I Upgraded My MacBook Pro To Apple's New Mavericks Operating System And It Was Easy
I was previously using Lion.
The upgrade was easy. The only hard part was how many hours it took to download. More than three. I stopped checking after that and went to bed. In the morning the OS was downloaded and ready to be installed.
It took about another hour to install it. I backed up my critical files before installing, but that wasn't a problem. All of my files were there after Mavericks was installed.
The only heart-attack moment I had was when iPhoto told me it was dead, and couldn't be used with the new OS. I use iPhoto a lot for work, to edit multiple images quickly.
But that panic didn't last long. Turns out that I just had to manually upgrade iPhoto (and iMovie) by going to the App Store and telling it to install the new versions.
Once the new iPhoto was installed, all of my Albums were imported and all the photos were fine.
I have to say, most of the new features of Mavericks are with apps I don't use much: Safari got an overhaul but I usually use Firefox or Chrome. The new Safari did seem faster. It lets you easily scroll through your open tabs, which is great. Maybe I'll start using it more.
The biggest change I noticed was the an icon at the top bar that shows calendar items, and lets you chat. It's not especially useful for me since I use the cloud versions of Gmail and Calendar, not Apple's.
There are some new options in Finder that I'll find useful. Tag any file with any keyword. You can also tag them with a colored dot and find related files that way.
One new app is a book reader. It's nice but I use a Kindle and that means I use Kindle apps on all my devices. It's not comfortable to curl up with a Macbook Pro anyway.
There's also a new Apple Maps app that I need to play with. It has the ability to send maps to other users via Airdrop, a wireless way of connecting with other Apple devices. I use Google Maps on my phone but I'm willing to give Maps a try (as long as it doesn't get me lost).
My favorite part is that the OS seems to be faster with fewer "beach balls." This Mac tends to overheat and slow down at the end of my workday, after a full-day of pounding on the Internet. That hasn't happened since I upgraded, so even if I don't use all the new features, I'm happy.
Here are step-by-step instructions on how to upgrade.