I stay on OS X 10.6 because later versions drop support for PowerPC (Rosetta) applications. Many programs - abandoned programs and games - do not have Intel versions. And some games have Intel versions, but the Intel version costs money or is incompatible with previous saved games. I use these old programs rarely, but like to have the option of opening their files or playing those games.
Such applications include Airburst Extreme, the Fountain Music iTunes visualizer, Marble Blast Gold, N-Ball, Noise, SilverCreator v1.5, Sonic Robo Blast II, Super DX Ball, Super Phoenix, Water Tower, and Wire Hang Redux. There may be some plug-ins for various apps I'm forgetting, too.
>Such applications include Airburst Extreme, the Fountain Music iTunes visualizer, Marble Blast Gold, N-Ball, Noise, SilverCreator v1.5, Sonic Robo Blast II, Super DX Ball, Super Phoenix, Water Tower, and Wire Hang Redux. There may be some plug-ins for various apps I'm forgetting, too.
Sounds like nothing like a reason to keep using Rosetta. I mean, seriously, "Fountain Music iTunes visualizer" and "Sonic Robo Blast II"?
Some business use case I'd understand (some proprietary program that you just have to use). But those? Find some substitute games and programs and move on.
>I use these old programs rarely, but like to have the option of opening their files or playing those games.
Sounds more like a soft case of hoarding to me.
In any case, just move to 10.8 and keep 10.6 on a VM (or a bootable USB/external drive) for those games.
It’s true, I hoard a lot of digital things. Keeping a VM sounds like a good solution that allows me to upgrade to the latest OS without permanently losing any programs.
However, I think that the Fountain Music iTunes visualizer (http://binaryminded.com/fountainmusic.html) is actually the program I’ll miss the most after I upgrade. I enjoy listening actively to my music, paying attention to the musical details. And the visuals produced by Fountain Music, unlike every other visualizer I’ve seen, actually reflect the audio very well. It’s not just a mesmerizing screensaver that is theoretically tied to the audio somehow – you can clearly hear a connection between each note playing and each fountain of particles shooting up. The fact that the visuals reflect the music (most of the time) can put me more emotionally into the track, because I’m getting complementary signals through my eyes and ears.
Also, there is rarely such a thing as “substitute games”. That’s what makes games different from other programs – well-made games, even ones in the same genre, have their own unique, irreplaceable features. They are like books and movies in that regard. That’s why emulators for consoles like the SNES and the Dreamcast are still around – people don’t want to give up their favorite old games.
See apple.com for your answer. I can't believe on hn you'd ask why anyone should upgrade. Being on the latest version is more secure for one. People can stick with old versions, but then they'll miss out on the new stuff. For some that doesn't matter, but most of hn are early adopters so using the latest would be the norm. While osx has introduced some annoying changes, for those with the skills, or the ability to use google, they are easily disabled.
Looking at apple.com's list of features for mountain lion
Lets see what was added in mountain lion that I would use:
* Improved preference pane (OK, this might be good)
* Accessibility pane available from anywhere (No)
* New braille display support (No)
* Voice Over stuff (no)
* AirPlay Mirroring (Don't have anything that can use that)
* Auto Save (Don't really want this, I use vim for most things anyway)
* Built-in Sharing (Might be cool, but meh)
* Calendar (I use google calendar, so no)
* Contacts (I don't use this)
* Dashboard (I don't use that)
* Dictation (Cool, but no)
* Dictionary (Not really using this either)
* Facebook (Nope, not using any of that)
* Features for China (I don't need these)
* Finder (lets take a closer look)
* Inline progress for downloads and file copies (Ok, not bad, but I don't normally mount any servers or stuff. I can just scp stuff that I need, or git pull)
* Easy encryption (Yay, this is neat)
* Share button (Nope)
* Customizable sidebar (Huh, wasn't it customizable before?)
* Tap for Quick Look (This is neat, I'll use it a few times)
* Game Center (Dont' care)
* Gatekeeper (Don't want)
* iCloud (Not going to use)
* Launchpad Search (Don't use launchpad)
* Mac App Store (Nothing really great in here)
* Mail (I use gmail, so don't care)
* Messages (Don't use)
* Notes (Might be cool, but I don't think I'll use.)
* Notification (I already use Growl, don't really need this, it's just going to be another thing to configure. Maybe I'll like it, I don't know)
* Photo Booth (Now you can add pictures to Twitter! Don't need that)
* Power Nap (Might be cool)
* Preview (I use Skim.app, so don't care)
* QuickTime X (Don't really care)
* Reminders (Don't really care)
* Safari (I'm using Chrome)
* Security (Some stuff might be good, nothing super important)
* System (Nothing too great in this section)
* TextEdit (I use vim)
* Time Machine (I only need one place to backup, so the multiple places to backup isn't that important right now (might be in the future), but the encrypted back ups are nice)
* Twitter (Don't care)
So I get:
* Improved preference pane
* Power Nap
* Easy encryption
* Tap for Quick Look
* Time Machine
Not really worth the price of updating.
I guess I'll update once the next one comes out, since they fix multiple monitors with Mission Control to work more the way I like it.
That might be true for 10.7 to 10.8, but 10.6 to 10.8 is a bigger gap. It's all that you listed (and most users would gain more than that) plus ASLR, TRIM support, resizing windows from any edge, AirDrop, improved Finder, much better multi-touch support, the recovery partition, etc.
I was reluctant to upgrade from 10.6 to 10.7 because I really disliked the changes to Spaces/Expose, but even last year it was becoming more and more common to see apps dropping support for 10.6. With Mavericks around the corner, 10.7 will start seeing the same treatment soon. At $20 to upgrade, it's more than worth it.
Because SL had a far better workflow. 10.8 may have a cleaner, flatter, better-looking UI and some nice kernel features underneath, but Mission Control is a disaster compared to Spaces + Exposé.
I still dual-boot 10.6 and 10.8. I find myself in 10.8 more often now, but 10.6 is still a better user experience.
Targetting the latest release make life easier for devs.