Why install 10.8?
 

I am with 10.6.8 still and did not miss a Lion a bit. I have a feeling that I shall skip ML as well. Or should I consider?
My computer use is video editing, interactive installations, live show mostly and it seems that Apple is working backwards on these subject if at all.

Doing the same thing you're doing except that I have Parallels Desktop to run Windows environments, and as long as I do, I've installed a Lion and a Mountain Lion virtual machine. If the software universe comes out with something I need that I can't run under 10.6.8, I'll run it in the VM.

Personally, I find Mountain Lion is a significant improvement on Lion. In someone else's words: "It's the OS that Lion should have been". If Apple continues this "tick-tock" approach, I shall definitely wait for 10.10 instead on 10.9.

Very few, if any, programs that worked under Snow Leopard have failed under Lion or later: as long as devs are using up-to-date APIs and not older deprecated ones, then OS X has been pretty stable since Leopard.

I am constantly discovering lots of nice little touches in ML, and have very few criticisms of it. My one regret is that I can't update my veteran 2006 iMac -- but then I'm due for a new one anyway.

I can't think of a single thing that I miss or prefer from Snow Leopard. Maybe the lack of coloured icons. That's it.
In Lion, yes, there were many things that worked better in Snow. But 10.8 is much better beast.

Agreed ML is great. That said if you have a production environment and want to be cautious you can take your most recent full image back up and upgrade that and take "environment for a spin"

Enjoy ML

What improvements there are to video work with ML? Does it access RAM better or use CPU/GPU more efficient?
I understand it is great over all - looks good and runs the system good(maybe)and is great for internet. But Quicktime X is totally useless and I have not heard that it has become something else with ML. Also extensive sandboxing has made some developers wanting to give up.

Maybe, maybe not. I have no idea. There are improvements to things like Open CL and memory management from Lion. If you are purely interested in productivity, things do seem a little snappier.
QuickTime X is no different from Snow Leopard.
Sandboxing has made some developers not put their apps in the App Store.

If your machine is solely for business, and it works, and it does what it is supposed to do, then perhaps you shouldn't upgrade.
But you may find that there are some things that do improve your productivity or help out in some way.

You have to have mention what Applications you use
 

You have to have mention what Applications you use or you can look for yourself regarding benefits. There are a number of Applications now that are updated for Lion/Mountain Lion only and have gotten significant bumps in performance.

Safari 6
Aperture
Pixelmator

I am sure there are others.

As far as I am concerned, the only reason to go beyond Snow Leopard is if you want Apple-supported full disc encryption. Otherwise, stick with what you have, unless you have a newer machine that requires something newer.

I run SL on the computer at my business - no reason at all to ever upgrade it past that as far as I can tell.

I run SL on my wife's laptop because she doesn't need anything that's not offered in that OS - and she has one piece of software that requires a paid upgrade to be compatible with Lion/ML, and there is no sense in paying for that upgrade when what she has not works just fine.

I run ML on my laptop, because I want full disc encryption. Besides which, being a mid-2012 model, I think it needs at least Lion anyway.

For the most part, I think Apple stopped adding useful features some time ago. FDE (full disc encryption) was the first thing to come along in a LONG time that made me say, "I want that!". I never use the crap they foist out on people (safari, mission control, whatever) and whenever I upgrade, I have to spend a lot of time turning off a bunch of new **** they added and cluttered up my system with, while at the same time, taking away stuff that I actually found useful. So, overall, it's a losing battle. I wouldn't upgrade unless there is something specific you absolutely want or need.

Thanks, this is the impression I have got as well.

We are trying to get rid of Lion at all our sites, i have had a tough year with it and ML has solved 95% of my issues so we are going to move onto a 'Even' release cycle now ie. 10.8,10.10 etc or whatever comes after that !

Often due to Apple's ways you are forced to use the latest release when you get new hardware. We always try to plan very carefully when we do our purchasing...and overall we know Apple will release OS X on a yearly basis and sort of on the dot...so we can plan better now and not get left to battle with all the issues in Business environments.

I suppose for many the lack of out of the box iCloud support on Snow can be a game changer for some but 10.6.8 will generally serve you well for a good while.....but many devs will start dropping support for certain Apps Snow in coming year.

ML is OK, whereas L was a disaster. I still think SL is the best OSX out there, without the fluffy and useless IOS stuff.

You can say that about any OS version, of course. My point is that there are many features, enhancements and bug-fixes that people may want.

Well, sure. And there are many "defects as features" that people may not want. This being the case - it makes sense to look at it, see what is and is not offered, and then make a conscious decision to "upgrade" based on what you find - rather than simply "upgrading" because an "upgrade" happens to be available (i.e. version chasing).

I agree. Unfortunately, my current machine will not run SL ):

Agreed on almost all
 

I avoided Lion on my own systems. Jumped Straight to ML from Snow. Agree about ML being great.

Lion 10.74/.75 seems fine but that was a long time coming.

Were all mostly saying the same thing. What are your needs. Are there any apps system features you use that require LI/ML or offer benefits from ML? That and new hardware that may require it.

The "triple-tap" on a word to access the Dictionary/Thesaurus is a huge time-saver for me. There are a whole range of new multi-touch gestures.
Dictation is surprisingly effective, too.
Much better handling of file/folder moving and copying in the Finder, including put selected files in new folder, change name instead of overwrite, etc.
Versions in those apps that support it.
Preview gets better every OS version, with new PDF manipulation features.
AirDrop is very convenient.
Window adjustment from any edge is also a long-overdue welcome feature.

The conversation-grouping in Mail is a boon to productivity. As is Notes and Reminders in ML.

Not to mention improved memory management, security, optimisation and general zippiness, as well as the "big" advertised features and the aqueduct.

That's what I've found: I'm sure that other users doing different things will find other changes that help their productivity.

Does it make working in your existing Pro applications significantly different? No, of course not.

Don't use Dictionary/Thesaurus at all. Might as well delete it.

Don't use

Don't use.

Don't notice...not sure what this is.

Abolutely do not want.

Don't use or notice any differences.

Don't use.

Don't use.

Don't use.

Don't really notice.

I find plenty that annoys me and diminishes productivity.

Sigh. Well, I guess if you don't use it, it's probably a pointless feature that's of no benefit to anyone. Can you at least imagine that these might be of use to some people, if not yourself?
Try to use the power of your imagination and consider whether some people might want to do any of these things. There's loads of features in OS X that I don't use, but I don't' feel the need to curse Apple for not having tailored their software to my specific needs alone.

The Finder improvements that you don't know about are:
When moving files to a new location, if a file exists with the same name, you have the option to move the file and append "copy" to the filename, rather than overwrite the other file.
Also, there is a Contextual menu item to move the selected items to a new folder.

You "absolutely do not want" Versioning? Why not? Firstly, if you don't take advantage of it, you wouldn't know it was there: you're not "forced into it". And can you not foresee that it might conceivably, under certain circumstances, be occasionally useful to go back and look at an earlier draft of a document?

Dare I ask what features you would like to see? Dare I ask how you have become less productive? Did you find anything useful in 10.6, or 10.5?

For a discussion offering suggestions of why someone might want to upgrade to ML, then what you personally don't use is not really germane, is it? But if you have some reasons for things that you think are worse, then please let's have them.

From much of what you say, that seems true not just of OS X, but of a great deal in life. How terrible that must be.

I don't have 10.8. My machine can't go beyond 10.7. All these things benwiggy noted—good or bad or whether I'd appreciate them or not—demonstrate to me what's been my experience using OS X. What's made the major releases noteworthy for me isn't necessarily what is touted in articles or by Apple. Sure, things I end up using often may get mentioned (the Move command) without being trumpeted as must-have features, but I find the cumulative gain I get from similar lists as benwiggy's end up making for a better experience.

With every update, there have been tweaks Apple made that I didn't like. I remember moving past Snow Leopard and not liking the loss of colored sidebar icons in the Finder. Or the more-muted appearance in places like Finder windows. There were other things, but I can't tell you now what they were. But when I've used 10.6 since moving to 10.7, it lacks a bunch of innocuous little features that I miss and instinctively attempt to use (like, say, the aforementioned ability to re-size a window from any side, or pressing Command-Option-V to move a file).

I also have a Pismo PowerBook. I ran it with 10.4 for a while, but I've been using it with 10.3 for a good stretch now. Every time I use that machine I'm struck by the number of absent features I attempt to use and I laugh at how great many of us thought these operating systems were at the time. Using the older versions of OS X shows me how far it's come and how many features I've incorporated into my workflow.

The best way to know if 10.8 is worth a try is to know what you appreciate. Are loads of little enhancements which cumulatively add up to a different experience of value to you? Are you perfectly content with what you're using such that none of the Lion/Mountain Lion features sound like things you'd use?

Certainly, if something critical you do would be broken by 10.8, you know not to make the move. But things being different than what you're used to isn't necessarily bad. Nor good.

If 10.8 is of interest, the risk is largely $20 and a pinch of your time. Clone your Snow Leopard volume (and confirm the clone is working), then take the plunge. Use Mountain Lion for a couple days. You can always revert to your 10.6 clone if you regretting the "upgrade." You'd just have some minimal file coordination to do to ensure nothing is lost in the reversion to 10.6 (transfer new files, maybe export contacts and bookmarks, preserve some email if you're using POP, etc.).

Talk about a gross mischaracterization of anything I've said....

Some, maybe. Others, absolutely not. Most, if people have been convinced of such, or simply "want to believe" - sure.

What a coincidence. Neither do I.

I don't see that as an improvement.

I think contextual menus are absolutely the worst user interface "invention" to come along - except possibly the Ribbon interface.

Sure it would. I do it all the time. And in that case, I would go back to the earlier draft that I took the time to make. But what I don't want are a bunch of extraneous versions of crap that I didn't ask for, have no use for, and are just cluttering up my universe. And certainly what I do not want, under ANY circumstances, is any software deciding, on its own, to overwrite the last version of something that I had saved with whatever the current version that I am working with is.

I don't think there would be any point.

Honestly, I don't remember. The last "feature" to come along that I can remember being useful, and meaningful enough to actually remember it coming along, is full disc encryption.

It's at least as germane as what I do personally use.

I don't think it could overcome the taste of the koolaid.

Wow - well, at least you finished where you started.

Not really. I listed a bunch of features which I find useful and which I can see the use in for others. You dismissed each one with "Don't use". To now suggest that you're NOT implying their inherent uselessness simply because you don't use them is disingenuous at best.
The OP's question is "are there reasons to upgrade to ML?", not "are there reasons to be an apathetic curmudgeon?" So listing features that you don't use or don't see the point in is not helpful. As I said, listing things you see as disadvantages might be of interest.

I haven't "drunk the kool-aid" -- I found many things to criticise in Lion, and there probably loads of things in ML that aren't perfect -- show me an OS that is. Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages? In my opinion, yes.

I've offered what I hope is some useful points to anyone making the decision. All you've said is that you have appreciated ONE new feature since Tiger, and that anyone who does is somehow incapable of independent thought:
And you seriously claim you can't see the benefit in offering a file to be renamed instead of overwriting another one? Extraordinary.
I''ve got to the point where I'm sure you're just saying these things to get a rise, so the one thing we do agree on is that there doesn't seem much point in continuing this.

I think you see the world...........strangely.

Unneeded features are bloat. Bloat is a disadvantage. If the OP sees that other people manage JUST FINE without a bloatload of "new features" - he/she/it/they/whatever might consider that he/she/it/they/whatever can manage just fine without them too, and that there is not (necessarily) any big need to run out and spend whatever to get whatever, just because a bunch of other people seem to think it is a good idea.

I didn't say that at all.

I didn't say that at all. What I said was that I didn't see it as an improvement.

Yeah, I get that a lot....conspiracy theories are popular.

And in other news - today I learned that, it appears, ML has changed how my favourite editor works - and now I must investigate if I can TURN OFF the crap they put in it, or if I have to go out and get the source from something else, compile and configure it and replace the crap that Apple supplied. Goodie.

To have an operating system that actually ' just works ' ( 99% of the time ) is to me a miracle. Lion was such a mess, in my opinion. I couldn't revert to Snow Leopard fast enough & I stuck with it till Mountain Lion arrived. I then tried again & am well impressed with how Mountain Lion works overall. Its definitely a much tighter system & on my MBP 2011, it works beautifully. Ok there are no new " full features " apart from full disk encryption, but there are a host of small changes which are great. ( See benwiggy post for a list of some of them ). He didn't mention the return of Expose, that being one reason why i got rid of Lion, a week after installing it. One thing that i really appreciate is the ability now, to quick look an item in a dock folder. Ok its a small thing, but is in my eyes a useful tool, it saves having to open the folder in finder, which always annoyed me. Safari 6 is also a great improvement.

Overall, i personally think that its worth upgrading. Yes there are still a few bugs, but no doubt they will get ironed out eventually. Meanwhile I find it full of improvements. They may not be earth shattering, but they do help the general flow and that's good enough for me.

This is just fascinating to me. I see no difference at all between Lion and Mountain Lion - but believe Snow Leopard to be so much better than either one (other than the lack of FDE).

Well as you said in a previous post - you don't use any of these things, so there is really no reason why you should see any difference.

I also thought Snow Leopard was the 'best' till i upgraded. There's no way i would return to it now. Each to their own :)

I dunno why you gets get all upset, like I piss in your morning cornflakes or something. I also don't know why you seem to think I am alone in my views. But here is another take:

Five Products Apple Should Stop Making
http://www.businessweek.com/articles...making#r=lr-fs

Safari.
Game Center.
Pages.
Numbers.
Mission Control/Launchpad/Dashboard.

I agree with the guy, and don't use any of these.

I love this quote:

That is exactly my experience.

Happily one is not FORCED into using these apps etc, if one doesn't wish to. Even on a windows setup , one can choose not to use certain apps & install others of ones choice. One can turn off Hot Corners if one finds it annoying - to others its productive. The choice is personal.

Just because one has a stereo in a car when one buys it - doesn't mean that one has to use it just because its there. Some people like a bit of quiet, others like music all the time. People don't go on forums complaining that the music player is useless or that they don't need it. They just buy a different one or don't bother to turn it on.

If I was forced to use everything on my mac then yes - i would not be happy either. Having used macs for 20 yrs or so - i know what i need or want to use & ignore the rest. I'm really happy that i still CAN choose.

I've noticed many changes to the way Apple is going and i don't agree with all of them. Having to use a computer, i still think that they provide the best user experience and i shall stick to Apple as long as that is still the case. If it ever tilts over that threshold I shall have to think again. We all have our opinions, but also the intelligence to use what we need & ignore the rest. This applies to everything in life - not just computers.

Thank god. It wouldn't surprise me a bit if Apple is working on it though.

I don't think its only Apple. Sounds to me like Google / Governments / etc etc etc. They all want total control. One still has a modicum of freedom to do as one likes - maybe its just best to enjoy it now. However this seems to be going off the subject.

The thread is about updating to Mountain Lion . It hasn't dampened my enjoyment of Apple - its enhanced it. I take what i like & leave what i don't. Like all things - its personal to how one reacts to what one is offered. The old " glass half empty / half full " syndrome .

After years of avoiding it (and using —in chronological order— iCab, Shiira, and Demeter), I've become a Safari user and find that the things I didn't like about it are mostly fixed or modified.

But I'd add iTunes to the list and put it at the top. And unlike the others, it's difficult to find a good modern replacement. I'm still using Audion under Rosetta.

iTunes is terrible indeed and gone from bad to worst. The file managing structure is a mess. ”Gapless" drives me mad and regardless of requests we can not turn it off STILL. I have been using Audion for years too. But now I play music with Fidelia and manage my music files with Floola.
Actually iTunes is a good example what direction Apple has gone. It is extreme but many other apps moving to the same path - FinalCutPro and everything that starts with "i".

I have a feeling were in more agreement then has been apparent of late. I'm an ML lover but... At least for me I do not like the a lot of the Default settings, at least for me.
Apple has set the defaults the way they think is in the best interests of their users, but I make a lot of changes. I review those changes when I hand out a new Macbook Pro to a user, explaining my preference which the user frequently agrees with.

........ Also Finder and View Options should be available also in System Prefs. Monitor should still be available to be pinned to the Menu though Option-Brightness works just as well its not intuitive to users.

* Finder general Show HD, External, CDs, Connected Servers, Always open Folder in new window

* Finder Advance, Show all file name extensions

* System Prefs General, Always show Scroll bars (love two finger scroll, but some people want to see their elevators and the hide and seek is confusing and dexterously challenging for many). Those that do not use two finger scroll

*System Prefs Security, turn off require a password when you blink

*Trackpad, turn off
Natural scrolling. Makes sense on my Ihone and Ipad but not when then input device is not the screen, at least for me,
*Secondary Click, bottom right corner (close as we come to right click)
* Turn on One Click Tap

*Apple Mail Classic view, turn of increase quote level, make fonts larger (zoom would be better). Turn off conversations, it hides messages in the thread to often, I know some love it.

I'm sure there is more

Apple does do a tutorial for new users to show them some of these features.