Does anyone recommend OS X Lion?

Your opinion is clear, but it is ill-judged.

There's an old-saying among the business-wise: the customer is always right.

Companies that forget or ignore this inevitably lose customers. Apple might be sitting on a mountain of cash and great products, but if their attitude to customer service is anything like yours that success won't last. They're playing in a highly competitive industry that will not stand still, and customers will vote with their wallets.

It might comfort you to say: customers fault. It won't comfort Apple when they spend their money elsewhere in future.

Clear?

CSound1,

Your message that the user is responsible for what they do, what they don't do, and the result thereof does not seem to make sense in this particular thread, since the complaints therein are not about what the user did or did not do, but what Apple did or did not do, and whether or not we should recommend installation of this new OS to our friends.

The subject of this thread is "Does anyone recommend OS X Lion". Please, so the question is "Should we, as users, recommend OS X Lion." Based upon the comments herein, and based upon the problems caused by the installation of Lion, the answer seems to be a clear "not at this time."

Apple was responsible for the MobileMe rollout fiasco, and they are ultimately responsible for the current mess.

eschaal wrote:

CSound1,

Your message that the user is responsible for what they do, what they don't do, and the result thereof does not seem to make sense in this particular thread, since the complaints therein are not about what the user did or did not do, but what Apple did or did not do, and whether or not we should recommend installation of this new OS to our friends.

Choosing not to backup prior to the upgrade is entirely the users responsibility, you should always have a backup or data loss is very likely.

Data loss is not made very likely by not having a backup, just as having an accident is not made very likely by not buying insurance (despite what the brokers tell you).

You may be happy ignoring the fact that user errors are common, hard drives die, laptops get stolen/broken/immersed in liquids, houses get burgled, etc etc etc, but suggesting that the rarity of these events is an excuse for no backup is an appalling piece of advice.

We're done.

However, backing up data is pretty cheap insurance versus
the alternative under any circumstance, OS update or not.

Not backing up data is playing Russian Roulette. Yes, you

may never get the chamber with the bullet, but then

again the next click could.

And it is obvious, many are learning that lesson the hard way.

softwater wrote:

Data loss is not made very likely by not having a backup, just as having an accident is not made very likely by not buying insurance (despite what the brokers tell you).

Softwater, you are of course correct, but your comparison is still invalid.

You need to compare data loss (due to an upgrade accident) with financial loss (due to a car accident).

Backups protect you against the former, insurances protect you against the latter. Of course, neither a backup nor an insurance will change the probability of either. They only protect you against having to live with some of the consequences.

"Should we, as users, recommend OS X Lion."

Yes, based on my experience, I recommend Lion.

I am not going to base my recommendation on a small group of users here who are experiencing problems, or a small group of users here who have had no problems. I didn't base my decision to install Lion on anything that was posted here or any other user discussion group. I also don't understand why someone would make a decision to upgrade to LION based on my experience with it, or with your experience with it. I come here seeking help solving problems and when I can provide help solving problems.

I read the announcement material, backed up my system, created a Snow Leopard clone on an external drive and upgraded to Lion. I do this with every version and release point upgrade.

Of course, neither a backup nor an insurance will change the probability of either.

Precisely the point — and the only point — that I was making in reply to Csound1 who said:

...you should always have a backup or data loss is very likely.

softwater wrote:

Of course, neither a backup nor an insurance will change the probability of either.

Precisely the point — and the only point — that I was making in reply to Csound1 who said:

...you should always have a backup or data loss is very likely.

I said "...you should always have a backup or data loss is very likely" I said nothing about changing the probability but the fact is that most (if not all) hard drives will fail during their lifetime (thats why there are MTBF figures associated with them), if you're still using it and have no backup when this happens you will lose data.

You are welcome to imagine otherwise.

Csound, you kind of derailed this discussion from whether to install Lion and if something goes wrong, how to recover from it, to an excoriation of users for not making prior backups. Sure, always make a backup. That is unrelated to the issue of whether Lion works well. For many users -- more comments here than I've seen in a thread before, and there are several similar threads here and on other website forums -- Lion doesn't work well. Backing up Snow Leopard and data is only a parachute, it doesn't get you where you're going when Lion's engine catches fire or it dives nose down into the ground. Which, apparently, it does too often.

softwater wrote: Precisely the point — and the only point — that I was making in reply to Csound1 who said: (...)

You are both right, but you use different definitions of "data loss", and that makes your statement prone to misunderstanding.

For me, "data loss" does not occur when I have a current backup, no matter what happens with my computer, because even if anything happens, (most) data is not _lost_ - it can be played back.

So: for me, having a backup _does_ reduce the chances of data loss: specifically, to the chances of two different storage media failing fatally at the same time.

Not sure I get your point Bob, all installations bear the chance of failure, that's life, always have a backup, if you don't agree that's fine but my advice to anyone with a computer never changes, backup backup backup.

I am betting most users who had problems during the upgrade didn't use disk utility before the upgrade to fix their disk and permissions before the upgrade. If you are not competent enough to know to backup and do a few things before you upgrade, then you deserve what you get. If it takes losing data to teach you that lesson, rather than listening to a ton of people that tell you this before you do it, fine. Next time you'll know.

But slamming Apple because you botched your upgrade is stupid because you're ultimately not taking responsibility for your actions, and you're not learning anything to avoid it in the future. A lot of people are reporting problems that others aren't having. This tells you something. It tells you that Lion is pretty much fine, and that a lot of people didn't read the release notes, or do anything before they made the jump.

I've seen complaints about not being able to run PPC apps, and I've seen complaints about iCloud being forced on people like an Orwellian romance. Both of which are well documented or in the latter case, not even out yet.

Really people? Do not blame others for your lack of research or planning. Anyone that has used a computer knows they are not to be trusted with keeping your data pristine. I know others decry: "but this has nothing to do with Lion!" No, it has everything to do with Lion because people are coming here, slamming Lion, and blaming everything on it, and refusing to take responsibility and worse refusing to listen to advice.

You can't both blame something, then when given the solution, say that information is unrelated. Oh yeah about the car crash metaphor: it's naive because you're comparing a physical object's destruction vs. a digital objects destruction. As far as I know you can copy the digital object and be back up and running in minutes, but you can only replace a physical object once destroyed with something similar to it.

I'm pretty disgusted with some of you. If you consider yourself in any way shape or form computer savvy, you should know better. And for those of you who are new, please listen to your elders instead of acting like children and blaming others and not learning anything from your mistake. No amount of complaining is going to bring your data back.

Oh and because I know he'll speak up "what about my Air destruction!" Your computer fried after you closed the lid after the crash, expecting it to go to sleep.

What part of your brain cannot comprehend that the sleep function was being controlled by the OS which you knew had frozen? I literally know 11 year olds that would have known to reboot.

Bottom line: do a little research and planning and save yourself a world of pain.

To backup or not backup does not really go to the core issue here of whether or nor we should recommend migration to LIon.

Personally, I backup (almost to the extreme). Last year, my backup disk and my iMac died in quick succession. Now I have multiple backups in multiple ways. That is the way I work, so telling me that any problems I have with Lion is due to failure to backup is like saying that failing to wear a seat belt means that any damage from an accident is the fault of the passenger not wearing a seat belt.

My problems with Lion were not about lost data, but lost functionality. I didn't lose data, I lost functionality, and that lost seems to be due to poor design in Lion, conscious decisions that the user really didn't need functions to act as they did before.

By the way, don't blame my problems of failure to fix disks or permissions, because fixing them before an upgrade is another thing I do religiously.