I design marketing ads for real estate besides doing SEO and social media. Because of the real estate business, I need to access real estate files, so cloud storage is also a major key.

How I Developed My Hypothesis
I recently bought 2 new computers. The MBP 15" was top of the line, 1 Tb flash storage, i7core processor, and 16 Gb of memory. The other computer was added mid December with Yosemite. I use all iWork apps,
Aperture, Compressor, Final Cut, and RapidWeaver for web design and plug-ins that complement these apps and programs. I found that the new computers worked fine. why doe these computers work OK but the others don't?

"Cleaning" My Macs - What I found out...

I always had problems no matter how long I waited to install a new version of Mac OS. My research showed that most of us had some problems but others did not and there were those who had no major problems at all. I hypothesized the following:

1) "Cleaning" programs such as Mac, "cleaned" files that may have been necessary for a particular program and when the OS tries to access it, there is a crash. So I stopped using MacKeeper. After, completely wiping and re-downloading the operating system OS 10.9 and loading each of my programs and plug-ins I needed manually or through the App & iTunes stores, I have not had any problems for 6 months with any program. I did this with two of my three older computers, Macbook Air and Mac Pro mid 2012. The only major change has been not using MacKeeper.

2) If you are a basic user, (email and internet) you probably won't have major problems but I even found the Finder became corrupted with a basic user. It was slow and crashed all the time.

3) Each program may create it's own set of glitches, that is why we may not all experience the same issues. It can become a major problem when we upgrade over the OS that has a missing file that does not present a major problem in the current OS but in an upgraded OS issues arise.

4) After having all the problems with the OS upgrades, I have stayed away from Microsoft Office, Word, Excel and Powerpoint.

Conclusion:

I only recommend switching if you absolutely need to take advantage of new features. I have started upgrading because I need the flexibility of working with a cross-platform & cloud environment. I use iWork programs, and until I upgrade, I have lost the ability to access my cloud files.

Since the computers are no longer being "cleaned" by MacKeeper, I found that I could migrate each computer using TimeCapsule without any problems. Some programs do need to have the plug-ins re-installed.

Thanks for your thoughtful report. This reinforces my theory, posted a day or two ago, that a fresh install of Yosemite on a blank hard drive is the way to go to prevent problems. If anyone out there has had a different experience, please post it. Thanks.

 

[gsahli]

I think I will try a reversion on my smaller machine and see if it works okay, then on the other MBP. Thanks.

OS X Yosemite: Revert to a previous OS X version

 

[bluecheer]

Thanks vansmith. Do you have any idea when Apple might release the up dates for Yosemite? What is the usual waiting time for major up dates.
In the mean time........still wading through MUD.

 

[Slydude]

There isn't really a uniform timetable for such things. Apple tends to release them as needed / as they (Apple) get them completed.

 

[McTwirly]

printer compatability with Yosemite

No problems with my Mac Book Pro and two printers on Yosemite: Cannon MP640R Pixma (multifunction in jet, maybe 4-5 years old) and Brother laser printer, the second is probably ten years old. In fact, the interface seems smoother.

 

[Oneironaut]

Fortunately, I've not had any major issues with Yosemite, which is a relief because I love the even tighter integration with iOS. Specifically, the look and the ability to send and receive texts and phone calls from non-iOS users. But it wasn't a decision I made lightly. I'm all too aware that the first few months of a new update can be rocky. It's worth the wait though.

 

[bluecheer]

Thanks Oneironaut. I have just done the apple update that they have put out and hopefully that works. Would you recommend an increase in memory from 4 to 8GB? as others have said would help. I have plenty of storage ( I have 174GB of the original 320GB ). Any tips would be appreciated.

 

[chas_m]

I'm pleased to report that the one and only significant issue I've been having with Yosemite (briefly: Instant Hotspot didn't work well between my 2012 MBP and iPhone 5s) appears to have finally been resolved in the latest 10.10.5 beta.

Just in time to replace the whole thing with El Capitan in a month ...

 

[dtravis7]

El Capitan is coming out in a month ? I sure hope not yet as I among others are still having issues like Mail crashing a few times a day here. Yosemite works great here but I have not tried any Hot Spot features.


Is 10.10.5 out or still in testing? When I joined the El Capitan program I ceased getting 10.10 updates!

 

[chas_m]

Dennis: I say a month because broadly El Capitan is expected to be at least announced, if not released sometime in September. I think the first day of fall is September 21? So perhaps on or around then. At the pace they are going (and the pace they are fixing things), I'm quite hopeful ... but not so much so that I don't think they'll ever be a 10.11.1!

If you are on the 10.11 beta "team," then you won't be getting the 10.10.5 betas. I'm using different test machines, but actually haven't gotten around to putting El Cap on any of mine yet, so I'm just testing 10.10.5 and iOS 9 on spare devices at the moment.

Thus I can't really comment on El Cap except to say that developer friends tell me its fast. I can say that iOS 9 is still pretty buggy -- if you don't like surprises and bug I'd say don't even think about installing this at this point -- but I'm also seeing the issues I've found fixed, one by one, very methodically with each release. 10.10.5 is mostly a security and tweaking "fix" update, so there's nothing exciting to report there, but I'm delighted that it resolved my one main issue with Yosemite.

 

[dtravis7]

Chas, I agree, its FAST. My test machine is a late 2007 iMac and on that it flies! I can see the difference between it and 10.10.4.

They fixed the mail Rule bug where all the rules would disappear after you quit mail. That made me very happy!

 

[erics72]

My question is, are there any power users here that are on Yosemite? eg. Designers, Editors (video or sound), Pro Photographers. You know, the people that have kept Apple alive during it's dismal days before the iPod and iPhone era.

How are you guys with Yosemite and your work flow on it. Since Lion, I've found the Mac OS, has removed many of the features that I've found very useful for my work. I'm currently staying put right now with Mountain Lion, I would have preferred to stay on 10.6.x, but if I wanted to upgrade my graphics softwares, I had to upgrade to at least 10.8.x. Many of the features I've grown accustomed to were either removed, or you had to find a workaround to get them back.

The Mac OS used to be simple, efficient, and reliable for me. But since upgrading to ML, I've found my Mac Pro 8-core Xeon to be sluggish, and laggy. This system is a workhorse. Loved the way it ran on SL. Not so much on ML. And from the things I've heard of Maverick and Yosemite, it's even worse. Basically, it's running like Windows now. No longer user friendly. No longer catered to power users. All glitz and glam, bloated with things I don't use or need. Which bogs down my system.

Is this the new way of Apple? Force people to upgrade their hardware every other OS release? Or else you'll get these lags? Like they do with iPhones. My 5S was peppy and reliable on iOS 7, since updating to 8, it's been laggy. I'm most certain that if I upgraded to the iPhone 6, I'd find that speed back and reliability back. Just like iPhone 6 users will start to notice their phones slow down when they update to iOS 9. Older iPhones will definitely need to upgrade when 9 comes out. And if you don't update to 9, you won't be able to install or update to newer apps. Caught between a rock and a hard place.

I miss Jobs. Cook is too much of a businessman. Only cares about profit. Apple has lacked innovation since Jobs passed.

 

[pitbullrescuer]

personally I like yosemite, I have it on my mid 2010 mac mini with only 2gb of ram at the moment, planning on upgrading it to at least 8 gb if not more since i can. never noticed it being slow or laggy. in fact it is much better than the windows pc it replaced which was 2 years newer running windows 7. i really wish i could make yosemite run on my late 2006 early 2007 macbook pro that is now running lion, although lion seems to be much better than windows.

 

[Slydude]

@erics72 Which features are you thinking have been removed?

 

[chas_m]

My question is, are there any power users here that are on Yosemite? eg. Designers, Editors (video or sound), Pro Photographers. You know, the people that have kept Apple alive during it's dismal days before the iPod and iPhone era.

This is an interesting question and I was looking forward to answering it -- made my living for a long time doing graphic design, and now do a lot of audio editing (mostly for podcasts but also for things like radio commercials) and while I would't call myself a pro photographer I'm good enough to have had shots licensed and used in pro exhibitions.

Then I read the rest of your post, which to put it mildly is filled with misinformation and ignorance. So hopefully someone else can help you, because I've given up talking to closed minds.