Q: Is there any reason at all to upgrade to El Cap? The hassles people encounter give me a strong NO answer.

That is a personal decision; I am running 10.11 on my MBP without any problems, but I am running 10.10.5 on my iMac which I use for video/movie and photo editing because the movie and photo apps I use are not compatible with El Capitan. I don't use the cloud for anything (mostly privacy and hacking into accounts concerns), so none of the "features" offered in either are of any importance to me. El Capitan does offer more OS protection, so in that regard it is worth considering it:

About System Integrity Protection on your Mac - Apple Support

Hassles are happening to a tiny minority of people. Non compatible apps is one, and (as babowa encountered) are a very good reason not to upgrade. I have upgraded most of my Macs to ElCap, they run fine, faster than before (marginally)

Its easy to test before committing to the upgrade, why not try that.

Post back if you wish to, I'll tell you how.

I concur with Babowa. It is a decision that only you can make.

I have had no problems at all with either of my Macs running El Capitan.

So far the users I have helped with problems on their Macs after installing El Capitan usually have all kinds of crap ware loaded on their Macs such AV software, cleaning apps, memory management apps, security apps and performance apps. Once they are remove all of their problem go away.

If you want help in checking your Mac out, you can download and install EtreCheck from http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Run it and post the report here.

I'm running 10.11.1 with no problems whatsoever.  You can't necessarily go by what you see here.  This is like a hospital's emergency room.  Not too many healthy people hang out in one, so the majority of people you see here asking questions here are people having problems, and as others have said, the majority of that majority get their problems solved when they're told to remove useless, bloated crapware from their systems.

If you want to upgrade, do it.  If you don't, then wait.  It's a personal choice.  We can't tell you what to do.

Jim Chubb wrote:

 

Other than better security as others have stated, El Capitan is somewhat more

of an incremental upgrade vs. "wow look at all the new stuff!" when compared

to Yosemite.  Some of the integration features with iCloud and iDevices have been

improved and a higher performance graphics API, which in reality can only be

realized with new code written to take advantage of it. 

First and foremost, determine if the upgrade (applies to any OS upgrade) will impact any of your mission

critical tools.  It may be necessary to purchase upgrades or alternatives to be compatible,

especially if you depend on tools that are multiple versions behind their current releases,

if there are any.

After that, a run down of what is in El Capitan vs. Yosemite and do you really want the

items or not.

FWIW, if you are judging El Capitan's issues by posts here, keep in mind there already millions

of installs that are running without issues.  I for one, am 5 for 5 on successful updates and contiued

smooth running of El Capitan on my Macs.  Then again, I don't install crapware and keep all my applications

up to date.

El Capitan seems to be doing for Yosemite what Snow Leopard did for Leopard - a much needed pause in new features allowing developers to concentrate on performance, security and bug fixes. The downside is that these improvements expose latent bugs in applications that don't adhere strictly to the guidelines. In my own case, a bug that had not exhibited any symptoms for any prior version of OS X started crashing intermittently.

So, to answer your question, El Capitan is great if you are using actively maintained applications but is risky if you are stuck with 'legacy' apps that are not being updated.

C.

cdhw wrote:

 

El Capitan seems to be doing for Yosemite what Snow Leopard did for Leopard - a much needed pause in new features…

As indicated by the choice of name: El Capitan is a peak inside Yosemite National Park.

Think it depends on what you are upgrading from, if it's a system that has only ran Yosemite it's almost all good news, a few minor issues but basically an over all improvement in responsiveness and polish. If you have upgraded several times before things can be more problematic, if you do a clean install that will not matter though (that's why I preferred the good old days of Snow Leopard on DVD).

I found that the last Yosemite update produced a well sorted system especially since it resolved the previous ongoing wireless issue and the only glitches I had was syncing played status of Podcasts across difference devices/computers and some iCloud Safari history syncing failures, but that could have been from the iOS end and not just the fault of OSX!

WIth El Capitan all the above has been sorted and the system does feel more responsive, syncing works generally well across all devices/computers for Podcasts and the associated iCloud apps like Calendars, Safari, Contacts etc but a few new issues have arisen, Mail has lost its "New mail sound" (again), Keychain First Aid has no password field and Keychain can sometimes produce multiple keys for iMessages (last two might be connected). These issues are minor and do not seem to influence the smooth running of the system and I'm sure will get sorted in the next few updates.

If you compare the last Yosemite update with the first El Capitan it might appear a bit "swings and roundabouts", but El Capitan has a far better foundation at this stage than Yosemite ever did and when Apple resolve the few areas of concern it should rock, might even be as good as Snow Leopard! Would suggest if you have held off so far, leave it a couple more updates then go for it.

Here's how to determine yes or no for El Capitan

Upgrade from Yosemite - higher risk for issues

Fresh Install - backup data - erase disk - install El Capitan clean

Much lower risk for weird issues beyond app compatability

If you want to play with it, dual boot your system and go from there.

That method is what works for me, I do it with every version and have had a minimal set of issues beyond a few bugs.

SiHancox wrote:

 

Think it depends on what you are upgrading from, if it's a system that has only ran Yosemite it's almost all good news, a few minor issues but basically an over all improvement in responsiveness and polish. If you have upgraded several times before things can be more problematic, if you do a clean install that will not matter though (that's why I preferred the good old days of Snow Leopard on DVD).

I'm typing this on my 2009 MBP test platform, a unit that has never had a clean install in its life. It started at Leopard (10.5.7) and has had in place upgrades of every version of OS X since then. It's fast and stable, no issues at all. So I will disagree with you.

Just remove the incompatible software prior to upgrading.

I look at the so called "clean" install as a waste of time.

The only time I even consider them is when I am called in to help troubleshoot a Mac that is having serious problems and nothing seems to fix.

So far on my Macs, I have never felt the need to even consider doing one.

Think we will just agree to disagree then, but from experience I have found starting a fresh every now and then resolves issues that nothing else can - when you decide to do it is a judgement call based on how well you maintain your system, number of issues and on whether conflicts arose between upgrades that Apple fail to resolve.

It's a process thats served me well since the days of owning my first Mac, a Titanium G4 PowerBook back in 2001 so probably too old to change my ways now anyhow, and coincidently, it works well on resolving iOS issues be it a lot simpler to employ.

All issues can be fixed without a clean install, preferably before you upgrade, but after is also possible (it just takes longer) there is no magic here, just planning.

Agree, but it depends on your knowledge - for the majority of computer users it is simply easier and quicker to just start again every now and then, even Apple Care fall back on that advice when they run out of ideas.