Posted by Raphael on Aug 12, 2011 in My Business Adventures | 0 comments

Because it’s inevitable that clients, friends, and family will ask (I’ve already been sucked into doing free family tech support lately), I thought I’d offer some tips for those of you Mac users thinking if it’s worth it to upgrade to the lastest “Lion” OS.

I’m not going to go into a full review. Lion has been out for a few weeks now and there are an endless number of reviews on it since. The best of which is this Ars Technica review. I can’t begin to reach that level of scrutiny on my computer system. All I usually care is that everything works and if there are enough changes to justify the price tag of $30

Does everything work? Yeah, no problems so far. All the major programs I use to do my graphic design work are still functional. This includes all my Adobe CS5.5 products. All my major browser installations and plug-ins. I even use a pretty obscure little program for my time tracking and that works fine after upgrading.

There was just 1 app I knew would not be compatible with Lion going in. I do online backups using Carbonite, and they made mention that they’re working on a patch for that soon. If you want to check on app compatibility before doing the upgrade, RoaringApps is the place to go.

So now that we got that addressed? Is it worth it? Well, at $30 it’s really a no brainer. Having been in the “IT” business for the past couple decades (shit I’m old) I can say that having an OS upgrade as cheap as $30 is a dream. I remember when OS upgrades were a couple of bills at the very least. I’m not proud to say I once invested $200 on OS/Warp only to have it sit in the box till it was obsolete. I figure for $30 as long as there’s a minor speed improvement and a couple of efficiency benefits it’ well worth it.

Here’s a quick rundown of what I think about it so far:

• The app doc is a tiny bit snappier. I’m still running an older model 2008 MacBook Pro. My bro claims he thinks the whole OS runs a bit quicker but I’m thinking that’s just wishful thinking. Personally I think it’s about the same performance at the most surface observation. I’m not about to clock anything.
• Launchpad feature is OK. I think I’d use it on some rare occasion to find a program that I can’t somehow reach using Quicksilver or Spotlight.
• Like the fact that they tweaked the Spaces so all the virtual desktops are easier to manage and get to. Much easier to run programs on different desktops and swipe between them. Love the fact I can have different wallpapers for each space.
• Smaller scrollbars and smaller window buttons make it slightly harder for me to use my Wacom pen tablet for general tasks. So I’m not particularly loving that part but it’s a minor qualm. It’s not THAT much smaller.
• Liking the fact they did some much-needed tweaks to the Finder. Now organizing/sorting/finding files are much easier. This alone might justify the $30 price tag IMHO. Finder has always been the weak part of Mac OS
• Full screen apps? Been trying to use it here and there but I find in practice it’s a little irritating and slows tasks down for me. Browsing full screen is fun but little irritations like not being able to see loading icons is a bit unsettling.