Upgrade to Sierra from El Capitan now, or Wait?

[Mac 128]

I'm running an Mid-2012 MacBook Pro, smoothly running El Capitan with a 1TB SSD, and 8GB RAM.

I was looking for a thread that covers my question, so apologies if I missed it.

But should I upgrade to Sierra now, or wait until a few more bug fixes are addressed?

What is the advantage of upgrading to Sierra? I know it adds Siri, and there's a universal clipboard, but in terms of practical use, what am I really missing out on?

I ask the question because it's a busy time of year for me, and I can't really afford to muck around with a lot of new compatibility issues, and Mail issues, etc. I also use a fair amount of older apps like iPhoto.

Thoughts?

 

[Brammy]

If it's not a good time, wait. A busy time of the year can turn into a dumpster fire if there's an issue.

Plus, I'm having really bad battery life on my 2011 MBP and 2014 Air

 

[fischersd]

+1 for what Brammy said!

I told my Dad to go ahead and upgrade (not realizing he was using a really old version of Quickbooks) - well, Sierra killed that app for him. He's about 2 hours away (and won't open up remote access to his Mac for me to fix it remotely), so I didn't relish driving up there to fix it for him. There was a newer version of Quickbooks, but it didn't sound like it supported all of the Canadian financial institutions - needless to say, he grabbed it and it's working out for him (saved me a trip).

The point being is - there could be something that you're dependent on that hasn't been identified in the forums (or is buried many pages deep) - better you wait until you have ample free time to take care of any anomalies.

 

[nemguy]

Just wait for the MacOS 10.12.1 and see how it does. I'm still in Yosemite 10.10.5 because I don't want to compromise my work.

 

[NativeTxn]

In my personal experience, if I could go back, I would have waited on upgrading from El Capitan. Since I upgraded, my fans have pretty much been running constantly when the computer is on (late 2013 rMBP 15") regardless of what I'm doing. In looking at the activity center, there doesn't appear to really be anything that is using an abnormally high level of resources.

Prior to the upgrade, the fans would only spin noticeably on startup or when I was running relatively heavy tasks. Now they run even when I've only got Safari open with 3 or 4 tabs open.

It's annoying. Hope that a future update fixes it, but if I could turn back the clock, I'd wait.

 

[Brammy]

In my personal experience, if I could go back, I would have waited on upgrading from El Capitan. Since I upgraded, my fans have pretty much been running constantly when the computer is on (late 2013 rMBP 15") regardless of what I'm doing. In looking at the activity center, there doesn't appear to really be anything that is using an abnormally high level of resources.

Prior to the upgrade, the fans would only spin noticeably on startup or when I was running relatively heavy tasks. Now they run even when I've only got Safari open with 3 or 4 tabs open.

It's annoying. Hope that a future update fixes it, but if I could turn back the clock, I'd wait.

I downgraded my 2014 11" Air to El Cap today. My 2011 15" MBP I put on the 10.12.1 beta released today.

It's too early to tell if either made a difference. The Air is still doing a lot of indexing from restoring my files.

Today at work I let the Air just sit there and the battery completely drained in about 4 hours on Sierra. I wasn't even using it. I'm going to do the same tests over the next few days once I think it's done indexing.

 

[RiderX]

MAke a new partition of approx 100GB, install Sierra, copy your important apps and see if everything works.

If not satisfied, just delete the new partition and everything is as before.

 

[bbfc]

Sierra works like a charm on my Early-2011 MacBook Pro, with no SSD and 4GB RAM. Much better experience than El Capitan. I'm using the latest beta build of 10.12.1.

 

[ssls6]

Never update a working system to a new OS without a bootable clone.

 

[elf69]

I have a 2009 macbook unibody.

Upgraded to sierra and its better for me.

No software issues but not much on it really have office 2011 and few other bits but all good.

Have longer run time not shorter like some others are getting.

I turned off siri as not want it but seem to like my machine.
240GB SSD and 8GB ram.

 

[Robotchilli]

Upgrade done on Sunday on both 2015 iMac and Macbook pro 13. No real issues (touching wood) new additions welcomed and no notice on any battery issues with the pro.
Only issue is that across my phone and iPad I can access the files through iCloud that reside on my MBP but not the ones on the desktop of my iMac and all devices are logged into iCloud. Have the feeling its a setting thing so will need to go hunting unless anyone has any ideas?

 

[Mac 128]

Never update a working system to a new OS without a bootable clone.

A lot of good advice here. But this, I will definitely make a CCC clone before I install.

But are there really any "must have" improvements I'm missing out on? Nothing in all the reporting has really jumped out at me, enough to want to spend the time in the event I have any issues arise, even if I can just revert to my cloned drive.

In the past there were specific features I definitely wanted. But now, the only thing I've really seen that I'd be interested in is the cross-product clipboard. Anybody else have a favorite feature that has improved their experience?

 

[ssls6]

shared notes
imessage changes to work with IOS10
apple pay in safari (when supported by websites)
facetime better audio controls and persistent output device selection
apple raid now back to disk utility
better security

you already know siri and shared documents/desktop

 

[LegacyUser12]

shared notes
imessage changes to work with IOS10
apple pay in safari (when supported by websites)
facetime better audio controls and persistent output device selection
apple raid now back to disk utility
better security

you already know siri and shared documents/desktop

Liked your post so much I went digging through your feed for more advice.
do you have any advice on imessage compatibility across the current Apple landscape? such as what OSX or iOS is about to be 86'd?