Gary, El Capitan was released a while back but I resisted installing it after reading countless reviews of users experiencing horrible productivity loss issues. I’m currently running Yosemite 10.10.5 and as far as I’m concerned this OS could supply me an eternity of blissful Mac experience. The old saying, “don’t fix it, if it’s not broken” haunts me daily. However, I’m concerned that avoiding the upgrade will “leave me standing empty handed at the station when the progress train moves along” and one day I may not be allowed to upgrade without making a new OS system purchase. Is there any truth to this connotation?
More importantly, would you share your first hand experience with El Capitan and please let me know — by installing this OS will I have loss of productivity as problems/bugs are not fully worked-out yet? As my primary work computer, I just cannot afford to have ANY down time!
Thanks for all the good work! I love your newsletters and tutorial videos!!
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Jim Emmons
What sort of productivity loss issues did you hear about? I updated all my devices immediately and didn't have any issues. What specific problems did you hear about?
El Capitan added a lot of new features (http://www.apple.com/osx/whats-new/) including some things I can't imagine doing without now.
El Capitan is also free, so I really don't understand it when people don't upgrade -- Apple is giving you free new features and you aren't taking advantage of them.
OMG, they were all over the internet! Some had email issues, some had wifi connection issues just to name a few. You can't undertand why users don't upgrade when new systems come out? My wife and I have had problems with iOS upgrades that we wish we'd never installed. In fact, we have learned that it takes a few iterations of updates for the developers to get all the bugs out. I should have shared my hardware - mid 12 Macbook Pro. Soon it will be "vintage." Any probs with this model upgrading
Gammons, so far it has been my experience with all of those I have help with performance issues on El Capitan that in the end the problems always are traced down to incapatable third party software. Once it was removed, all the problems went away.
Sometimes people have trouble, like Aeckert said, because they are trying to use old versions of third-party software with the latest OS. That isn't El Capitan Specific but could happen with any device, any OS, etc. I follow the rule as to always keeping everything updated.
In the past (years ago) Apple didn't allow public betas of OS X, which meant that only in-house testing and developers tested the new OS X until it came out. But a few years go they started public beta tests which mean that tons of others also test the new OS X. So release is more like version .1 or .2 instead of .0 since so many people are testing. But still the old articles and myths float around that you shouldn't upgrade until a few versions in.
Today waiting is not only unnecessary, but could be dangerous as most malware attacks target older versions of software. Many times you hear of apps having compromises, it is the older versions that have the issue and the latest version doesn't. This is because software today is built on top of libraries that are constantly updated. OS X is the same way, using many libraries under the hood that get constant security updates.
For this reason I would always suggest that everyone keep everything up-to-date: apps, drivers, and OS.
Hey Gary, I wonder if you could help. For some reason my macbook pro (2010)will not upgrade. My OS is 10.11.3 and when I try to upgrade I get the white screen that never seems to get on with the final restart. I have a 2009 iMac and it updates fine (10.11.6) could it be existing applications that are installed? Both have been upgraded with ram and ssd drives. But the macbook will not seem to get passed the 10.11.3, I've tried installing from usb I tried, erasing the HD but nothing works.
Jeff: Take it to the Genius Bar. You need to have someone take a firsthand look at it to diagnose the problem.
At the Genius Bar they said my '97 Mac Book Pro cannot handle the El Capitan 10.11 upgrade.
AND said they can't revert to an earlier version of the OS without wiping all my data and 3rd party programs !
I am guided by experts who evaluate new releases. My guidance comes from TidBITS - http://tidbits.com. They are beta testers, go to all of the developer conferences and also will let you know if there are bugs and when it is safe to download a new OS. It is a free newsletter like Gary's. Lots of other good news also.