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Should I Upgrade My Mac To El Capitan? [Greg Laden's Blog]
This is a question everyone is asking. For any mac OS upgrade, the first thing you have to ask yourself is this: Did Apple create a system update that requires me to buy a new computer? They do that every now and then. If so, then you have to decide if you want to buy a new computer, and if so, if you want to commit to the Apple ecosystem, because this will happen again.
In this case, the new OS version does not require new hardware, but, iOS 9 and El Capitan are both needed on your various devices to get all the cool interoperability that most Apple users live for. For this to happen, you may need a new iPhone or iPad because the Apple mobile OS’s do not tolerate old hardware very well at all. So upgrading to El Capitan may require a significant investment of cash even if the OS itself is free.
Performance Changes and compatibility
According to one site, “OS X El Capitan is compatible with many Apple computers, including some that are as old as 2007, but many users will see the best performance gains on slightly newer hardware. That is a bit ambiguous. According to Apple, opening apps will be close to 140% faster than for Yosemite, and switching between apps is faster. So that indicates a performance improvement rather than downgrade.
Overall, according to Apple, system level graphics rendering is to be 40% faster, or better.
Apparently El Capitan fixes some problems people were having with WiFi in Yosemite. Other Yosemite bugs are fixed as well.
We look forward to Apple’s eventual adoption of a more Linux like model, where bug fixes and such are pushed out every week rather than with major upgrades.
The new OS is said to be compatible with these hardware:
iMac (Mid 2007 or newer)
MacBook Air (Late 2008 or newer)
MacBook (Late 2008 Aluminum, or Early 2009 or newer)
Mac mini (Early 2009 or newer)
MacBook Pro (Mid/Late 2007 or newer)
Mac Pro (Early 2008 or newer)
Xserve (Early 2009)
That is the same exact list as for Yosemite.
As mentioned, if you use iOS 9 and/or want to integrate across devices in cool ways, you will have to upgrade sooner or later. But if you have mobile devices (phone, tablet) and have not upgraded them to OS 9, be aware that older hardware may have to be purchased in order to do that. As a rule, all your Apple devices have to have the same level of OS, and to do that you will have to replace the hardware regularly.
Why you should AVOID upgrading
If you like hacking around with your Mac, install it and take your licks and have good time. If you need your computer for important things, wait for a while to make sure the apps you use are properly upgraded and compatibility issues are worked out, etc.
It is said that Microsoft Office 2015 and El Capitan get along about as well as faculty members in a social science department. If you have mission critical work using Office, do not upgrade at this time. Let the dust settle.
Overall this upgrade has a lower than average number of problems, apparently.
El Capitan Desktop Changes
There are look and feel changes such as a new font (San Francisco) and different icons and such. You can now hide/show the menu bar on the top.
A very major difference is the ability to “snap” applications (programs) to the screen edges, and to have more than one snapped on a screen/monitor, side by side, in a two app split view. This could be very nice for some peoples’ workflow. Looks like this:
Mission control is updated and improved. Much more Linux like in some ways (depending on your Linux distro). Here’s a video that explains it well, including info on Mail, which is the Apple mail program that does not recognize Gmail as a valid mail system:
Disk Utility is updated to be easier to use.
The notification center is changed a bit.
When you lose your curser, you can wiggle the pointing device and it will become momentarily huge.
El Capitan has a new look to its spinning beachball of death.
Spotlight is “smarter.”
Spotlight, which is the searching utility you never use but slows your computer way down rebuilding indexes it will never use, has gotten “smarter,” meaning it will search for more stuff you don’t need to now about instead of the files on your computer that you are looking for. Like stock market prices, sports scores, etc. Interestingly and possibly usefully, Spotlight also has some primitive AI, and you can ask it plain language questions and may be it will find the appropriate thing for you. If you use that, let me know how it works!
New El Capitan Notes
To a Linux user (and Mac user) such as myself, this is an LOL upgrade. Notes is improved. Lets you add more different kind of contents like pictures and stuff. Lately I’ve not used notes because I don’t use it as a text editor and I no longer use it for syncing to a phone, which was really handy, because I no longer use an iPhone. But I will certainly give it a try. (This is an LOL upgrade because a text editor is not part of an operating system.)
Anyway, the new Notes looks cool. It will allow relatively rich formatting, graphics, and be more searchable. You can also use Notes as a kind of service, sending it information from other apps. Maybe a bit like Evernote.
Safari has many changes
Safari lovers are very excited about the new version of Safari that comes with El Capitan.
You can pin sites and they stay up to date in the background. Your Twitter and Facebook feed can thus be constantly soaking up your computer resources even while you are not using them! You can now integrate your web sites with your Apple TV.
A really cool feature that I’d love to see in all browsers is a “mute all tabs” button. This is for when some bone-headed web site that is one of a gazillion you have open starts playing a video or something and you don’t have time to hunt it down and kill it.
The new Photos app…
…which replaced iPhotos, is different. Personally, I would prefer to drive hot soldering irons into both eyes than use an Apple photo application. But if you use Photos, you should know that there will be third party editing extensions that you can use. Maybe I’ll give it at try, but I will get frustrated because it will suck and I will uninstall it. If something other than that happens, I’ll let you know Watch this space: _
Maps is different
Maps has adopted a Google Maps feature or two. To make use of this you’ll need either a very long extension cord or a mobile device with iOS 9.
The final answer? Yes, but later, but looking forward mainly to the desktop improvements.
Source: http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/10/08/should-i-upgrade-my-mac-to-el-capitan/
