Q: Why should anyone upgrade to Mavericks when 30% of the user feedback on the download site describes horrific results and rates Mavericks 1 out of 5???

I have so far only tested Mavericks, and I am still in the process of evaluating it. I've been using Macs since 1986, and I don't remember ever jumping to a new OS version as soon as it was released. I had to get work done on the Macs I used, and I couldn't afford any unpleasant surprises. These days, although I am in a different line of work, I have so little "free" time that I don't want to devote any of it to troubleshooting unexpected "upgrade" problems. Being an early adopter has always had some risks, and I would always suggest either running the new OS on a test basis, or waiting and following compatibility reports and problem reports before switching to the new OS. Given how inexpensive it is these days to keep a spare hard drive around on which to run software on a trial basis, I can't see a compelling reason not to do it.

There have been a lot of problem reports from Mavericks users, here and elsewhere, many from very experienced users. At least one of the problems has persisted since Mountain Lion.

I recently bought a 2012 refurb Mini that will eventually be a media center. It came with Mavericks installed, and while it ran OK, I was surprised that it didn't perform better: it felt somewhat sluggish for a new machine with a fresh OS (8GB of RAM). Some of that is attributable to the 5400 rpm HD, but not all of it: I wanted to see how it ran with Mountain Lion, and in fact it's somewhat faster running ML. For now, the internal HD is partitioned, with Mavericks on one and ML on the other. We'll see which one ends up staying. Probably Mountain Lion, because I can keep using iTunes 10.7 with ML.

My workhorse 2010 Mac Pro runs Snow Leopard 95% of the time. It's rock-solid, has a better UI, Mail mostly works as it should, and SL includes Rosetta, which I still need. I have no "improper disk ejection" issues in Snow Leopard: they only appear when I run Mountain Lion or Mavericks. I would rate Snow Leopard as probably the best Mac OS I've used {other contenders, based on my experience with them, would be 7.1, 8.6, and 10.4). I have the tools on hand to run Snow Leopard in a VM when that becomes necessary.

I would love to see Apple give the Mac OS get the serious treatment it deserves. This might mean NOT rushing releases out the door on an arbitrarily aggressive schedule.

Mavericks is the best OS X version since Snow Leopard, sorry you can't get yours to work for you.

That's like saying it's the pick of a pretty bad litter.

Wby use Macs then? All ours are flying along faster and more stable than ever. The problem you will eventually find will be at your end.

Pete

I love technology, I do just about everything from coffee to Linux, Various forms of Windows, VMWARE, Hyper-V, Cisco, and on and on.  I sometimes even run OS9 in a VM just cuz I can.  I can't get enough, I need to try and test everything.  I want to know everything that is going on in the world of technology so I can get my company the best possible solutions.  It also allows me to form a balanced opinion, not just a narrow minded one from one blinded perspective.  I'm not a narrow minded person living in a fantasy world of rainbows and unicorns.  I know that over time, technology companies go up and down and I never want to be tied to a single companies technology.

Canon vs. Nikon is like comparing Windows vs. Mac - they both actually make great products these days.  Your opinion about Windows and Outlook is dated and make it clear that your opinion is baseless and mainly consists of bias.  Windows is easy secure, if you have the skills to secure it.  Windows is easy to maintain, if you have the skills to do so.  With group policy, one can lock down an OS so users cannot do damage. 

If you and your vendors don't use Microsoft and are closed minded to it, then why and how are you using Exchange?  That means you are indeed using Windows and Active Directory.  Don't be a hypocrite.  Who makes your file server?  Please tell me you are using a Mac Mini server with it's notebook class NIC, have you tested your network performance?  Me personally, I'm using 10GB Nics, dVMQ, vRSS, SR-IOV, and all the beautiful multi-core/threaded networking performance in Server 2012 R2 and Windows 8.1 with RemoteFX.  It's a shame, but in the enterprise Apple is a decade behind in technology and performance. So while you might need the performance, we are moving 100MB-1GB  files all day long and without top performance, what takes us minutes, could take hours trying to use a mac with it's feeble write performance.  My PC's consistently get 800 to 850 r/w.  While my Macs consistently get 50 write and 800 read.  I tested that with SMB on my Windows File Server and SMB and AFP on my Linux File server.  The AFP to the Linux file server gave me 150 write and 800 read.  All my clients have SSDs, my servers are on RAID 10 arrays, SSD's, etc.  The best of class hardware, best practices, bench tested for months before putting it into use, etc. 

Now when it comes to iOS and mobile in the enterprise, Apple is leading the pack. 

10.9 is a beautiful OS with a few killer flaws that are show stoppers for a lot of users.  Apple dumped the open source SMB a few years ago due to licensing issues and has been using SMBX, their home-brew SMB protocol that does not work well.  In 10.9, Apple upgraded to SMB 2 from SMB 1 (the rest of the world is already on SMB 3) and made SMB the default networking protocol.  You probably didn't notice this since you don't seem to care about networking.  While SMBX works now in 10.9.3 (Apple enterprise engineers told me that there was a bug in 10.9.2 and that was why I could not stay connected to SMB3 shares) ... sorta... it's very slow in write performance and is buggy when talking to the open source SMB that is used in most modern operation systems.  This makes working with a Mac in a mixed networked environment difficult and challenging.  BTW... even Apple Enterprise works with Active Directory and mixed networks with Microsoft.  I know it's hard for you to deal with, but Mac networking does not meet the open standards you only allow in your networks.  And that Active Directory you use, it's not exactly LDAP standard either. 

So while the Mail/Cal/Address Book solution being nice for home users and basic business use, it's far from being enterprise class.  I know this truth hurts, but it's not just my opinion.  Outlook is how you do business in an enterprise environment.  An app that allows managers to monitor and manage calendars, tasks, and messaging.  With Lync and Unified messaging tightly integrated. 

It's a sad truth... and not just a one sided opinion. 

I disagree.

Pete

I'm sure your Macs are flying, our macs are flying too until you try to get them to do enterprise class things in an enterprise class environment.  And that has nothing to do with our IT skills, it's just the fact that 10.9 does not have certain features and has a very poor proprietary home brew version of SMB networking, called SMBX. 

Actually, if MAC OS was using the open source version of SMB, had the networking features that we had in OS9, I would be perfectly content with it because I don't have to use the desktop and homework class productively suite of Mail/Address Book and Calendar.  I could very easily use Lync and Outlook, which are going to be upgraded this year. 

It's a sad truth... and not just a one sided opinion.

And that is just one more opinion, yours.

I'll keep it simple, I do not agree with you, and if all you want to do is add another layer of opinion it won't make any difference, I hope you understand that.

Disagree, please be more specific.  If you can get 10.9 to communicate over SMB at near line speeds like windows, Apple engineers and I would like to know how. 

You can disagree all day long, you still can't get 10.9 SMB to communicate at near line speed.  The write performance is horrible and finder is very slow to populate information, if it does at all.  One can't even open up a network share from Pages or Word to save a file.  Both of those problems Apple Enterprise has no answers for, so even Apple agrees with me...

itsamacthing wrote:

 

You can disagree all day long, you still can't get 10.9 SMB to communicate at near line speed.

I thought that was you?

There are technical shortcomings in OSX related to networking, thats not an opinion, it's the protocols they use.  You can be in denial or live in your naive little world... but one day, I hope you take the red pill and see the real picture.  Networking is actually kinda important for some of us, we don't work in little bubbles, we work in collaborative environments. 

Good for you, leading the way into the future, I am so impressed.

Still don't understand that I don't agree with you and you do not have the juice to change that.

I don't need to change your mind, it's clear you don't know what I'm talking about.  Apple Enterprise Support and I do. 

itsamacthing wrote:

 

I don't need to change your mind,

And yet you do nothing but dangle your opinions.

Over and over.

And you continue to deny what Apple and I agree on. 

<Edited By Host>