Startup was quite slow until I disabled fonts, turned off Spotlight, turned off animation, turned off Dashboard, turned off (I think) Mission Control, which was new to me, as was Notifications—ugh, this has to be least welcome addition. Apple has been borrowing from Windows by nagging you. Fortunately Notifications comes with a Do Not Disturb sign.
After reading complaints about interface changes, I was prepared for the worst. But it's not all bad. I don't mind the flat look, but I dislike playing hide and seek with options, such as the disappearing menu bar. That is a dumb change. Pointless. In fact, it really discourages me from using the full screen, this great big 21 inch screen I have now. Sometimes when I use full screen in a program, I can't get out of it, such as iTunes. The program switcher (option-tab) didn't take me out of iTunes nor did clicking on Finder in the Dock. Moral: Don't use full screen. I couldn't get FinderPop to work, and that was my navigator for years. So I guess the dock is my launcher now, lacking FinderPop, as in Windows 7.
Sometimes programs open behind the current window instead of in front of. That's puzzling and annoying. Sometimes programs seem to have quit but are still in the dock. Cut and paste doesn't always work but that is probably the fault of particular software rather than the OS. ClipMenu still works and has a fork in Clipy.
I was disappointed that iCal includes Muslim holidays, and there is only one option: turn on all holidays on turn off all holidays. Another strike against Apple. I may look for another calendar if it can send reminders through Mail. That was how I organized appointments on my old Mac. I had iCal send me email reminders through Mail. That was a nice feature. It's good to have Mail working again. I've always liked it...when it works.
Downloads are large and installing them is slow. Here again I feel like I'm watching the Windows cursor while it installs updates, the kind of thing I want to avoid if I build my own computer. Much else on this iMac is acceptably snappy. Onyx is surprisingly quick. I remember years ago waiting something like twenty minutes for permissions to be fixed.
Networking settings transferred without a hitch, as did printing settings. Both have worked fine without error. This is also a positive change from years passed.
