EDIT: Please read our follow up post on this subject here and bear it in mind.
We’ve had a few clients asking the past week about upgrading to Mavericks, so we thought we’d give you a couple of compelling reasons to upgrade now.
Before we go on, it’s important to mention that we don’t normally recommend upgrading to a new OS before what we call the “.4” release (that’s usually the 3rd or 4th update to the OS where Apple iron out all the bugs). However, on this occasion we’re not hearing of too many problems and application compatibility doesn’t seem to have caused any noticeable issues (remember the upgrade to Lion?). That said, your mileage may vary, so please, back up before upgrading!
1. Battery life extended
Apple claim that because of the underlying changes they’ve made to power use in Mavericks, you should see around an hour of extra battery life in normal use. That should make quite a difference to the average notebook user. We’ve tested this and, on our machines working the way we do, we’ve seen battery life go from 8 hours on a MacBook Pro to almost 11 hours. You might not see exactly the same improvements, but you should see a satisfying improvement in battery life. Obviously this only applies to notebook users with a battery that isn’t almost expired.
2. Multiple Monitors now work
When we’re in the office we run our notebook screen along with an external 24″ screen. This gives us a larger screen to work from and more space to be able to, for example, research something on one screen and make notes on the other. In previous version of OS X, second monitor support has always been, well, a bit rubbish! If you went full screen on an app, it rendered the second screen useless for instance; well now, running two screens works how you’d expect. You have a menu bar on both screens, and can run independent apps full screen on each monitor.
It seems like a minor thing, but once you’ve tried dual screens in Mountain Lion (or earlier) and upgraded to Mavericks it’s one of those “at last!” moments, not earth shattering but great to finally see.
3. It’s new and it’s free!
What other reason do you need? Lots of new features, a refreshed look and not having to pay for it helps. Upgrading to Mavericks also opens up the opportunity to upgrade (free again) iLife (iTunes, Garageband, iMovie, iPhoto) and iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote) to the latest versions. There’s some neat bells and whistles in the latest products, and let’s be honest, who doesn’t want to play with new toys?
Let us know how your upgrade goes, and if you need assistance with it in any way, do contact us!
(And for those that don’t know, Mavericks is named after a famous California surfing location – hence the image at the top!)
