Is Now the Time to Upgrade?

I have been a long time Mac user. Ever since the OS 7 days. I thought it would be good to start a thread to discuss when the best time is to upgrade to the next OS. What are the indicators it is stable enough? What are the other variables to take into account when determining the timing for upgrading.
These are extremely important questions to ask considering myself and others are wanting to upgrade our production computers, but are fearful to lose the stability we have under our current OS.
Usually I would think after the first major update (ie. 10.5.1) it would be safe, but I'm wondering how others feel about that and what other variables should be taken into account.

Hi, Taylor. I immediately upgraded to Leopard on my mini at home. But I haven't upgraded to Leopard on my primary Mac - my 17" MBP.
On the mini - NO problems whatsoever...although I probably haven;t been as "intimate" with Leopard as others have. Although I am not a huge fan of Time Machine, it's working as advertised on my mini's external Firewire drive. I have not noticed any speed degradation nor "slowness" in any aspect of using it. And I just upgraded to today's 10.5.1 on it - and that upgrade, too, installed flawlessly. Bluetooth devices and my Bluetooth printing all are just fine.
But about my MBP. I have purchased a bunch of utilities and productivity enhancements. Very few of which were immediately "Leopard-compatible." And most importantly, my wife and I use Keynote a lot for presentations this month - and I really didn't want to experience any "growing pains" at this point in time - especially in front of audiences. Call me paranoid - but I want to be totally in control when showing off my Mac and its capabilities in public...(grin).
So I am going to wait a bit longer before Leopard-ing my MBP. Maybe my rationale is all wrong - I've only been a Mac owner for a little over a year now. My MBP has been the most enjoyable and stable machine in all of my 20+ years of personal computing. The ONLY program that will occasionally make me Force Reboot - the ONLY inconvenient program - is...Microsoft Word for the Mac. I find that fact ironic and humorous, in my warped sense of things.
So, Clint's Personal BOTTOM LINE: Purchase Leopard now, and have it on hand. Watch MacFixIt.com for those users' reports: they seem to be less emotional than some of the rants here. And I am watching my utilities' companies for Leopard compatibility (and they let their registrants know when new versions come out). When my presentation schedule slows a little, I can see myself upgrading my MBP probably before the end of the year.
Clint Bradford
Riverside, CA
909-241-7666

Similar Messages

Opinion - MacBook Pro -is now the time to buy?

I am looking to replace a 2006 MacBook Core Duo 2 Ghz wi 2 GB RAM and a 500 GB drive with either a 15 or 17 MB Pro with Matte screen (4 GB and 500 GB drive). They have the high end 15 and 17 in stock with matte screens at my local Apple Store.
Is now the time to buy?
Three things give me pause so I am looking for some advice.
1. Hard drive related beach balls - especially on 7200 rpm drives.
2. Is the 15 or 17 any more or less prone to these troubles? Is the 5400 rpm 500 GB drive a surer bet?
3. Potential speed bumps to coincide with new cheaper MacBook releases.
Those who have bought recently - is the hard drive beach ball, 30 - 40 second hang issue resolved?
Just generally, would you wait to see if there are any changes to the MacBook Pro specs (a la speed bump) with the impending Mini, iMac, MacBook announcements?
Message was edited by: Joseph Nowak
Message was edited by: Joseph Nowak

For the 15" the time to buy, for me, was before they jettisoned the express card slot My ideal would be a 13" with an express card and the dual graphics chips - oh well I'm not holding my breath for that one. I'm glad I got my 15" while they were still offering express card although I might have been willing to trade that for the smaller footprint of the 13" if it would have been available at the time. I love my 15", but it is big (esp. coming from a 12" PB G4).
As for beach ball speed issues - I think all the shipping MacBook Pro's (at least the 15" and 17") can take 8 gigs of RAM - I would get the base memory from Apple and then upgrade after the fact. I bumped my late 2008 MBP (typing on it now) to it's max of six Gigs RAM and it made a noticeable difference.
And as far as performance, even 7200 rpm notebook drives are slugs compared to their desktop cousins; and compared to the speed increases in every other component in personal computers, mechanical hard drives are glacially slow slugs.
If you really want maximum performance, you need to do what I am getting ready to. Skip the 7200 RPM drive and replace your primary drive with a solid state drive (but do your research - not all SSD's are created equal and some may be slower then a traditional hard drive!). Since I'm not about to pay more for an SSD then the purchase price of my computer, I'm going to get a smaller one (corsair makes a 160GB that looks nice), and remove my optical drive (hardly every use it anyway). In the optical drives place I will put a 500GB drive with one of several kits out there that provide a mounting bracket for the second drive. Best of all worlds - OS and applications on the ultra fast SSD, bulk of my data on the more spacious traditional drive.
CPU and Video are pretty darn fast across the board, even with the base configurations. These days the hard drive is THE speed bottle neck in computers...
Message was edited by: Eric Eskam

I have been using time machine to back up my Mac Book Pro 3.1 to my Time Capsule. Now the Time machine hangs up on "calculating time remaining".

I have been using time machine to back up my Mac Book Pro 3.1 to my Time Capsule. Now the Time machine hangs up on "calculating time remaining".
Mac Book Pro - 3.1-15-inch 2.4/2.2GHz), Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Operating system : OS X 10.10.1
Time Machine Version 1.3, Copyright 2007-2014 Apple Inc., Modified Tuesday, September 9, 2014 at 6:03 PM
Time Capsule: 500 GB C 2007
This Time Machine software worked satisfactory until Monday Nov, 10 2014 and I have backups until that time. For several years, the software deleted the oldest back up to save the latest one. This is acceptable to me as I have off site storage that is updated every 3 months. How do I get Time machine working again?

I have spent a couple of days trying to respond to Linc Davis. Finally I figured it out . The following is a copy of data from my console from the initiation of a time machine backup until it gets stuck trying to calculate the time remaining. There is no indication that anything starts saving. I copied about 3 minutes of data. This is probably way too much data, but I do not know what is relevant.
Thanks for the help,
calcool
12/22/14 3:16:54.655 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Starting manual backup
12/22/14 3:16:55.057 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Attempting to mount network destination URL: afp://”name”%20”lastname”@Home%20Network%20Time%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.loca l./Time%20Capsule
12/22/14 3:16:57.262 PM mds[33]: (Volume.Normal:2464) volume:0x7fed5ab54000 ********** Bootstrapped Creating a default store:0 SpotLoc:(null) SpotVerLoc:(null) occlude:0 /Volumes/Time Capsule
12/22/14 3:16:57.565 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Mounted network destination at mount point: /Volumes/Time Capsule using URL: afp://”name”%20”lastname”@Home%20Network%20Time%20Capsule._afpovertcp._tcp.loca l./Time%20Capsule
12/22/14 3:17:08.000 PM kernel[0]: hfs: mounted Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro on device disk3s2
12/22/14 3:17:09.625 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Disk image /Volumes/Time Capsule/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2).sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro
12/22/14 3:17:11.112 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Backing up to /dev/disk3s2: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb
12/22/14 3:17:24.931 PM “name”[593]: audit warning: soft /var/audit
12/22/14 3:17:24.944 PM “name”[594]: audit warning: allsoft
12/22/14 3:17:24.958 PM “name”[596]: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20141222201654.20141222201724
12/22/14 3:17:26.544 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
12/22/14 3:17:34.767 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Deep event scan at path:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|
12/22/14 3:17:34.768 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Reading cached event database from: /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2)/2014-12-22-151726.inProgress/F85FEA51-E137-471A-84DA-A2C00E4ECB42/.1BEF88C6 -20C3-3DDC-AE30-05EAB2AFCC15.eventdb
12/22/14 3:17:38.115 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Using cached disk scan
12/22/14 3:17:39.114 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Saved event cache at /Volumes/Backup of “name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro/Backups.backupdb/”name” “lastname”’s MacBook Pro (2)/2014-12-22-151726.inProgress/5BC46A53-25E8-4C4A-8947-AFB221D1FA0C/.1BEF88C6 -20C3-3DDC-AE30-05EAB2AFCC15.eventdb
12/22/14 3:17:39.355 PM com.apple.backupd[551]: Not using file event preflight for Macintosh HD
12/22/14 3:19:14.782 PM CoreServicesUIAgent[294]: unexpected message <OS_xpc_error: <error: 0x7fff77befc60> { count = 1, contents =
"XPCErrorDescription" => <string: 0x7fff77beff70> { length = 18, contents = "Connection invalid" }
}>
12/22/14 3:20:15.207 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Active'
12/22/14 3:20:17.267 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Inactive'
12/22/14 3:20:17.884 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Active'
12/22/14 3:20:18.483 PM sandboxd[296]: ([310]) com.apple.metada(310) deny mach-lookup com.apple.cfnetwork.cfnetworkagent
12/22/14 3:20:21.646 PM com.apple.metadata.SpotlightNetHelper[310]: [SLSUGGESTIONS] Location managed failed with error Error Domain=kCLErrorDomain Code=0 "The operation couldn’t be completed. (kCLErrorDomain error 0.)"
12/22/14 3:20:23.892 PM WindowServer[143]: disable_update_timeout: UI updates were forcibly disabled by application "Spotlight" for over 1.00 seconds. Server has re-enabled them.
12/22/14 3:20:26.526 PM WindowServer[143]: common_reenable_update: UI updates were finally reenabled by application "Spotlight" after 3.63 seconds (server forcibly re-enabled them after 1.00 seconds)
12/22/14 3:20:28.298 PM sandboxd[296]: ([310]) com.apple.metada(310) deny mach-lookup com.apple.cfnetwork.cfnetworkagent
12/22/14 3:20:29.094 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.quicklook[599]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.quicklook
12/22/14 3:20:30.670 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:30.670 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:32.294 PM com.apple.InputMethodKit.UserDictionary[600]: -[PFUbiquitySwitchboardEntryMetadata setUseLocalStorage:](808): CoreData: Ubiquity: “name”~00000000-0000-1000-8000-001B63947FCF:UserDictionary
Using local storage: 1
12/22/14 3:20:32.317 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:32.769 PM locationd[182]: Location icon should now be in state 'Inactive'
12/22/14 3:20:34.580 PM Console[601]: Failed to connect (_consoleX) outlet from (NSApplication) to (ConsoleX): missing setter or instance variable
12/22/14 3:20:35.540 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.imfoundation.IMRemoteURLConnectionAgent) The _DirtyJetsamMemoryLimit key is not available on this platform.
12/22/14 3:20:36.388 PM com.apple.xpc.launchd[1]: (com.apple.auditd[604]) Endpoint has been activated through legacy launch(3) APIs. Please switch to XPC or bootstrap_check_in(): com.apple.auditd
12/22/14 3:20:36.693 PM “name”[608]: audit warning: soft /var/audit
12/22/14 3:20:36.718 PM “name”[607]: audit warning: allsoft
12/22/14 3:20:37.045 PM “name”[610]: audit warning: closefile /var/audit/20141222201724.20141222202036
12/22/14 3:20:37.438 PM bird[263]: Assertion failed: ![_xpcClients containsObject:client]
12/22/14 3:20:42.437 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.437 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: Invalid Connection ID 0
12/22/14 3:20:42.477 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.477 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: CGSConnectionByID: 0 is not a valid connection ID.
12/22/14 3:20:42.612 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for request <QLThumbnailRequest stackshot.log>, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.613 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for thumbnail request file:///Library/Logs/stackshot.log, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.615 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for request <QLThumbnailRequest stackshot-syms.log>, it will probably fail
12/22/14 3:20:42.615 PM QuickLookSatellite[611]: [QL] No sandbox token for thumbnail request file:///Library/Logs/stackshot-syms.log, it will probably fail

From the time i upgraded to os lion my battery backup from 7 hours became 4 hours, how do i resolve it?

from the time i upgraded to os lion my battery backup from 7 hours became 4 hours, how do i resolve it?

When you upgrade to Lion, Spotlight will re-index your hard drive. This happens only once, but can take a while and may eat a lot of battery. Is still Spotlight indexing? If yes, then check your battery amount in the coming days after the indexing is complete. If Spotlight is done indexing, do the same and check it the coming days.

Is now the time to buy FCP?

I own the original Final Cut Studio. I just bought a new Mac Pro eight core. I'm considering the latest version but don't know if the timing is right. When was the last time FCP was updated? Buy now or wait? The upgrade from FCP Studio is $499 from Apple.

Absolutely not.
NAB2009 is a couple of weeks away.
The last major upgrade was two years ago.
History shows a two year upgrade cycle with release or announcement associated with NAB.
No assurances, but I'd wait until then.

Fan runs all the time after upgrade to 10.4

Upgraded to 10.4 about a week ago and now the fan runs all the time. I lowered the processor to reduced performance because the fan noise was very loud. Doing this lowered the fan speed but did not stop it. Memory usage is not a problem, shows 75% free.
Before 10.4 was using 10.3 fan ran at times but never all the time.
Any ideas.

Tom, have you down loaded an app like "X Resource Graph", I think I got it at VersionTracker, which will tell you what fan is running at high enoug rpm's to generate noise. Plus it will give you cpu usage and temps plus hard drive temps. If its the cpu fan and the cpu is really working, go to the Activity Monitor in the utilities file and see what app is causing the problem. I don't know what to do if it's the hard drive or system fan. My system fan rarely goes over 1800 rpm, my hard drive stays between 2000 and 2200 but my cpu fan will accelerate when its under pressure to to over 3000 rpm. I just start hearing the cpu fan when it gets to 2400 rpm.

HP xw8600 workstation fans run at max all the time after upgrading CPUs and memory

Hello, This is my 1st post on the forums here so I would like to thank everyone for the help ahead of time. I have an HP xw8600 workstation on which I have upgraded the CPUs and RAM recently - after the upgrade the fans seem to spin at full speed all the time (not just under load). Before the upgrading the fans were barely heard but afterwords the workstation has become very loud. This seems odd that the fans always run fast now and seems like this is not "normal" - what needs to be done to allow the fans to again be modulated by load/temp settings as designed? I looked in the temp and fan RPM settings in the BIOS and it looks like all sensors are working (including ambient temp sensor - was stating around 20 deg. C). Hardware changes:Before - CPU: 2x Intel Xeon X5460/ 3.16 GHz, 12MB L2, 1333 MHz, FSB,120WRAM: HP 32GB (16x2GB) DDR2-667 ECC FBD RAM - using RAM riser After -CPU: 2x Intel Xeon X5492/ 3.40 GHz, 12MB L2, 1600 MHz, FSB,150WRAM: HP 32GB (8x4GB) DDR2-800 ECC FBD RAM - using RAM riser NOTE: From the HP spec sheet it says that 32GB(8x4GB) is not supported by 5492... I am not sure why this is so and do not know if this has anything to do with my fans running very fast. HP 32GB(8x4GB)DDR2-800 ECC FBD RAM RISER Supported ONLY w/dual processors
5272, 5472, 5482 HP 64GB (16x4GB) DDR2-800 ECC FBD RAM Supported ONLY w/dual processors
5272, 5472, 5482 and 5492.
Acoustics waiver required. Other than the constantly loud fans the workstation works perfectly with the new setup. Please let me know if anyone has run into this issue with the fast fans and whether there is a fix for this (maybe flashing BIOS?). Any advice is greatly appreciated! [I originally posted this under Desktops section - http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Desktop-Hardware/HP-xw8600-workstation-fans-run-at-max-all-the-time-after/td-p/3929746]

The xw8600 has a motherboard firmware setting that if it detects high powered processors in place it wants to see the "double tall" performance heatsink/double fans per heatsink in place. I have posted about that and how I rewired a double tall to use side by side in my xw8400 next to a single tall heatsink/fan to see how cooling was affected in that workstation. The xw8400 did not ever come with double tall performance heatsinks, to my knowledge, so its motherboard's firmware is different. In those posts I also explained how to do a simple jumper wire modification on a single tall heatsink to spoof the xw8600 into thinking it had a double tall/two fans in place over each processor. Simple and quick. So, you might want to get a couple of double talls off eBay, or try the jumper wire trick. I'd personally advise to get the double tall heatsinks given that you're running 150W max TDP processors. If I remember correctly HP wanted you to use the double talls for 120W max TDP and above. I'd feel comfortable using that trick on a set of 120 watt processors if I was not hammering them frequently, but it sounds like you're a high level power user. The all-fans-on-high can be due to a failed thermisitor in the front power cable reading ambient air temps too high, but you can check that in BIOS to see the temp and it sounds like yours is not elevated incorrectly. You can search for my experience with that in a xw6600, and it is an easy $8.00-$12.00 fix with a new cable off eBay. You'd want the longer version for the xw8600, versus the shorter one for the xw6600. Finally, maybe you've just gone too high in your total wattage use? Those risers can run hot and draw lots of power. Could you live with less ram and get rid of the risers using 4GB sticks? Sometimes those prior prohibitions regarding what is and is not supported go away with later BIOS updates. Is your BIOS the latest? Welcome, and let us know what turns out to be the problem so others can benefit too. Scott

Windows 10: Is now the time to replace your aging PC?

Windows 10 is a pretty big deal right now. You can bet that by now, millions of PC users will have downloaded Microsoft’s new operating system and will be playing with the new features like Cortana. But what if your computer is showing its age? Now might be the time to replace it. Upgrade to a new PC and you can be sure your hardware can take full advantage of Windows 10’s new features and if your existing PC is running an older version of Windows, you’ll save a chunk of cash by not having to pay for the upgrade.

Paragraphs 2 to 6
A new Mac will solve all those problems.
Paragraph 7
It is time to get a new MacBook Pro for better experience.
No. Apple does not have a trade-in policy.
No possibility of a virus causing these problems.
Best.

Is now the time to buy? (The CREATIVE ZEN 8

I want to know if now is the time to buy, people on these forums don't seem happy although I have read reviews on amazon/play etc. and they are good on the whole
In a slightly off-topic way: I hear that video playback is limited in resolution. I have x-vid videos with width 624 and height 352 pixels. Normally I convert them to MP4 with PSP Video 9. Will the x-vids work on the Zen or will even the converted .mp4 work
Many thankz for help.

everything is great on the zen. Appearance, video converter is great and even crops widecreen videos to 4:3 without stretching, sound quality is great and has a bass boost which is a v nice extra . The only thing which lets it down is the battery life, can perform well straight after a charge ( ran a whole 2h30mins film losing under half life) but tends to drain when not being used a fair bit. Having said that it is however a lithium ion battery (like in a laptop) so cant be overcharged unless u leave it long enough to overheat and damage, and also can be topped up all the time.
Neway i say get it it's the best media player out atm i reakon

Is now the time?

Hey everyone, I am currently running Windows, but I made the decision to switch for when I go away to college. I already made the choice on the Macbook, but the question I pose to everyone is this. Is now the right time to buy a Macbook? I know that Apple recently updated the chip architecture, but I am afraid that 2 weeks after I receive my mac the next generation will come out at Macworld. Anyone have any suggestions?

The simple answer is if you want/need macbook now, get it. If you keep worrying about whether a new macbook will come soon, you will never get one. If you want it now, get it. They are very fast now and if a new one came out, it ma be 10% faster. Any of the new MacBooks are just fine and will last you for at least 4-5 years.

I have changed the name and password for my Time Capsule and now the Time Machine will not connect

Mac Book Pro
1TB Time Capsule.
Yesterday I changed the name and password on my time capsule and also the name and password of the wifi network as I was having problems with the speed of the internet when using Safari on any of my devices (1 Macbook pro, 1 macbook air, 27" iMac, iPhone and iPad) all other internet services were working fine (email etc.) This seems to have solved the problem.
However, since then, my time machine back ups will not reconnect and there is no option for me to reconnect to the existing back up for my macbook pro.
When I enter the time machine preferences it shows as below that there are no back ups.
Then, when I go to select a drive to use which should be the MacBook under the Backup disks the only option is for me to Remove Disk...
So, my question is, how do I reconnect to an existing Time Machine back up for my MacBook pro as I really do not want to erase and start all over again.
Warning - In my naiveté, I did click on the MacBook in 'Available Disks' but I got the impression that it was about to start a whole new back up and not work with the existing one.
(And does anybody have an inkling as to why there was a problem with Safari on all my devices? I downloaded Google Chrome and that worked fine).

Simply reset the Time Machine.
See A4 here http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
You can then mount the TC disk in finder after you reboot the computer.
You should be able to reselect the TC disk and then it will say it is going to start a new backup.
Ignore this.. when the TM actually loads the TC disk it will discover the existing backup and continue the backup.. but it will give no hint until it actually starts that it won't start a new backup. you just have to believe it won't.. and mostly it works..
Please also install the widget A1 so you have some idea what TM is doing.

Chrome doesn't start half the time after upgrading to Lion.

When I click on the Google Chrome icon either on the dock or from Applications, nothing happens half the time. The icon on the dock doesn't do the bouncy thing any more, it just sits there like a smug little twit, taunting me, daring me to do something. If I logout and login, it often starts working. Sometimes I need to reboot the machine. Lion is updated on a daily basis, so it isn't old OS libraries that's causing the problem. Any suggestions?

odd, works here like a charm..
try this..(i assume you have installed this under applications and no other google products installed)
remove google chrome.app
remove <username>/library/google
remove <username>/library/application support/google
remove /library/google
after that reboot and try to reinstall google chrome

Is now the time to get an iPod?

Hello everyone, So I've been avoiding getting an ipod for several years due to a number of reasons. But now I'm finally giving some serious thought into it, with the release of the ipod Classic.
While researching I ran into this forum, and am shocked at all the problems people are experiencing with it. Now I know its a common thing for more people to come online with complaints and problems then there are for people who come online with praises and good news. Creating the illusion that every 4 out of 5 people have problems. Its like that with all product forums. But just to make sure, are there any people here who haven't not experienced any problems at all with thier ipod Classics?
I also would like to explain how I would use my ipod if I had one, and if you can tell me what type of experience/performance I'd get from my ipod in return.
First off I'm a Windows XP user, with a large collection of fully tagged MP3s, in the 200vbr-320cbr bit rates by entire albums. About 50 GBs worth so far.
All my music is primarily movie soundtracks such as Star Wars, Conan, Batman and some Spoken Word stuff.
I plan on listening with a pair of $100 Super.fi Studio 3 IEMs Becuase sound quality is very important to me. And I plan to also have some sort of EQ enabled preferable customed.
Photos (other than album artwork), and videos are not important to me at all.
And I'd also expect to put heavy usage in to the ipod, skipping through tracks and seeking through songs alot.
Now with this type of usage what can I expect as far is performance, battery life, sound quality and usability?

it's really difficult to say ... if I were you I would wait until firmware 1.0.3 releases and then have a look at what it's fixing.
Your story sounds a bit like mine. Didn't want an iPod for several years and bought a classic now So I just list what I find positive and negative, you have to decide for yourself in the end. First the positive stuff:
• The iPod uses very good hardware. Long battery lifetime, very good display, fast harddrive.
• Very easy-to-use interface. Very intuative. You don't really need a manual for 90% of the stuff you can do with it since it's so easy to use
• Always found the click-wheel a little strange, but after one day or so it's really quick and nice to go through menus like that.
• Nicely designed (in my opinion)
• With iTunes you got a flawless connection to your PC: All the ratings and playcounts and skipcounts and stuff are transfered to iTunes and vice versa. So the play/skipcounts are real, not ONLY what you listened to on your iPod or ONLY what you listened to on your iTunes. You can even send the stuff you listened to on your iPod to last.fm (if you know/use that site)
• If your songs are probably tagged that's good, because the iPod uses ID3-Tags only and no kind of folder structure, so this is very important.
• If you listen and skip a lot that can enhance your music-listening-behaviour. You can create "smart playlist" which select songs depending on a rating you gave the song (1 to 5 stars, you can rate in iTunes and on-the-go using your iPod), how much you played a song and how often you skipped it.
• Heavy usage is absolutly no problem. The iPod handles that just fine and because of the long battery life (30-40 hours) this should be no problem at all.
So, there are still some downsides. I hope that with a future firmware most - if not all - of that issues are fixed, but some of them are serious:
• There seem to be faulty products in the stores. Some people buy a new iPod and it does not work correctly. They get a new one from the store which works perfectly fine. This seems to happen to a lot of people.
• If you play games on your iPod the ratings/playcounts/skipcounts since your last sync with iTunes will not transfer correctly when you sync. This will probably be fixed in the new firmware
• Both clickwheel and menus are a little slow sometimes. It was much slower with firmware 1.0.0 and got a lot better with the new firmware 1.0.2, but the clickwheel is still a little jumpy and the menus sometimes (not always) need like 1-2 seconds to load. It's nothing too serious, I can work with my iTunes perfectly fine that way, but it can be annoying from time to time.
• Of course the thing people seem to be afraid of the most: The battery-draining issue. Yeah, it happens. BUT! It happens only very very rarely and you can notice it when it happens, since the hard drive of your iPod is still spinning when you turn it off and you can just hear that. If the hard drive is spinning over 2-3 seconds after you turned off the ipod, just turn it on, wait a second, turn it off. the hard drive should most likely stop to spin and your battery will not drain. I'm pretty sure this also will be fixed soon.
• The thing I, personally, am most concerned about: Bad sound quality. Well, it's not really a BAD sound quality. But it's not as good as one would expect from a $250 product I think. With the right equalizer settings it gets a lot better, but still ... . There are rumors it's hardware-related, which would really suck because it can't be fixed then. I have to say the sound quality is good, it's very harmonic but it lacks deepth if you ask me. Since sound quality seems to be very important to you, that's probably the thing you should have an eye on. There are some threads in this forum about it, there even is a really nice "study" on the classics sound compared to the iPod video. You maybe want to check this out. But in the end I have to say: It's a good sound quality, but it may not be enough for someone with $100 earphones. Best thing would be to go to an apple store and test-listen to a classic to find out.
• The back (which is very nice actually) gets scratched very easily, and so does the screen (I was told). So you really need to buy a protection case. On apples website it costs $40 (or $100 if you prefer the italian leather thingy ;-)), but you can get a good one for $25 if you look around a little (the 5G cases work for the classic either)
• No custom EQ. I really hope it will be added in the future. But there are a lot of presets which should satisfy most people. Still, custom EQ should be standard for such a high-class product in my opinion.
• You are forced to use iTunes. Maybe that's a downside for you, maybe it isn't
That's all I can think of right now. Hope it helps. And sorry if the english may not be that good, I'm actually from germany
hope you find the right thing to do. I, personally, would wait until FW 1.0.3 is released and see what it does.
Message was edited by: m8an

HT201364 I have tried now 3 times to upgrade to Maverick.....case # *******

I have been trying to download Maverick and getting nowhere...need help..Just purchase this Pro from my boss....Running Lion...
<Subject Edited by Host>

We will need full details about the system and exactly where you are running into problems before anyone can offer suggestions. These are user-to-user forums, not Apple Support, so none of us have access to anything you've already told an Apple technician.
Note that if the information in your profile is correct, you cannot upgrade directly from Mac OS X 10.5. You need to purchase an install Mac OS X 10.6 and upgrade it to 10.6.8 before you'll have access to the Mac App Store and be able to download Mavericks.
Regards.

Has the firmware upgrade on the time capsule been fixed to allow iphones on the wireless network? I reloaded the previous firmware edition and it fixed the problem. thx

I checked beofre on the support communities when I was having trouble with the iphone 4 not being able to connect to the time capsule wireless after upgradeing the firmware. When I reloaded the previous firmware version, the iphone wireless problem was gone. Now the time capsule is asking to upgrade to that same newer version of firmware.
I don't want to do it until the iphone 4 wireless connection problems have been addressed. thanks

......will other users on the primary network (not the private wifi one) be able to access my files on my TCapsule?
No, if you have not provided them with the Time Capsule device password.
Users will be able to "see" the Time Capsule icon under the SHARED heading in the Finder on their Macs, but they will not be able to access the drive or the files.
I had also been thinking about wirelessly extending the wifi network (a linksys N router) but I guess that will allow everyone to access my Time Capsule?
Same answer as above.

Is Now the Time to Upgrade?

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