To Upgrade Or Not to Upgrade? It is a question I have been getting more and more often recently, as well as a question I have been having to ask myself.
I am stuck on the fence on this one, and it really seems to be a matter of opinion on who you ask. From what I can tell, most of the answers, with sufficient explanation, are correct and personally reasonable.
It gets confusing with all the different devices, manufacturers, software, versions, features, compatibilities, technologies, etc. Doing this day in and day out as a full time job, as well as being very passionate about this topic gives me a lot of information and experience to draw on, and unfortunately, I frequently find myself in no less of a pickle of information overload than the folks that are minimally invested in all this technology stuff.
Computers are made up of both hardware and software, you can upgrade software without upgrading hardware (buying a new computer/device or installing an improved component). I’ll focus on software upgrades here, and talk about hardware another time.
I am torn between two camps of thought on software upgrades:
The latest and greatest is best, you’ll get new features and the most out of your device, developers have worked hard to get rid of all the bugs, and it’s the best way to ensure you’ll keep everything running smoothly. Always update the first moment you have an opportunity.
And the other side of the software upgrade argument, in direct opposition:
New software and new features mean new opportunities for bugs and other problems to arise, always wait a little while with anything new, they will work out the kinks, and you will not have to deal with any of those issues.
I am personally regularly battling with this question for myself (on my many devices) and with all the people I know. The answer can be different depending on the circumstances. Sometimes it’s just best to leave it alone- if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
I have known a few software upgrades to change something I used to understand perfectly and now I have got to relearn it. With the help of google, this learning curve is much easier to ride, but it’s still an extra step. Another issue is features going away, it’s not unheard of, or even uncommon for an often used feature to no longer be present in an update. A perfect example of that is Apple’s own iOS iPhoto app no longer functioning in iOS 8. Frequently the loss of functionality is not a permanent loss, it is generally part of a bigger picture, and that feature is no longer needed with new ways of doing things. Other times developers need more time to get all the functionality built back into an app, and these come with updates. The iWork suite in Mavericks lost all sorts of features that some users were complaining about, but over time, and through a series of updates many of those features came back.
Back to the question of to upgrade software or not – the first question is “Why?” Is there a feature you need? Is there a program that requires the new version? Are there security considerations? On the cases where you can not give an actual reason of why you absolutely have to, sometimes it is just good to wait until you have more solid reasons, frequently that is what I do. I have an old MacBook that is running Mac OS 10.6.8 Snow Leopard, it runs beautifully, smoothly, and is more than capable of performing all I need it to do. It does not have iCloud support, and I can not run the latest apps on it, but what it does have, it works with quite nicely. If I need a computer and that is all I have, I can work with it.
What I am getting at is that you generally do not need to upgrade your software. It is an option, but generally not a requirement. If it is a requirement, then you do need to upgrade because you will be unable to do what you need to do.