back to article Apple OS X Yosemite 4 TIMES more popular than Mavericks

Four times as many developers are using Apple's OS X Yosemite as used its OS predecessor Mavericks, we are told. That factoid comes from web advertising network Chitika, which claims Macs running Yosemite generated, in one month, four times more ad impressions than those running OS X Mavericks during the same period last year …

  1. OrsonX
    Unhappy

    How about some more Mavericks love?

    So far I've used Leopard, SL, Lion, ML and now Mavericks. For all bar Mavericks I felt the OS evolved and improved as updates were released. But for Mavericks it feels like Apple have already moved on, it feels like an un-loved place-holder. There's nothing wrong with it, in-fact it's pretty good (I've even stopped missing SL)...., it just feels so un-loved!

    1. E Haines

      Re: How about some more Mavericks love?

      I went directly from Snow Leopard to Mavericks, skipping 10.7 and 10.8, and Mavericks just kinda feels glitchy and slow by comparison. The "slow" bit is primarily because of the file system, which took a major speed hit somehow. Maybe you don't notice if you have flash, but I'm still using HDs. The glitches aren't terrible or frequent but it simply doesn't have that "totally rock-solid" feel anymore. While there are some good features to be sure, the whole experience has been decidedly "sidegrade" overall. But hey, it was free....

      1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

        Re: How about some more Mavericks love?

        I find Mavericks more stable and responsive than Lion or Mountain Lion and many of the bugs introduced in the move to x86_64 in Snow Leopard still need resolving.

  2. TonyJ

    I am curious - and this is in no way a flame but genuine curiosity - what makes an OS feel 'unloved'?

    1. Kristian Walsh Silver badge

      Somewhat intangible, but it's a feeling of how much time has been spent on the software. In the case of Mavericks, there are quite a few display glitches in the built-in apps (flickering, delayed updating of item content, etc). A package that was seeing attention from developers, these would be fixed, as such things are usually relatively simple to resolve.

      It's a long time since I worked for Apple, but back then, their development processes were always quite open to developers taking on bugs and running with them, especially cosmetic and "fit and finish" issues. In Mavericks, I don't see signs that the developers were given that extra time, or alternatively, that they cared as much to get the product "right". Compared to the level of rework and finessing that you see in iOS builds, Mavericks looks "unloved": enough is being done to close the bugs, but no more.

      I get the feeling that these days, to be assigned to "desktop" in Apple is not something developers want.

      As a reference point, I also use Windows 8.1, and since the end of the Windows7 release cycle the Microsoft OS has moved ahead of OSX on "feeling solid"; truth be told, it's only Adobe Illustrator, Terminal and the *nix command suite that's keeping me on OSX these days. (the lack of Illustrator on Linux rules that out)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      what makes an OS feel 'unloved'?

      Have you not seen the film Her?

  3. Colin Ritchie
    Windows

    Mavericks doesn't need love.

    Running Snowy, Mounty and Mavy on 3 different machines, they all do what is needed and run very nicely but Mavericks is the least inspiring of the 3 to use. No noticeable improvements over ML and both had Rosetta removed so Snowy is the winner for backwards compatibility. Why bovver I thought.

    1. Geoff Campbell Silver badge
      Facepalm

      Re: "Snowy, Mounty and Mavy"?

      C'mon, dude! Have you no self-respect?

      GJC

  4. Mike Bell

    Mavericks is pretty well loved by owners of older Apple gear. Possibly its biggest under-the-hood improvement is its revamped memory management system, which means it can run – and run well – on some relatively old devices.

    It employs dynamic compression of least-used memory, and attempts to maximise the amount of RAM that's in use. That feature scared a lot of people, who believed it was a memory hog, when the opposite is true. Unused RAM is wasted RAM.

    1. Charlie Clark Silver badge

      Mavericks is pretty well loved by owners of older Apple gear.

      Not by me it isn't because it won't run on my MacMini because Apple won't do a 64-bit version of the graphics driver.

      Most importantly for me: I wish Apple would move to OS + ports release schedule so that all the Posix plumbing can be updated outside OS updates.

    2. David Kelly 2

      Better Memory Management?

      Mavericks is pretty well loved by owners of older Apple gear. Possibly its biggest under-the-hood improvement is its revamped memory management system, which means it can run – and run well – on some relatively old devices.

      Thats an interesting claim. I have a script to open 46 URLs of online comics, one every 30 seconds, which since the latest Mavericks security update brings my 8 GB MacBook Pro to its knees with a 23 GB VM space and 12 GB swap file.

    3. OrsonX
      Mushroom

      @Mike

      Sounds good in theory, however, only now does my mid-2009 MBP work "properly" after installing more RAM. I went from 2GB (which all the previous OSs worked fine with) to 5GB...., to make Mavericks work properly.

      I was getting beach balls everywhere, now much improved. So I think their new "uber memory management" is baloney!

      The biggest improvement is the increase in performance when playing CiV:BNW. No re-draw issues and much more responsive..., now if only I could source some uranium to nuke Austria.....

  5. Jim Wilkinson
    Flame

    I want no cloud

    The moment I found out that Mavy user accounts had to be synchronised in the cloud was the point at which I gave up on OS-X upgrades. Forcing users to use cloud services for such a basic need is unacceptable IMO and negates any other 'features' of the OS.

    1. E Haines

      Re: I want no cloud

      @Jim: I'm not synchronizing anything with any clouds in Mavericks. I think you were misinformed.

    2. 142
      Stop

      Re: I want no cloud

      Jim, you're incorrect. Syncing or registering is completely optional

  6. bigtimehustler

    The new OS is an open beta, the others were closed...this is probably the reason for the increased numbers of people trying it.

    1. Joe Gurman

      Exactly

      This is Apple's first time releasing a beta to the general unwashed at the time as devs. Think that just might be responsible for the different stats? Think Reg flacks ought to think a bit more critically when they pass on press releases?

      1. chr0m4t1c

        Re: Exactly

        I think I read somewhere that they've also made it available to registered iOS developers rather than just registered OSX devs.

  7. Gannettt

    Is it true that Yosemite will have a dark theme, with white on black? If so, that would be awesome, especially for blindies like me who find the whole dark text on white background very hard to read.

    1. Joe Gurman

      White on black

      It's an option.

  8. tempemeaty
    Go

    Every Other Release Now?

    Is it possible that developers are beginning to support OSX only on an every-other basis because they can't afford to keep up with Apple's OSX rapid-release cycle?

  9. Kevin McMurtrie Silver badge

    Mavericks TTL

    iCloud lacks the power and compatibility to be more than a curiosity. Nobody is asking for more of Apple's walled garden. That reduces the main compelling feature of the last two major MacOS releases to simply "sucks less". Mavericks still has enough bugs that make it useless in some environments. (SMB, anyone?) I suspect that people are test driving Yosemite to see whether or not hope is left.

    I'm going to test drive Linux as a desktop OS one of these weekends.

    1. Steve Davies 3 Silver badge
      Linux

      Re: Mavericks TTL

      IMHO, you should allocate more than a weekend to testing Linux especially, if you choose something like Ubuntu. If it is a rapid release distro such as Ubuntu, Fedora then you need to cover the period over a new release. If you choose something more stable like Debian, RHEL/CentOS then a month or two should do it.

      Things that you take for granted just aren't there in Linux or if they are, they either have to be installed and confiured and may be considerably less polished/easier to use than what you are used to with OSX.

      If you aren't a Linux sort of person, you will soon find that many of the features that works almost OOTB on OSX takes considerably more time and effort to get working on Linux. Something like Time Machine would IMHO be a great example.

      As I have to use both Windows and Linux/Unix in my day job, I find OSX perfect for my use at home. I have to say, it just works for me. YMMV

  10. Joseph Lord

    Yosemite is more available

    There is an open beta programme AND Yosemite is open to iOS developers whereas I don't think Mavericks was.

    1. DaveMcM

      Re: Yosemite is more available

      While there is an open beta it is limited in numbers to the first million registrants (https://appleseed.apple.com/sp/betaprogram/) and I'm not sure if an open preview release has been made available through it yet - as far as I am aware the first 3 previews have been developer only.

      I think as you mention the major difference this year is that people like me on the iOS developer program can get hold of the OS X developer previews whereas with Mavericks etc you had to be on the OS X developer program to get the previews.

  11. returnmyjedi

    Yosurmite Sarm

    Whenever I read Yosemite my brain processes the word as "Yo-sur-mite", despite years of therapy. Thought you'd all like to know.

    1. AbelSoul
      Headmaster

      Re: Yosurmite Sarm

      If it's any consolation, I have the same problem; brain rhymes Yosemite with Vegemite, although, on the rare occasion that I have to vocalise it, the brain-mouth signal flow usually catches it and corrects me before the mangled pronunciation is aired.

  12. A Twig
    Windows

    They will have to prise Snow Leopard out of my cold dead "holding it wrong" fingers...

    For me just the right mix of point & click simpleness for day to day, but with the useful stuff (including Rosetta!) not too far under the hood for when it's required.

    But then I'm still on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon, so what do I know...

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