Apple and Mavericks

[Sunnyjohn]

When Mavericks was introduced as an upgrade to OSX, I queried whether it was worth upgrading. I thought those of you who use Apple computers would be interested in this from a long running thread on the Apple forums:

I have used Apple computers since pre-Mac, back in the Apple II days...

This is the first time in those 30+ years that I have ever disliked an OS update so much that I downgraded my systems. Mavericks seems a rushed attempt to make my desktop slightly more like an iPhone. I say they need to think about it in reverse. Make my iPhone more capable like a desktop.

Color labels are gone from Mavericks, which surprisingly is a big disruption in workflow in the Finder. In addition, after I had to drop $30 to buy QuickTime 7, a five-year-old piece of software, in order to preview all kinds of video files on the desktop level without having to convert them first... I knew it was getting ridiculous.

I downgraded back to Mountain Lion and things are running much smoother.

Come on, Apple... you're slipping, and I'm one of your biggest fans.

Unless you back up to Time Machine and still have a pre-Mavericks back-up there, it is somewhat daunting to return to Mountain Lion, necessitating backing up to a separate hard drive, erasing your computer hard drive and downloading Mountain Lion, then importing all your software, some if which may not work on Mountain Lion if you downloaded it for Mavericks. This chap must be serious!

[mixture]

Don't base your decisions on one person's experience.

I've pretty much used all Apple hardware and all versions of their Operating Systems from the Apple SE and OS 7 onwards.

There is nothing wrong with Mavericks.

Mavericks seems a rushed attempt to make my desktop slightly more like an iPhone

Mavericks doesn't make anything look like an iPhone ! It looks, feels and behaves in a very much similar fashion to its predecessor.

Color labels are gone from Mavericks, which surprisingly is a big disruption in workflow in the Finder.

Weird workflow he must have. Spotlight is so good in Mavericks that you don't need to go searching around stuff based on label colours. If you really feel the need to go beyond Spotlight, Mavericks has tags and you can search for tags.

in order to preview all kinds of video files on the desktop level without having to convert them firs

Really ? Sounds like nonsense to me. Anything quicktime can read you can preview easily by hitting the space bar.

[Sunnyjohn]

Thanks Mixture. I really miss the coloured labels and it seems that I'm not the only one - hence the Apple thread I mentioned. Having sight difficulties, the coloured dots don't work so well for me. However, I don't miss them sufficiently to revert to Mountain Lion!

[Booglebox]

I could have sworn that Mavericks has coloured labels but they appear as little dots, instead of colouring the whole file

[rgbrock1]

Sunnyjohn,

Like the author of the verbiage you posted I too have been using Apple products since before the Mac came along, my first being an Apple II.

However, unlike said author of verbiage I think Mavericks is the bees-knees, so to speak, and think it the best upgrade they've done to OS X since its inception.
Sure, there are some "missing" features but in general I think Mavericks is a vast improvement in the development of OS X.

Kudos to all at Apple involved in the release of Mavericks.

[Sunnyjohn]

Agreed that there is a lot of improvement hidden under the hood. However, much is made of the apps - iMaps and iBooks, which I don't use, better synching with mobile devices, which I don't use, improved Safari - I still think SWR Iron is better, and Finder improvements, which I don't use. As Mixture will tell you, I'm a bit of a dead loss really because I simply don't use the machine in a broad enough way to encompass all these improvements. The only real difference I've noticed is that browsing is much quicker and I put that down to the excellent SWR Iron. Sorry chaps . . . !

[mixture]

there is a lot of improvement hidden under the hood.

Pretty much what he said. Both Mavericks and its immediate predecessor have been more about under the hood rather than bells & whistles.

Which in my opinion is how it should be.... otherwise you end up like Microsoft with Windows 8 where you've evidently ploughed 80% of your resources into a fancy interface and only made rather modest changes under the hood.

One of the best behind the scenes changes for Mavericks comes for laptop users. Mavericks has fancy energy saving stuff going on behind the scenes ("app nap" etc), and for laptop users that means a genuine improvement in battery life.