I’ve stepped off the software upgrade carousel. While I dutifully and promptly upgraded my laptops to Leopard ($129) and Snow Leopard ($29), Apple’s not getting me with Mac OS X Lion ($30). In both previous occasions, I bought into the hype only to be disappointed by modest improvement and irrelevant functionality (for my needs)… combined with various software conflicts, some requiring paid upgrades of their own.
Unlike Leopard and Snow Leopard, I just don’t even feel the urge to partake this time around. The iOS-ification of desktop operating systems isn’t really a direction I want to move towards. And neither is upside down scrolling. New features like Auto Save and Versions would have been extremely compelling… several years ago or perhaps if we utilized Mac hardware at work. But, these days, I edit and host most of my documents in the cloud. Not to mention we’re already aware of Lion third party software incompatibility, seen from products such as Adobe and Sonos. Granted, with a fairly extensive and open development period, this isn’t necessarily Apple’s fault. But Apple customers who choose to upgrade will indeed be penalized.
Who’s with me?