I am dying to try Lion. But should I wait?

[Stinky The Clown]

We have 5 Macs. Two have Leopard; three have Snow Leopard. My most critical computer is my MacPro. I have all my business on there and it needs to be healthy. It currently runs Leopard and is doing just fine, thankyouverymuch. All software is the most current version - except for one and it needs outside assistance from the company's tech support to update it to Snow Leopard. After that, I have no idea if it will run on Lion.

Apart from that, we are torn between "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "yeeHA! Pool Party! Everybody in!"

We have a houseguest this week. He has a MacBookAir. Last night he downloaded Lion and has it running. So far, so good. A bit of a learning curve with the scrolling and Mission Control and that sort of thing, but it all looks very promising. That said, he thinks it might actually be a bit slower than his Snow leopard install was.

What's the general feeling among the DU Apple users? Lion Yes or Lion No?

[onehandle]

1. I usually wait, but I'm installing Lion tomorrow.

I really want to get my hands in Lion, but the main reason I'm going ahead with the install is that my current Snow Leopard build has become bogged down. I'm wiping my system and starting from scratch.

Today I'm collecting installers and checking compatibility here: http://roaringapps.com

Tonight I perform a bootable backup and make sure my Time Capsule backup is healthy.

One thing that may give users pause is anything Adobe. Even though developers Lion has been available for months, they did not issue updates and there are 'issues.'

See here: http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/905/cpsid_90508.html

Most are minor problems, but the biggest problem is with... Flash. Surprise, surprise.

[Stinky The Clown]

5. I found out today that FileMaker 6.0 will absolutely not run on Lion.

I spent a good bit of the day today doing what you describe - checking on compatibility. I have two issues. One is the control software for my industrial all-in-one. It is a Savin, not a consumer product, and needs the tech support people from the vendor for every Mac OS upgrade we've ever done. This time is no different.

The second issue is our old FileMaker 6.0 installation.

Yes, I know how ancient that is, but it has a bug that works in our favor in a very narrow but critical way. We need to find a workaround for that. The rest of our FileMaker stuff is easily upgradeable to 11, which will (soon) run under Lion.

Can you believe that Claris, a wholly owned Apple subsidiary, will not have their flagship software ready for Lion until mid August at the earliest??? Shame on them.

And then there's Adobe . . . .

So I think I'm waiting.



Maybe on my laptop - a brand spanking new MacBook Pro 13 . . . . .

[ChairmanAgnostic]

34. I have the latest FM11, which works beautifully on Lion

Bento 4 rocks, and frankly, except for a scanning program that I was not happy with anyway, everything else is working well.

[struggle4progress]

2. I'm trying it on a non-critical mac first. But I haven't updated snow leopard on that

machine for a while so step 1 is a very long and tedious upgrade of snow leopard

[Stinky The Clown]

6. I recently upgraded our 2008 MacBook Pro to Snow Leopard. It was easy.

I put Snow Leopard on it about a month ago and then went through all the updates.

How old is the machine you're upgrading?

[struggle4progress]

10. It's a late 2008 macbook. But I hadn't updated snow leopard for a while: it was still at 10.6.5

So I'm running the combined update to 10.6.8

[struggle4progress]

12. Well, the Lion install was much less painful than the Snow Leopard update

The Snow Leopard update required multiple passes. The Lion install took about 10% of the time required for my Snow Leopard updates

[Stinky The Clown]

14. I'm suprised. That's the opposite of what I would have expected.

[struggle4progress]

15. Now I'm trying a machine with Leopard: first upgrade to Snow Leopard, then to Lion.

[Lost-in-FL]

3. I did not have any issues. On the other hand...

My husband's macbook pro won't let him upgrade to the new iTunes, iwork, etc. Keep getting error messages. He is not happy at all.

My suggestion is to wait. It seems many people are having same issue.

[Stinky The Clown]

7. That makes me nervous.

I'm not opposed to waiting.

How old is your husband's machine?

[Lost-in-FL]

11. The late 2009 MacBook Pro, first with the long life battery.

My update went flawlessly, maybe because mine is newer? Maybe?

The issue is not Lion, IMO. The issue is once you install the new OS, three software updates follow; one for iWork, a"remote access application"? and the newer iTunes (5?). That's where the problem starts "IF" you encounter any problems at all.

It takes about 1 hr to update and then it asks you to update those 3 applications once you log in under Lion for the first time.

This is what my husband encountered; I finally managed to bypass iTunes and was able to update iWork and the "remote access" software after my first post. Tried upgrading iTunes but It gives the same update failure time after time. I guess we have to wait for apple to fix that bug.

Lion is "nice" but it reminds me of the iPad 2 vs. iPad 1st generation. Why? Cause one might be able to wait without upgrading until the issues are resolved.

However, the more I play and find little things and ways with Lion... It is very nice and a bit faster too. Even when my hubby had those issues with the update, his older iTunes still works in his computer and he is able to listen to music. His computer is highly functional even without the upgrade.

Checking the forums I am seen people calling Lion "macVista"... Lol... Not only because iTunes won't update for some, but because of issues with Office (personally I didn't find any issues with it and I have the newest version), there are also issues with iWork not working and people not being able to log back in. Like I said, this is what I see from the forums. Maybe be cases of "user error".

If I was you... I would wait a week and see how apple manage to fix that bug before jumping in.

There are very neat things about it, for example, the address book and calendar look a lot like the interface of MobileMe. You get faster browsing and the applications open faster, however, I sense the shutting down taking longer than normal. Of course, that is my impression. Spaces, now called Mission Control, is much better and it integrates the "Dashboard". Launchpad is neat but... I don't know... It is too cute and the are several other ways already to get to your applications. Safari rocks!!

[Stinky The Clown]

13. Thanks for the details. I appreciate that.

I think I'm going to wait a bit, as you suggest.

I used to be a first adopter, but as I get older, I find I am more patient. My company is all Mac and we've talked about waiting for maybe as long as six months to upgrade because of issues with FileMaker that won't be resolved for a while.

I'm really on the fence . . . .

[suffragette]

25. I used to be a first adopter too, but now I prefer waiting

and letting other people sort out the bugs first.

[freshwest]

4. I'm holding out. I'm still having iTunes and Quicktime update incapabilities with my 3 macs.

[Stinky The Clown]

8. Are they older installations?

Yours is the second such report out of four responses to this thread. Wow.

[freshwest]

9. Three diiferent models. Have had to have work done, and Apple upgrades. Some of those..

Upgrades I accepted as they came through my internet provider (the other 2 stay offline) and now when I transfer mp3s or mp4s sometimes they do not work, or work incorrectly.

I've considered uninstalling my current iTunes and going back as far as maybe 7 or 8. I thought though, that all of them were on the same version of Snow Leopard. The newer iMac seems to have Quicktime pro features that my other Macs don't have.

I am tired of upgrading but get frustrated at times trying to provide my kid with offline content. I'm just tired of upgrading period, free or not. I don't see any advantage in going to Lion though, although you may have a use for it. Especially since you mention that you have important data, I'd be wary.

I use my iMac heavily for certain functions, and don't really get into these other things. Makes my mind turn to oatmeal. My computer knowledge is very old, from the days writing Basic and before. It doesn't even matter anymore, I'm a neophyte now. Sorry to not be of much help.

[alfredo]

16. Note that PPC apps are no longer supported, so if you have

some critical PPC apps, hold off upgrading one of the boxes until it is replaced or upgraded.

BTW, Preview has had a big upgrade. Note that it has "Export" to handle the Save/Save As command.

[av8rdave]

17. I stopped in the local Apple Store Sunday to see Lion firsthand

I have decided to wait on installing it. It looks very intriguing, and I think will eventually be a good OS. However, a lot of the reviews at the App Store suggest it's a bit buggy. Also, I have a MacBook with 2GB of RAM, and the folks at Apple suggested a memory upgrade before installing Lion. It will work with 2GB, but since that's a minimum requirement, I would expect it to slow my computer down significantly.

I am very happy with the Snow Leopard OS, and everything I do with my MacBook works flawlessly, so I see no reason to mess with success.

[Stinky The Clown]

18. That's kinda where we are . . . .

I say "we" because we're a Mac shop. We can't afford to have problems. Right now, we still use Filemaker 8.5 for a critical custom application. That is the last PPC version. So we need to upgrade that to 10 or 11. Amazingly, Filemaker's publisher, Claris (a wholly owned Apple subsidiary!!) will not be certifying any flavor of Filemaker until mid August.

So yeah . . . . we're probably waiting. Like you, Snow Leopard is working just fine for us.

[onehandle]

19. I'm going to make my call... I would wait on a critical computer.

I didn't get around to installing Lion until yesterday. I did a clean install and are slowly putting my life back on it.

The Lion coolness is... cool. And I have not had any crashes, but I do perceive a little bugginess.

One odd thing on my MBP, the keyboard illumination won't cut off. Which has been reported to Apple. I just turned the brightness of it down to zero.

Safari 5.1 is fast as Hell, but occasionally will produce some visual glitches. Which tells me they need to work on the systems's video software.

Apple seeded 10.7.2 to developers over the weekend. Which surprised them. Apparently 10.7.1 is imminent and will address some 'initial bugs.'

My Snow Leopard system was old and bogged down and I am so happy to have a new snappy system, but if I were you, I would at least wait for the first update.

Tomorrow I re-install Adobe Creative Suite. Those are my most mission critical apps.

[rocktivity]

20. I always wait until they get the initial round of bugs out

I'm in no hurry -- I've only had Snow Leopard for about a year. And I'm certainly not going to download it -- I'll buy a CD.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[onehandle]

21. They are not going to release it in disk form.

Next month they are going to start selling a bootable flash drive with Lion... for $69, instead of $29

I used these instructions to make my own bootable flash drive from the downloaded Lion. Worked like a charm. There are also instructions on how to burn a DVD boot disc or USB drive.

http://www.macworld.com/article/161069/2011/07/make_a_bootable_lion_installer.html

[rocktivity]

22. Unless I can download but not install it, Lion is worthless to me at any price

since it won't work with my current Microsoft Office or Paralells. I guess have to upgrade them first, then pay the $69.

Hooray for corporate personhood.

:headbang:
rocktivity

[onehandle]

23. You can. Just check out the link.

Once you have extracted the 'InstallESD.dmg' you are free of the App Store's control.

My wife has the flash boot drive I built and is going to install it on her two Macs in the next couple of weeks.

[alfredo]

24. One bug I noticed is with Webkit browsers and iDisk.

I park my images on iDisk and if I copy an image URL and paste it, the image downloads instead of displaying. If I copy the first part of the URL and then type the file name, it seems to work. FireFox doesn't seem to be affected. So it appears to be a WebKit, iDisk problem.

[Rob H.]

26. I got a new iMac this week, and have mixed feelings about Lion

They mainly have to do with the fact that my old iMac is a G5 and apparently a person can't use Migration Assistant to move a 10.5.x machine's files over to Lion without some aggravating tinkering. There's a workaround, but it sucks that neither the workaround nor the incompatibility is mentioned within Migration Assistant itself. And I still haven't been able to move all my files over yet. :mad:

[Rob H.]

30. UPDATE: My iMac now works much better

The 10.7.1 update cured it of the problems I was having with Safari and Firefox locking my machine up solid when trying to watch video on the web. (It would lock up such that I could move the cursor but not do anything else, necessitating a hard reboot.) Apple also released an update to Migration Assistant for MacOS 10.5.x, so I should be able to finally move my files over, too.

[struggle4progress]

27. I've now upgraded all my macs to lion. If you're running the latest snow leopard

before the upgrade, it will go pretty quickly. If you running an old snow leopard, or worse an old leopard, the update/upgrade to get to the latest snow leopard can take quite a while

"PowerPC applications are no longer supported" -- that's sorta sucky

I'm not sure how useful launchpad will be

"Mission control" replaces the former app for desktop switching (? "Spaces") : I personally find the new version a clunky step backwards

There are some changes to Mail. I'm not sure it's better, but it doesn't seem worse

[elfin]

28. Not going there - yet

Am stuck in 10.4.11 due to apprehensions about relatively ancient Photoshop and Quark, which may require an expensive updates to be in compliance.

Should have gone 10.5 way back when -- but did not, due to same fears. Now am out of the loop, but still everything works -- unless I want to use the latest version of Skype.

Now 10.5 is problematic and expensive in its own right.

Using a 2007 MacBook Pro and feeling behind the curve after so many years of being "with it" - since 1979.

[mopinko]

29. the gestures will make you nuts for a while

there is no sensitivity adjustments to the trackpad, so i am still constantly doing thing by accident. but the flicking back and forth for webpages is the coolest thing since tabs.

[Kablooie]

31. The Lannisters say yes.

[struggle4progress]

32. One thing really pissed me off: Lion doesn't support the apple modem I bought 3 years ago

[emulatorloo]

33. Tried it out a while on an external harddrive. Then took the plunge and made it real.

So far so good. I was surprised to see my old Photoshop CS3 still worked. Once I saw that I committed. Liking it.

[Stinky The Clown]

35. Wait . . . you can dual boot Lion and Snow Leopard?

My machine has four hard drives. Three 1TBs and one 350 GB. The 350 is my original boot drive, but is now just a drive to which I clone my boot drive each night. The second 1TB is my Time Machine drive. The last 1TB is another bootable clone, just like the 350.

That gives me three bootable drives, all identical (except for whatever data gets created between backups).

Can I stop backing up to one of those drives, upgrade it to Lion, and then boot from it to see how it goes? That would be pretty damned cool!

[emulatorloo]

36. Yes, that is kind of the same as what I did.

I cloned my original Snow Leopard boot drive to a blank drive. (I am using the shareware called "SuperDuper")

Once that was done, I selected the clone as my "Startup Drive" in the system preferences

I then booted from the new clone drive, and purchased the Lion Updater from the Mac App Store.

Once it was downloaded, I made a copy of the Lion Updator for safekeeping. (I wanted to do this for safekeeping, as the updater gets erased from your drive once the update is complete)

Then I ran the Lion Updater

Did my testing for a few days with this clone drive and decided it was good!

So then I decided to clone it back to the original boot drive. I cloned the original Snow Leopard boot drive to a disk image (just in case). Then I cloned the Lion Drive back to the original drive.

Hope this makes sense, reading it back it sounds confusing.

Anyway, your plan sounds like it would work as it is more or less what I did.

[Stinky The Clown]

37. I'm going to try this on my system as soon as I get the time.

What is the keyboard mnemonic to bring up the boot screen that allows one to select a boot drive? I know you can also change drives in system prefs, but there's also the on-the-fly method. I think it is the same as booting into Boot Camp?