Ok so it's coming out today, and my seemingly yearly "Do I upgrade my operating system?" debate begins! I've stubbornly refused to upgrade and have ignored the last 3 operating system upgrades (Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks) sticking with Snow Leopard. My reasons are mainly functionality, I don't lack RAM (8gb), nor HD space (plenty plus an external). As all of you know I don't like iTunes 11 because it doesn't remember your place when switching btw playlists (reverts to top of the list). I also hate mobile apps and I don't mess with iCloud. Convince me to upgrade because quite frankly, and Anti Social Andy will agree, Snow Leopard's days are numbered....

I will be upgrading to Yosemite mainly for the highly improved functionality between my iPhone and my Macbook. You can now answer/send SMS messages and make/receive calls all from your Macbook if your phone is on the same WiFi. Also the Handoff feature sounds quite nice. Of course this is only beneficial if you have an iPhone but thats one of the major selling points for me.

I think mainly the design is the largest change in this OS, they seem to be moving more towards the iOS7 flat look. I'm sure anyone could live without it but you might start to see compatibility decline with newer apps and your older OS. Since you hate mobile apps this update might not really be for you...

Thanks for the input Kerk1. I figured SB at least has a few Mac users so I wanted to get some opinions. I did notice all the features connected to the iPhone. I'm not really a phone guy either, but I've got a 2 year old crappy Android phone I was thinking of ditching anyhow. I basically use a phone as a phone (and text). Surfing on those tiny devices annoys me (hence why I carry an iPad). I might get an iPhone if cost is minimal (I don't care about getting an older model) just to have full integration with all my devices, so that would be a consideration.

I did a quick check of programs I use that still run on Power PC and only found two: a very old version of Photoshop (8) which i never use and a audio editor I use frequently (Bias Peak). so basically if I can simply find an audio editor for eq'ing music I'll have zero compatibility issues.

I've been using the Beta since it was released. I like it and the hand off feature from my iPhone is really cool.

From what I've been reading online Audacity a very popular (and a program I use) audio editor is NOT supported on OS X 10.10. At least Audacities latest version that came out two weeks ago- 2.0.6. I have 2.0.5 but I think m going to hold off on getting Yosemite. Can't have my workflow interrupted with compatibility issues.

EDIT: I don't know if it just affects Apple formatted audio or all audio but until I know otherwise staying away.

I use Ableton for my audio needs and that is working great on Yosemite so far.

Unfortunately, you need a computer with Bluetooth 4.0 capabilities and my 2011 Macbook Pro is not So I really only updated for the design as I am left unable to use the Handoff features which is a real letdown.

While my fears of programs not working and itunes functionality have sort of been quelled, I'm now unfortunately to the point of almost having to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Yosemite. Websites not working right and over exaggerated security fears have not made me but this is getting ridiculous.

I just bought a TI Nspire CAS Graphing Calculator for Chem, Phyiscs, Calculus etc (I need all the help I can get and adding gigantic numbers on the 30XS every time I'm doing physics calculations was getting tedious!) and I can't even get any of the updates for it because I need to be at 10.7 OSX or higher.

I know all of this probably seems trivial to other Mac users but given how much I really loathe Apple's bloatware, especially on IOS recently with the whole watch thing (and lets face it IOS 8, 8.1 both suck- I've never had more issues with Safari crashing on my ipad and loss of functionality) I'm really still concerned about taking it to the next level on my desktop computer which I use way more. I upgraded to 8GB of RAM, plenty of HD space over 300GB left, and even an external HD- 1TB but I'll lose my mind if everything slows down to a crawl and I have wifi issues. I've read that Yosemite really slows older Macs down regardless of RAM (I have a 2010 iMac). It's the old "if it's not broken why fix it?" dilemma.

Thoughts?

EDIT: I did do a flashdrive back up Snow Leopard OSX last week in case Yosemite annoys me to death. Followed these instructions:

http://computers.tutsplus.com/tutorials ... -cms-21491

I have an early 2009 Mac Pro and I'm running Yosemite. It's not slower than Mavericks or Lion were, in my opinion. There are bugs here and there like there always are, but nothing that I can't live with.

If you're looking to keep your older Macs running like they're new machines though, I would recommend upgrading to SSD for your main hard drive. I upgraded mine to this PCIe last year, and the difference in speed across the board in every aspect of my machine was amazing: http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/PCIe ... lsior/RAID. That's going to do WAY more for speed than more RAM ever will.