Snow Leopard vs Mountain Lion

[Badagri]

You need to work on your reading comprehension.

That isn't what I said.

They will stop getting security updates.

However, this does mean they start becoming progressively less safe to use on-line as per below:

I thought thats what it always was. They only supported the main two OS's. As it stands:

Mountain Lion: Full support & features

Lion: Security updates

Snow Leopard: no updates



Because I was there when Lion came out when I was on Leopard. Just before Lion was launched, no updates whatsoever for Leopard. It was a deathly silence in Software Update.

 

[miata]

I thought thats what it always was. They only supported the main two OS's. As it stands:

Mountain Lion: Full support & features

Lion: Security updates

Snow Leopard: no updates



Because I was there when Lion came out when I was on Leopard. Just before Lion was launched, no updates whatsoever for Leopard. It was a deathly silence in Software Update.

I think SL might be a little different. When Lion came out most Leopard customers could update to SL with no regression. This is not the case for SL customers who cannot go to Lion or ML without losing things like PPC support.

Why do you think Apple recently added the SL DVD back into the Apple Store?

 

[throAU]

Why do you think Apple recently added the SL DVD back into the Apple Store?

Because officially, to upgrade to Lion or Mountain Lion, you need the App store, which is only available in 10.6.8 or later.

No SL availability = no upgrades "possible" for anyone on 10.5 or earlier.

 

[ixodes]

This thread is intended to reach all of the people who had Snow Leopard, installed Lion and realized it was a terrible choice, then reinstalled Snow Leopard.

So, here is my question: since I am one of these people, I want to know from the people described above if Mountain Lion is a good choice or should I keep my Snow Leopard?

I just don't want to do the same mistake I did installing Lion and going back to Snow Leopard.

I have a plethora of new 2012 Macs, running the latest version of Mountain Lion for one reason. I prefer to remain open minded, primarily to test the newest versions of OS X in advance of adopting it.

That said my main array of 2010 Macs all run OS X v 10.6.8 which remains my absolute favorite version of the Mac OS.

Using Macs since 1991 has taught me there's simply no substitute for first hand experience, using an OS in my normal environment, to determine if it's for me.

Newer is _not_ always better. That goes for Windows (hence why I skipped Vista) as well as OS X.

For my mission critical work and the kind of things we use it for at my office / lab, the hundreds of Macs we deploy all remain on 10.6.8 as well.

For those who like the eye candy and iOS influence I can see where they will be attracted to the newer OS, but thus far it offers zero advantages for my purposes, and sadly has drawbacks that do not exist in 10.6.8.

Then there's the obvious. At some point Apple will force us out of 10.6.8 as they are wont to do, but until then, there's simply no substitute for the fast, stable and highly reliable Snow Leopard.

 

[throAU]

not being able to resize from any corner drives me nuts.

 

[Dillyew]

This thread is intended to reach all of the people who had Snow Leopard, installed Lion and realized it was a terrible choice, then reinstalled Snow Leopard.

So, here is my question: since I am one of these people, I want to know from the people described above if Mountain Lion is a good choice or should I keep my Snow Leopard?

Yes, sad but I did the same, tried Lion on my MacBook Pro which completely mangled everything in my system and made my BootCamp/Pc partition unuseable. So I completely wiped the Mac partition and reloaded SnowLeopard which I love. I think some of the problem may have been the fact it could not find a backup area, so I now have that set up and am going to try again, but only because I feel I have to! Like the last entry, I expect we will be forced off by some means or other. I still have SL on my iMac for all my clubs/groups (4) membership management etc. I am loathe to lose it.

I feel all the 'improvements' in L and ML are purely to cater for all the PC users and others who are now in the Mac envelope via the ipads and phones as many of the actions seem to cater more for the people who live their lives on these community systems, rather than those who use Macs for more practical reasons. It is almost as if Apple is dumbing down for the masses which is fine for them, but no so good for the Macusers who've been with Macs for yonks.

So I would say to Bruleke if you are happy with Snow Leopard keep it as long as you feel you can. Ultimately it will be really old hat and in a moment of gung ho! you will decide to buy a new machine or go for it. Beware, as you get older (I don't know your age, but I am getting on now) and radical changes are not so easy to take on board. Perhaps that is the problem

 

[Krazy Bill]

Then there's the obvious. At some point Apple will force us out of 10.6.8 as they are wont to do, but until then, there's simply no substitute for the fast, stable and highly reliable Snow Leopard.

Well, the "obvious" has been here a long time. Apple will force you out of 10.6.8 when your machine dies.

Here's the bottom line... if you're still on SL out of defiance, waiting for 10.9 to magically revert to SL features (or similar ones)... you're dreaming. The iOS merger continues... unabated.

 

[Stonefly]

I put SL back on my late 2009 27 iMac last week and love it. Used ML from release date but it just wouldn't perform like SL does. Benchmark tests are much better in SL especially in 3D frames per seconds, used NovaBench. iCloud was nice but I still get my iCloud mail in SL mail, I get my pictures off my iPhone when I plug it in to charge, iCal syncs with iCloud and I don't change my address book much so doing it manually isn't a problem. The other stuff in ML i don't really care about. I really don't want a 27 inch iPhone or iPad. I want my computer experience to be different than my hand held devices.

 

[Cave Man]

Well, the "obvious" has been here a long time. Apple will force you out of 10.6.8 when your machine dies.

If one were inclined to stay with SL, one could always build a hackintosh.

 

[Eithanius]

If one were inclined to stay with SL, one could always build a hackintosh.

Still... there's always questions of having old SL drivers compatible with newer hackintosh hardware... Are they gonna work...

 

[B737]

my quick two cents... about going from SL to ML...

i was a guy that went from Snow Leopard to Lion on my early 2011 MBA when it was released, stuck with it for two months, hated it, and went back to SL. i was bored last night and upgraded to ML....

im really happy with it, took some tweaking to get rid of annoying things and granted its only been 18 hours or so... but i def underestimated the coolness of icloud integration, and imessage. i feel like that convenience alone was worth the $.

Firefox is working normally, as are its gestures, OS wake up & boot times seem as good if not better (?) than they were with SL.

i should add, i dont do any heavy lifting with my MBA... mostly web stuff, light duty tasks and parallels (which needed a $30 upgrade).

im glad i upgraded this time.

 

[miata]

...
Here's the bottom line... if you're still on SL out of defiance, waiting for 10.9 to magically revert to SL features (or similar ones)... you're dreaming. The iOS merger continues... unabated.

Not all of us are holding back out of "defiance." Many of us were optimistic, upgraded to Lion or ML, and figure out for ourselves that it was better to go back to SL.

There are a number of things I liked about ML when I upgraded. I was ready to stick with it until I ran into some reliability problems. I'll likely try ML again when it matures. When the next release after ML comes out I will definitely check it out with the hope of getting new features. I've been using MacOS since 7.0 and almost always upgrade to the latest within a week or two of release. I am looking forward to using a new release with new features.

 

[Krazy Bill]

Not all of us are holding back out of "defiance." Many of us were optimistic, upgraded to Lion or ML, and figure out for ourselves that it was better to go back to SL.

Defiance or "waiting for better". No difference. My whole point is if you don't like ML then 10.9 isn't going to be any different so people need to consider dumping the Mac platform altogether. Snow Leopard was the end of a time-honored legacy. The future with Apple now is consumerism.

When the next release after ML comes out I will definitely check it out with the hope of getting new features.

Siri and Maps? Meh.

Put the new UI elements in Snow Leopard, make Full Screen apps work properly, bring back grid-based spaces and I'll buy it. (I'd actually buy a new mac to run it).

 

[RSL]

Defiance or "waiting for better". No difference. My whole point is if you don't like ML then 10.9 isn't going to be any different so people need to consider dumping the Mac platform altogether. Snow Leopard was the end of a time-honored legacy. The future with Apple now is consumerism.

Whatever happened to Think Different

 

[Eithanius]

Whatever happened to Think Different

Ever since the Intel switch and Apple's obsession to grab a piece of the Windows market share, Think Different ceased to exist... I missed the old Mac + iPod days...

 

[Morod]

Every time I think I want to upgrade to ML, I watch the video of it on the Apple site:

http://www.apple.com/osx/

and decide I am VERY happy with SL.

 

[Eithanius]

Every time I think I want to upgrade to ML, I watch the video of it on the Apple site:

http://www.apple.com/osx/

and decide I am VERY happy with SL.

Is it just me or is that link actually triggers my iTunes to connect to iTunes Store...?

 

[Dewdman42]

+1

yes, sad but i did the same, tried lion on my macbook pro which completely mangled everything in my system and made my bootcamp/pc partition unuseable. So i completely wiped the mac partition and reloaded snowleopard which i love. I think some of the problem may have been the fact it could not find a backup area, so i now have that set up and am going to try again, but only because i feel i have to! Like the last entry, i expect we will be forced off by some means or other. I still have sl on my imac for all my clubs/groups (4) membership management etc. I am loathe to lose it.

i feel all the 'improvements' in l and ml are purely to cater for all the pc users and others who are now in the mac envelope via the ipads and phones as many of the actions seem to cater more for the people who live their lives on these community systems, rather than those who use macs for more practical reasons. It is almost as if apple is dumbing down for the masses which is fine for them, but no so good for the macusers who've been with macs for yonks.

So i would say to bruleke if you are happy with snow leopard keep it as long as you feel you can. Ultimately it will be really old hat and in a moment of gung ho! You will decide to buy a new machine or go for it. Beware, as you get older (i don't know your age, but i am getting on now) and radical changes are not so easy to take on board. Perhaps that is the problem

 

[Joseph Farrugia]

Mate, I don't have to justify my job at all. People have been willing to pay hundreds of dollars per hour for my services since 1996, because I know what I'm doing.

……or because they don't know what they're doing, & they don't know what you are doing to them. Your FUD won't stick here.

 

[Cave Man]

Now another freakin' problem with ML. Software update tries to install the new iTunes and Aperture camera raw files and it gets stuck on installing with about "one minute" remaining. Set there for over 1 hour, so I do a force quit and relaunch it. Now it's been half an hour saying "installing - calculating". One problem after another, after another, after another. What a freakin' piece of alpha software, this Mountain Lion.

 

[Eithanius]

Now another freakin' problem with ML. Software update tries to install the new iTunes and Aperture camera raw files and it gets stuck on installing with about "one minute" remaining. Set there for over 1 hour, so I do a force quit and relaunch it. Now it's been half an hour saying "installing - calculating". One problem after another, after another, after another. What a freakin' piece of alpha software, this Mountain Lion.

There are times I don't even trust Software Update on Snow Leopard to do the job especially huge downloads like these... **** like this do happen especially when I have a slow and unstable connection... I trust offline installers...

 

[ecoarena]

Call me old fashioned

Firstly, I’ve been a Mac user for 26 years now and my Classic still fires up beautifully as I’m slowly transferring my PhD research work into the modern age.
Here’s what I see to be a fundamental ‘issue’ – Steve Jobs never believed in focus groups; he believed that people did not know what they want, so he just gave it to them. So, we reveled in new toys.
Though I love Apple and all things Pixar (and find the non-PC work an insult to my brain cells) I always believed that I knew what I want. Apple for me is simply the best tool for the job I need to get done. When I used Word 3 (?) back in 1986/7, it did exactly what I needed in terms of word processing and formatting my thesis (to this day, all theses produced in my old department ‘borrowed’ my table designs) – it was simplicity, but it worked and worked well. I still believe that my formatting work on my Classic is more effective that what many folk are producing now with the behemoth that Microsoft Word has become.

Anyway, to continue, my writing, my music and my photography/graphic work are important to me. Apple provided the best option for me to express myself creatively - FOR ME. This is my current situation, my partner’s MacBook runs Leopard (yes Leopard) and she’s happy as Larry and refuses to let me touch the machine, it does what she wants it to do – and quickly (I'm still gonna sneek into her office one night and upgrade it to SL!). I have 2 MacBook Pros, one runs Snow Leopard (beautifully) and the later model, Lion (perfectly fine, but still in the category of ‘why did Apple think I wanted my laptop to look like the iPhone I don’t own? I check my email, browse and don’t do anything remotely creative on it). My desktop, on the other hand, runs several platforms on several drives (a Windows platform…..for certain software – yes, I shower after using it; a Lion platform, still haven’t used it, I just wanted some form of comparison and will remove it - it's slower than my SL; and my MAIN drive, a SNOW LEOPARD platform).

With Snow Leopard I use the machine for what I need to use it. It never crashes (and I mean never, unless I do something stupid) and most importantly, it flawlessly runs the software I need to do my job (or entertain myself). I was in the same boat when it came to questioning Lion and yes, I had issues with my ProTools/hardware integration etc. So…I stuck with Snow Leopard.

It is clear that with Lion and now with Mountain Lion, Apple are pushing for us to use iCloud and similar initiatives. This does not interest me. Unless there is a cumulonimbus looming over the horizon, I am NOT interested in clouds of any kind. The idea of storing my private material on someone else’s server still seems akin to giving someone the key to your front door.

Apple is also wishing folk to integrate their other Apple produces (iphone, iPad) with their computers via this ‘heavenly’ link. I have an iPad, not an iPhone, but it still doesn’t interest me. For those of you who think it’s a blessing, here’s some light reading for when things can go horribly wrong (Google ‘How Apple and Amazon Security Flaws Led to My Epic Hacking’).

Yes, I used DropBox to transfer files (non important files) from my iPad, but my life is a very manual one where I like to see and know exactly what is happening. It’s boring, and not particularly high tech, but it’s secure (relatively) and it works.

So, I stuck with Snow Leopard as it gets my job done and yes, I built a hackintosh. I built it in the shell of the G5 that Apple made obsolete not long after I bought it.

If someone can convince me that Mountain Lion will make my work more effective, then I’ll upgrade, but to date, Apple’s desire to emulate their mobile iOS in everything, does very little to impress or excite me (I think I’ll go and hug my Classic). God bless you Steve, thank you, but I now know what I want.

 

[gumblecosby]

.....

There is no need for you personally to upgrade to Mountain Lion unless you are concerned about receiving future security patches and/or you need new Apple first party software.

Mountain Lion currently has far too many small bugs to be worth the hassle if you are happy on Snow Leopard. Snow Leopard was once too buggy for me too though. That was around 10.6.4 or so. However it was given time to mature unlike Lion which is already in the "security patch only" phase of support (ie. No more 10.7.x updates) . How long Mountain Lion will be supported is anyones guess but I think everybody can see the pattern here.

Also, I echo your cloud sentiments so thumbs up there.

 

[wifferdill]

Stay With Snow

I normally NEVER write in forums but since I'm very pissed off at Apple I thought I'd see what the "climate" is out there regarding ML (Mountain Lion). Before I spout off you should know a little about my background to give credence to my remarks. I was a senior software engineer at Apple Computer in 1985 / 1986 and have been a devoted mac user ever since.

I am highly technical, do programming, web development... write... so my computer is on 24/7 and I'm pretty busy... still... 27 years and just about every model of mac and Apple OS later.

To me... it's the end of the line for Apple. They lost their integrity entirely once the cash cow of MP3 was discovered. Lion and Mountain Lion are utterly hideous... totally dumbed down to capture PC refugees and with Windows 8 there's going to be a lot of them. Until a week ago I have been very productive on Snow Leopard. However, I thought it'd be nice to upgrade to a brand new Macbook Pro 13 inch and it comes with Mountain Lion.

Shame on me for not reading... I made a legacy decision that ML would be a substantial upgrade over Lion... or more precisely... a mature Lion with a different name.

Mountain Lion, for me... is the worst Apple operating system I've ever attempted to use. A lot of people "love" it but they are mostly inexperienced with Apple or light users.

But it's not just a very poor operating system that disturbs me... it's Apples drift to unadulterated consumerism with complete disregard for quality, productivity and usefulness. Their closed architecture to lock people into their hardware via the Apple Store and a unified OS for mobile devices has produced a wretched psyche at Apple and the results are clearly evident in what they currently produce. They're very much into wowing us with pointless things like retina displays to overshadow all the shortcomings that are beginning to make Mac OS unusable.

To me, they've crossed the line and will never go back to a really good operating system. Most people just take what they get and say it's OK... especially if they've forked out a bundle for it. They are emotionally attached to their buying decision.

People who are legacy users of Apple know what I'm talking about. The downward trend has been astonishing and for my money... Apple died with Steve Jobs. The new products coming from Apple are as lacklustre as their CEO.

In answer to your original post... I downgraded to SL from Lion in about 3 hours of using it. I just spent over $1,500 for a new MBP that gives me ML and no possibility of downgrading to SL (if I'd researched I'd have discovered that little fact and never bought the machine in the first place). I've used it for 5 days now to give it a chance and try to be moderately productive and I cannot stand it.

IF YOU ARE ASKING THIS QUESTION THEN YOU UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES... so my answer is... stay with SL. All the mundane chatter about future software and drivers is pointless. I have Photoshop CS5 and all the best tools... web development, programming... hard drives, SSD's, printers et al... are not going to change much in the next 2 to 5 years. If you are productive with your SL then follow the advise so many pissed off Apple users are shouting at Apple... if it works, don't fix it.

I have an iPhone 5 that can't bluetooth to my brand new MBP!... I can't even minimize my Finder windows to a reasonably small footprint on ML... I had spaces working perfectly on SL... garbage with ML, not to mention all the "non" features the average person couldn't care less about.

I called Apple today to get a return authorization on the junk and dug out my SL mini so I can get some work done.

I took a hammer to my iPhone (I can afford to) and bought a $40 Samsung that is just a PHONE (got a camera and keyboard) but it holds it's charge for days and works perfectly and I blue toothed it to my mac mini no problem.

That's my story... and I'm sticking to it!

 

[Krazy Bill]

I was a senior software engineer at Apple Computer in 1985 / 1986 and have been a devoted mac user ever since.

We have similar usage backgrounds. I have been an avid user since the Apple II (in conjunction with PC's of course).

Pretty much agree with everything but I have to tell you... give ML more than 3 hours. Is it better than Snow Leopard? No, but use all that experience you have to find ways to adapt. There's a hack/app for just about everything - mostly done by people that feel as we do.

Don't get me wrong... Mountain Lion still sucks but given the alternatives for new machines, the pickings are slim and it's still the lesser of evils IMO.

I am waiting for my Mac to die. It should be ready for pasture by this summer. At that time I'll explore the next round of Windows ultra-books to see how much Apple tech they've stolen to make some good machines.