I have intel 2.3 core duo from Apple from 2007 and so far it is ok… I suggest you buy a small 500G hard disc and do a bootable clone ( super duper or similar) with Snow Leopard so that you can always boot from it in future as I do.

Get a 16G flash and install lion on that first and later update lion on your mac and keep flash ( which can boot) as a security for any issues. Good thing is with the flash you can use it to fix any mac book issues and I have installed Drive Genius 3 on both mac and the flash.

Originally Posted by Diana

...I'm presuming that it would be a good idea to upgrade to Lion first on my MacBook Pro?

No particular need there. If that's your only reason, I wouldn't bother.

...every OS upgrade is fraught with anxiety...

Major OS releases change a lot of stuff and things break. Lion is reasonably significant. Make sure you're no longer using (or can replace) any apps that are not Intel native because Lion removes the capacity to run the older (PowerPC) apps.

I've always been an early adopter, but I haven't updated any of the machines I'm responsible for because we use some older apps and because I don't see Lion as a step forward particularly. Good for some people, but I'm not yet comfortable with the new paradigms that Lion brings, such as no physical media and the move toward making Mac OS more like iOS.

Originally Posted by soulman

No particular need there. If that's your only reason, I wouldn't bother.

Well, the iPhone I have is 3G, and it seems like apps such as Bump, and Dream.ON and Plants vs Zombies won't work on it.


<Major OS releases change a lot of stuff and things break. Lion is reasonably significant. Make sure you're no longer using (or can replace) any apps that are not Intel native because Lion removes the capacity to run the older (PowerPC) apps.>

I'm so not computer-literate: is it easy to ascertain which apps are Intel native? Or do I have to google each one?

<I've always been an early adopter, but I haven't updated any of the machines I'm responsible for because we use some older apps and because I don't see Lion as a step forward particularly. Good for some people, but I'm not yet comfortable with the new paradigms that Lion brings, such as no physical media and the move toward making Mac OS more like iOS.

>

Yes, that's what I saw last year.
Sigh . . . I don't want to get stuck like I did with my iMac, when I was too slow upgrading from 8.6 and it was a real nightmare . . .
Besides which, I really have to replace Office 2004 first: I do volunteer work which means I need Office, and now it's beginning to be a pain, not reading things.
I'd better go slow, I think, and clean all the old apps that no longer work any way - you can tell I'm lazy about my housekeeping . . . just got rid of an old Type program, and Byki . . . just to start with.

---------- Post added at 02:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:35 PM ----------

Oh, I still haven't worked out this Forum interface - hope you can understand where and what I've written in my reply!

My comment about not bothering was specifically about the connection with updating your phone - a 4S will work fine with 10.6. You probably need the latest version of iTunes, but that's no problem. No need to update your OS just because you're getting a new phone.

You can tell what architecture your apps are built for, in a few different ways. If you Get Info on the app in Finder - select the app's icon and choose "Get Info" from the File menu - it will usually tell you what you need to know up near the top of the window where it says "Kind:" If it has something in brackets after "Application" then look for "Universal" or "Intel". If it says "PowerPC" then it won't work under Lion.

If it doesn't say anything, which they sometimes don't, you will have to launch the app to find out. Before you do that though, find "Activity Monitor" in your Utilities folder (or find it with Spotlight, which is easier) and launch that. It shows all sorts of info about any apps that are running, including the architecture, which it calls "Kind". Once your app is running, it will appear in the list and you can check it out from there. Don't be concerned about all the other things that are running - there are many things (called processes) running that we are not aware of unless we have a need to know.

Hope that helps!