OS X Mavericks is free!

[Bear Bibeault]

The next version of OS X, Mavericks, is free!

It's well known that Apple uses software to drive hardware sales (as opposed to a company like Microsoft which is the exact opposite), but to give away the OS for free took a lot of people by surprise.

Nice move!

http://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/22/os-x-mavericks-now-available-free-on-mac-app-store/

[Maneesh Godbole]

Anybody tried it out? What are the new features/applications which help from a development perspective? Is it a real time update (or does it download the installer?) In case I choose to upgrade, any recommendations on how to go about it? (I got burnt once when I opted for upgrading Ubuntu instead of clean install)

[Bear Bibeault]

I don't plan to upgrade just yet -- in the middle of a project. But I haven't heard any reports of big problems yet.

200+ new features

[Maneesh Godbole]

200+ new features! Wow! Will definitely check them out.

[Bear Bibeault]

The ARS Technica review -- warning: 24 pages (I'm still reading through it).

[Jeanne Boyarsky]

I'm planning to hold off on upgrading until after I get FIOS. Don't want to change two things at the same time. If FIOS causes problems, I want them isolated to that change!

[Pat Farrell]

Cool price, but most of the recent upgrades have been so inexpensive that they might as well have been free.

Like @Jeanne, I never upgrade to a new OS right away. Let someone else find the bugs.

[Pat Farrell]

Apparently parts of the blog-o-sphere are not as thrilled about Mavericks' improvements
http://themolly.com/blog/2013/10/27/os-x-mavericks-forces-ios-calendar-contact-syncing-into-icloud/

[Bear Bibeault]

I've updated my work laptop to Mavericks and have encountered little in the way of difficulties. Most of the foibles centered on apps that needed to be updated:

Had to upgrade to Paralllels for Mac 9

Had to update 1Password (password manager)

Had to update Dropbox (cloud storage)

The one bug I've encountered so far is that sometimes, when updating more than one app at a time, the Mac App Store asks for my credentials more than once.