Upgrade to 10.8 now or wait until 10.9?

[iMikeT]

I just want to put this out there as a feeler and see where it goes.

I am currently running 10.7.5 Lion and had been preparing to upgrade to 10.8.x Mountain Lion. In all of this, I realized that I am about six months late to the Mountain Lion train so I decided to slow down and think this through before taking the plunge and upgrading.

The reason for the pause in the process is the fact that 10.8 was released about a year after 10.7 and MacRumors recently reported on seeing signs of 10.9 in the works.

With Apple going in the direction of annual upgrades to OS X, and considering that it's been about half a year since 10.8 was released, would it be a best to just wait until 10.9 at this point?

 

[mobilehaathi]

Are there features that you want now or that would be particularly useful?

In short, do you have any compelling reason to upgrade other than the desire to upgrade?

 

[iMikeT]

Are there features that you want now or that would be particularly useful?

Dictation, AirPlay Mirroring, Notes and Reminders being stand-alone apps, Calendar sidebar, new Safari, and Gatekeeper to name a few.

In short, do you have any compelling reason to upgrade other than the desire to upgrade?

Yes.

1) A refined version of Lion in Mountain Lion. Much like Snow Leopard was a more refined version of Leopard with under the hood improvements.

2) Ever since I upgraded to 10.7.5, my iMac has had this weird permissions issue regarding the display. Upon startup, my iMac will load OS X with the grey screen and Apple logo then right before the login screen the display will "turn off" then back on immediately displaying the login screen instead of a smoother transition to the login screen from the grey screen.

3) I need to clean up my iMac's internal hard drive from the junk that has accumulated over the past year and a half. It also doesn't help that I rolled my files and everything else from a Time Machine backup from an earlier system. Of course, an upgrade to 10.8 Mountain Lion isn't necessary to clean up my Mac but I figure I could knock two birds out with one stone.

 

[Bear]

...
With Apple going in the direction of annual upgrades to OS X, and considering that it's been about half a year since 10.8 was released, would it be a best to just wait until 10.9 at this point?

One thing that isn't clear.. is how old is your iMac? Is it old enough that 10.9 not working on it is a possibility?

You may also get hit by programs that need Mountain Lion and not Lion to work properly.

 

[iMikeT]

One thing that isn't clear.. is how old is your iMac? Is it old enough that 10.9 not working on it is a possibility?

It's a 27" 2011 iMac. It actually shipped with 10.6.8 Snow Leopard after the release date of 10.7 Lion was announced and I received a free upgrade for Lion, which I obviously took advantage of.

At this point, I don't think I need to worry about 10.9 not working on my iMac. Of course, Apple could decide to have certain features be "incompatible" (like Siri requiring at least an iPhone 4S when it really didn't ).

You may also get hit by programs that need Mountain Lion and not Lion to work properly.

After looking through my apps, it doesn't seem like I'll be encountering issues with apps breaking. The only third-party app I use heavily is Photoshop CS6 and I think Adobe will be quick about putting a patch out in case 10.9 breaks any of the CS6 apps.

 

[mobilehaathi]

Then upgrade.

 

[njean777]

If you want the features then I would just upgrade to ML. It's stable and works well.

 

[laudern]

It's $20. You want it, go get it

 

[inaka]

It's $20. You want it, go get it

Absolutely.

 

[old-wiz]

At least 10.8 is reasonably stable right now. If Apple releases 10.9 (not even announced yet) in July 2013, it won't be that stable off the bat.

 

[benwiggy]

I've used OS since 10.2. Someone recently commented, perhaps in jest, that the even-numbered releases were the "better" ones; but if you had to wait and choose, I have to say that I agree.

As Apple is now doing yearly releases -- and only fixing bugs in the new releases -- I would certainly recommend getting 10.8, as it fixes many of the issues with Lion, and I would wait to see what 10.9 brings -- bugs and features -- before deciding whether to upgrade.