Three weird questions about ML

[gangof4]

I have an April 2011 iMac (first build with Thunderbolt) and I'm running SL (10.6.8). I avoided upgrading to Lion but now am considering ML. If I upgrade

1. Can I keep selected files like personal finances off of the icloud and therefore on my HD only?

2. What about my MS Office software (Word, PP, et. al.) Will those original programs work or will I need to purchase a more current version of the suite?

3. If I do not upgrade but at some point buy an ipad, will I be at a disadvantage moving stuff back and forth from the imac to the ipad?

I don't do gaming, social networking, file sharing, or heavy photo editing (or even mail on this desktop.) But there are apps I'd like to get that won't work on SL and I suppose every one must upgrade eventually (else we'd still be using Apple IIe's.)

 

[NewbieCanada]

1. You can keep any or all documents off the Cloud, either by not saving docs on the cloud, or saving individual ones somewhere else.

2.Office 2011 is ML compatible. Not sure about older versions (you didn't specify which you had)

3. You won't have iCloud, but you'll have iTunes for music and other media. There are non-iCloud solutions to files, such as DropBox, etc, as well as some non-cloud solutions that work through iTunes.

Make sure that any third-party apps you're running are intel-based, not Power PC, as rosetta isn't included with Mountain Lion (or indeed, Lion)

 

[phyrexia]

Your machine has more than enough oomph to run ML. You don't have to use iCloud if you don't want.

If you are running any old legacy PowerPC software on your Snow Leopard installation, you will find these applications no longer function, as SL is the last release of OS X to include Rosetta, the PPC interpreter. Your Office suite probably is not this old. Most complaints involve Warcraft or Quicken; I think these must be the longest lived PPC apps

Your future iPad doesn't care if you're on SL or ML, but you wouldn't be able to natively access iCloud backups of your iPad if you stick with SL.

My main question for you is: which apps are required?

I have an April 2011 iMac (first build with Thunderbolt) and I'm running SL (10.6.8). I avoided upgrading to Lion but now am considering ML. If I upgrade

1. Can I keep selected files like personal finances off of the icloud and therefore on my HD only?

2. What about my MS Office software (Word, PP, et. al.) Will those original programs work or will I need to purchase a more current version of the suite?

3. If I do not upgrade but at some point buy an ipad, will I be at a disadvantage moving stuff back and forth from the imac to the ipad?

I don't do gaming, social networking, file sharing, or heavy photo editing (or even mail on this desktop.) But there are apps I'd like to get that won't work on SL and I suppose every one must upgrade eventually (else we'd still be using Apple IIe's.)

 

[50548]

1. You can keep any or all documents off the Cloud, either by not saving docs on the cloud, or saving individual ones somewhere else.

2.Office 2011 is ML compatible. Not sure about older versions (you didn't specify which you had)

3. You won't have iCloud, but you'll have iTunes for music and other media. There are non-iCloud solutions to files, such as DropBox, etc, as well as some non-cloud solutions that work through iTunes.

Make sure that any third-party apps you're running are intel-based, not Power PC, as rosetta isn't included with Mountain Lion (or indeed, Lion)

MS Office 2008 is ALSO compatible with ML.

 

[robgendreau]

iCloud is really quite unnecessary. You can get almost all the features from other software or services; some are better, some worse.

You didn't mention email, contacts, etc. That's a big selling point of iCloud for some; others use Google, Fruux, etc to sync mail, contacts and calendars. This should make it easier to use your iPad with your computer if you don't want to use iCloud, assuming you want to sync that information.

And, as previously noted, Dropbox works great with a Mac and iPad, even better than iCloud.