What MacOs version can be named as golden era (and also still usable)?

[kekopeko7]

Hi there!
Iam just wondering what macos is the most loved, and nice all the ways?
So you can say like "that was good old days, everything was so satisfying, and then all goes to s...t pit"

Like Windows 7 Ultimate in PC world?

(iam totally not familiar with mac world)

 

[FreakinEurekan]

There are versions I’ve liked better than others… but they don’t have security support any longer so I would not say “nice all the ways” 😉 personally, I use only the current or last two versions (so Big Sur, Monterey, or Ventura currently).

But as far as the ones that treated me well at the time - Snow Leopard was great, and I always had good luck with Mavericks.

 

[padams35]

Golden Eras occur every time a successor made an unpopular change or dropped a popular feature.


Snow Leopard (for PPC app users who hated Lion for dropping Roseta)

Mountain Lion (for users with only 2-3GB RAM installed who didn't like Mavericks' memory management changes)

Mavericks (for users who found Yosemite bloated or the UI redesign controversial)

Sierra (for users who thought High Sierra's security changes were too inconvenient)

Mojave (for users who hated Catalina for dropping 32-bit app support)


Note: All of these lost golden ages were caused by being forced to upgrade hardware, find new software, adapt to a new layout/workflow/setup, etc. On the other hand if you are new to MacOS, have a modern machine with at least 8GB+ RAM and an SSD, and aren't encumbered by investments into any legacy Mac software, then there is no reason not to run Monterey or Ventura.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Golden Eras occur every time a successor made an unpopular change or dropped a popular feature.


Snow Leopard (for PPC app users who hated Lion for dropping Roseta)

Mountain Lion (for users with only 2-3GB RAM installed who didn't like Mavericks' memory management changes)

Mavericks (for users who found Yosemite bloated or the UI redesign controversial)

Sierra (for users who thought High Sierra's security changes were too inconvenient)

Mojave (for users who hated Catalina for dropping 32-bit app support)


Note: All of these lost golden ages were caused by being forced to upgrade hardware, find new software, adapt to a new layout/workflow/setup, etc. On the other hand if you are new to MacOS, have a modern machine with at least 8GB+ RAM and an SSD, and aren't encumbered by investments into any legacy Mac software, then there is no reason not to run Monterey or Ventura.

Wasn't Lion also the last version to have rosetta for PPC/macOS9 support

 

[theMarble]

Snow Leopard is my favourite version of OS X, it wasn't buggy or slow, didn't have any half-baked features from iOS and still supported the few PPC apps that people still relied upon. It certainly is still usable for daily use with browsers like Arctic Fox and InterWeb and the old versions of iLife and iWork are really good still. Obviously don't use an old OS for things like banking for security reasons but otherwise it's perfect! I run it on a 2011 i5 MacBook Pro, which has 12GB of RAM and a 500GB Crucial SSD. Seriously feels as snappy and quick as an M1 on modern macOS releases apart from on the web.

ML, Mavericks, Yosemite and El Cap were also great releases, and the Sierras were great after a few dot releases had fixed the major bugs. Mojave is the best modern release these days.

As I'm hinting at above, I'm not a fan of Lion.

 

[theMarble]

Wasn't Lion also the last version to have rosetta for PPC/macOS9 support

No. Lion dropped all support for Rosetta, which allowed PowerPC apps from Leopard/PPC to run. Classic was a feature from Cheetah through to Tiger which allowed OS 9 apps to run. That was dropped in Leopard/PPC. Never was on Intel.

 

[Dylan33x]

Snow Leopard is my favourite version of OS X, it wasn't buggy or slow, didn't have any half-baked features from iOS and still supported the few PPC apps that people still relied upon. It certainly is still usable for daily use with browsers like Arctic Fox and InterWeb and the old versions of iLife and iWork are really good still. Obviously don't use an old OS for things like banking for security reasons but otherwise it's perfect! I run it on a 2011 i5 MacBook Pro, which has 12GB of RAM and a 500GB Crucial SSD. Seriously feels as snappy and quick as an M1 on modern macOS releases apart from on the web.

ML, Mavericks, Yosemite and El Cap were also great releases, and the Sierras were great after a few dot releases had fixed the major bugs. Mojave is the best modern release these days.

As I'm hinting at above, I'm not a fan of Lion.

I'm not an expert (only been using Macs a few years) but agreed on Mojave.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

I think nothing compares to 10.4 Tiger. It introduced spotlight. It was the first version to support intel, yet still ran on ppc. It was the last version to support classic apps inside osx. It had Rosetta for ppc apps on Intel. It was apple really progressing at incredible rates. Making everything seem possible.