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Everywhere I just read posts and questions about how to make lion like snow leopard. So... Why not keeping snow leopard, at least while lion's "young"? Are there any technical / cosmetic reasons for the switch?

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I'd say that depends a lot on what you use your Mac for. Software developers will have different reasons to switch than graphics designers or casual couch surfers. – Ingmar Hupp Aug 25 '11 at 11:17
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I'd ignore anything that says "Make x look like <previous version>!". It's mostly people who don't like change. – Nicholas Smith Aug 25 '11 at 11:28
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Rather than calling for a large discussion about anything/everything that changed, is there a specific problem / requirements you have with this upgrade decision you face? (what criteria will make one answer the right answer to this question.) – bmike♦ Aug 25 '11 at 15:24

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4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote

Lion's improved security is worth a mention. Don't get me wrong, Lion still has its share of security issues (see LDAP and enterprise updates). But Apple's inclusion of sandboxing, full hard disk encryption, and a better ASLR goes a long way to reducing exposure to a wide variety of attacks.

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I second this with a quote: “I generally tell Mac users that if they care about security, they should upgrade to Lion sooner rather than later, and the same goes for Windows users, too.” goo.gl/5S2LO – andersmoldin Aug 25 '11 at 15:01
up vote 1 down vote

There are no "technical reasons" per se. I'll quickly list my pros/cons but they are definitely personal.

1. Pros

  • The uppgrade is pretty smooth and straightforward.
  • It really does have a nicer 'look and feel'
  • Most of the applications you can be using are already Lion Compatible
  • It's the cheapest OS you can find

2. Cons

  • If you use XCode you'll HAVE to reinstall a new version (4.1.1) (and that honestly is a big hitch which i didn't know about)

  • The scrollbars !! : they are switched at first (up is down) but can be reversed and they are now iPhone like which is still annoying when you use a black background app that didn't change the scrollbar color. (basically you don't see them)

There could be much more things to say but Ars Technica did the best review you can find on the web.

I personally made the leap and really not regretting it so far.

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up vote 1 down vote

The principal compelling reason for upgrading to any new operating system version always comes down to the applications you want to run. When you find a new application, or a newer version of an older application, that you want to run, and you learn that this version of the application requires the newer operating system, that's when you want to consider upgrading.

I upgraded to Lion early because I'm a professional technical support technician, and I have to train myself be familiar with Lion when my clients start calling for help using Lion. If I were not a professional support technician, I would wait a lot longer to make the change.

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up vote 0 down vote

Lion does have a lot of new Language features for those who need them:

http://m10lmac.blogspot.com/2011/07/os-x-107-lion-adds-major-new-language.html

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