Apple's Mac OS Sierra

I see that the new OS is now available. I'm still using Mavericks 10.9.5 on my MacBook, which is a little less than 3 years old. My main uses are email and Internet surfing. Two questions: (1) Do I need to upgrade if I'm perfectly satisfied now? and (2) If I do upgrade, do I simply skip from Mavericks to Sierra without downloading Yosemite and El Capitan first? Thanks.

1) "Need" is a strong term. If you're happy and having no issues with Mavericks, then you definitely don't "need" to upgrade. The problem with not upgrading is that there will eventually come a time when you are unhappy and having issues, and the farther you are behind the more involved it will potentially be to do the necessary upgrades to get yourself going again. On the other hand, if you wait long enough the hardware will be in need of replacement as well, and you could just buy a new computer.

2) When you start the upgrade process, if there are any interim updates or upgrades required, the installer will prompt you to do them. As I said above, it will be more involved but it shouldn't be particularly difficult.

Just out of curiosity, why wouldn't you want to upgrade? (Not judging; just curious.)

Why haven't you been upgrading when the free offers come along? I always upgrade MacOS or iOS when offered. It makes the next upgrades so much easier.

i usually wait a month at least to let them patch the bugs. And they're always bugs...with the OS and with software that I need to run .

@joy, that's sensible. There is no cost to doing so, therefore it's the smartest thing. I'm less cautious, and I can't remember if I've ever been bitten as a result. On the other hand, I am less cautious when the software is not from Apple. I think Apple tests their software better than anyone.

The reason I never upgraded was that when Yosemite first came out, I heard their were some problems, so I stayed with the OS I had, which was working fine. Then I heard the same thing when El Capitan came out. Figuring that if it ain't broke don't fix it, I just stayed with what was working for me. But now I realize that I'm several versions behind, and I should probably upgrade.

Sidenote: Until I got my MacBook, I was always a PC person, and there were ALWAYS problems upgrading OS with my PC. I guess that made me a bit gun-shy.

So, you think I can just jump ahead to Sierra, skipping the intervening two?

I don't know about doing the jump upgrade. I don't have experience with that.

But Apple does an unusually good job testing their software. In this respect, they are like no other company I have seen, and I have dealt with thousands of computers, large and small. I've worked on gigantic corporate computers. When you do an OS upgrade on an Apple, you can bet it is likely to work well. Those rumors of problems are marginal cases. Apple upgrades are extremely good risks.

I will not be upgrading to Sierra yet, because I learned here on MOL that Scansnap doesn't work with it yet. I have confidence they will work that out.

Lightroom 5 doesn't work with it either - I'm using LRCC - so I'm ok, but I will still give it a month.

Finally getting back to this (sidetracked by some health problems). Just spoke with Apple Support. (They really are far and away the best in terms of support.) The rep essentially echoed much of the advice given here. He said I don't have to upgrade for my particular uses (surfing, email), but if I'm concerned about missing security updates, I may choose to. (I laughed when he said, if it ain't broke don't fix it, which is my philosophy). He also said that if I do decide to upgrade, I can skip the intervening OS (Yosemite, El Capitan) and go directly to Sierra.

He did advise me to do a Time Machine backup first, saying I could always use that to reverse an upgrade if problems do occur, although reversing might be somewhat "tedious."

So, I guess the ball's back in my court, but at least we seem to have confirmed that we could upgrade directly to Sierra.

I wish this tech stuff didn't make me so uneasy. I guess it's all my previous years of PC/Windows use, where upgrade glitches were far too common and tech support so hit or miss...

Just as a data point:

I finally upgraded to Sierra middle of last week. Since then I have not spent any real length of time on my computer, but two or three times I have taken a few minutes here and there just to run through a hadnful of my third-party programs (Photoshop CS, Fetch, Quicken, Pixelmator, to name a few) to make sure they are all working. At first glance, I do not seem to be having any issues.

@unicorn33, upgrading MacOS is not like upgrading Windows. It works flawlessly the vast majority of the time, and I do mean vast. They do their homework, which really is not easy, so that you won't have any troubles. I recommend you do it, because the longer you wait, the more difficult it is likely to be when you eventually need it.

Thanks for the input. Appreciated.

On sierra for the past 10 days, working off this laptop about 8 hours a day. Regular office stuff. No issues.