4 replies to this topic

[LooN3y]

i have a developers license so i can dl the preview, is it worth getting you think?

not sure if reinstalling it when it actually releases is worth the hassle.


what would you do

[Gringo Vermelho]

Yes,
If you have Hackers Curiosity Syndrome or
if you want to stay ahead and have the shiny new app you're working on ready for Mountain Lion once it gets released to the public.

Otherwise no, I don't think it's worth it.

[Matty0]

I have a dev account and got my hands on it today. In fact I'm on it right now. (On my legit Macbook Pro - mid 2009)

So far my impressions are... mixed. I'll give you a quick rundown of my 1st day of use impressions.

• Gaming performance is improved over both lion and snow leopard (very noticable on diablo 3)
  
• Boot time is improved
  
• No native x11 (although the xQuartz project fills this gap)
  
• Updating through App Store is (in my opinion) messy and seems less convenient that a standalone OS update centre
  
• App compatibility (I've updated from snow leopard - lion was never worth the "upgrade") has been mixed at best. Although almost all issues have been resolved with updates, Some are still persistent and I will have to look into those tomorrow.
  
• Launching apps seems somehow smoother, and i have experienced no crashing whatsoever (although, I have only been using it today)
  
• Siri Dictation is SUPERB. I have it set to CMD+D and it is fantastic. A welcome component to the OS
  
• The OS DOES feel hugely polished. If you don't want to upgrade now, I suggest you do once it goes retail in August

In summary, i think that from Snow Leopard, i would stay put. It is perhaps a "better" OS (more up-to-date at least), but it causes many compatibility issues that unless you are a bit of a nerd, you might find off putting. From lion though, i would update in a heart beat.

hope that helps

[TH3L4UGH1NGM4N]

Dunno if it's just me but historically, OS X and iOS upgrades that are even numbered always seem to be the "worthy" upgrades as I've noticed over the years.

[PGHammer]

True.  The odd-numbered versions tend to be the more *revolutionary* updates to OS X (Panther, Leopard, and Lion each broke new ground for OS X), while the *evens* (Tiger, Snow Leopard, and Mountain Lion) are where the polish gets applied.  Windows breaks ground on the evens, while it polishes the odds.  (Yes - even Windows 2000 Professional follows the trend of ground-breaking evens; remember, this was the first NT-based OS to support DirectX.)  Due to that trend, I have no idea why any long-term OS X user would have expected anything more than polishing of Lion's rough edges out of ML.

That said, Mountain Lion does do a good job of polishing the rough edges of Lion.