That Ternus has had the CEO job for just over a week and is already flushing any good will Apple had down the toilet. "Lake America," this BS, etc. I've liked and used many Apple prdoducts in the past, including a series 9 watch. I will not be upgrading based on this kind of crap. Oh, and the $2000 phone. Get real. Very disappointed in the company.

Ooo, 2020!

Welp, that was short-lived. Apple Maps Renames Lake Ontario ‘Lake America’ After Trump Order

What wasnâ(TM)t âoeSuper Smoothâ about the Upgrade? ;-)
I accidentally installed the new OS on the USB stick, I was booting from.
So after several reboots, I figured: Oh my god, I am so stupid ... and finally installed it on the hard drive of the Mac.

Were you left with anything not working, or wonky?
All works fine!

The reality is Apple very much positioned their product line as fashion items, and while you may have the common sense to not participate in the disposable culture the reality is a very great many people do and the world is full of perfectly fine and unused iPhones rotting in a drawer (or were traded in, after all Apple is so keen on getting you the latest shiny they'll actively offer you trade in bonuses).

Consume consumer, it's all you're good for in the eyes of the corporation.

...by promoting a fashion-based culture of disposable products and fighting every attempt to repair old devices and keep them working?
By constantly making hardware incompatible every few years?

But will it be Cook or Ternus who changes Lake Ontario to Lake America in Apple Maps? Will it be the last act of capitulation and sycophancy by Cook or the first by Ternus? Cook will either be a hard act to follow or an easy one...

Trump pushes Apple to change 'Lake Ontario' to 'Lake America' on its maps

You're really hard to follow. iPhones never had removable batteries and almost no androids have them now. If you're talking about macs? Well, the removable batteries were removed before Steve Jobs left. IIRC, they weren't really removeable without taking the whole thing apart since the Power PC days. If you're pining for those days...well, I don't know what the fuck is wrong with you. Before they went intel, Macs were completely useless IMO. They were a garbage OS with reduced functionality selling to weird cult members who thought Windows can't support more than 8 characters in a file name. You'd pay twice as much as a windows laptop for something that was bested by an intel/AMD processor from 3 years prior....but hey, you got an elegant mouse with only one button! That's good for something, right???

If your complaint is design and removable batteries, Apple is not for you. There are plenty of alternatives. I hear Framework is pretty rad on the laptop side and I honestly don't know which specialty android phone let's you swap batteries these days.

Make sure to have a back up.
At least from your home folder.

The upgrade was not super smooth, but was okay (was working on a different computer, so I was a bit sloppy).

The computer is lighting fast with the new OS ... at least for the stuff I do.

I generally use Spotify, but I do have VLC for simple streaming. But yes, it's a gap. My music library is extensive and eclectic. So for those rare occasions where Spotify comes up empty or I do need to play a curated playlist, my XBox Series X with Kodi is on standby.

Yes, Mac OS.
It is Sequoia, 15.6.xyz ... not sure about exact version number.

Was a bit complicated to get it installed (because I was working on the other computer, and clicked wrong in the middle).

The working experience is just fine. But in relation to older Mac OS (X)es, Sequoia is not really that fine. The settings dialog, once the most beautiful thing of Mac OS X or macOS, is a pain into the rectum.

At my specific laptop, I have the problem: it does not sleep when closed and plugged into power. There "should be" a fix, according to google Gemini, resetting parameter RAM and some other fix during boot, but I did not try it yet.

Anyway, the Mac runs just fine. And it is lightening fast.

I put the new OS on its own partition, so I can access the old data just fine, but did not risk to damage the old boot partition during install. So I can dual boot, the old stuff (which can not read the new partition because of different file system) and the new OS.

I have fought the good fight for media devices forover a quarter century, ever since my actual XBMC install on the original XBox. I've built home theatre PCs and fought with getting remotes to work. I've got two NVidia Shields, a couple of Kodi boxes, a Fire Stick, and at least two Roku's sitting in my electronics graveyard.

Now? I've got two Apple TVs in use. And they work brilliantly. Except for a banner for current shows on their TV service (I don't subscribe), it never tries to sell me anything. I use Infuse for my media from my NAS. No lags, no stutter... everything just worked. Immediately. in Full 4K, HDR, Dolby Atmos/TrueHd/etc..

They're so good, I'll look at the next gen when it comes out. But there'd have to be a pretty compelling reason to upgrade.

It's pretty nice hardware. If it would run Linux well, and you didn't need x86 compatibility, it would be reasonable. I've used both, I far prefer Linux. KDE delivers much better on the promise of NeXTStep than does OSX.

I put OpenCore Patcher on a Mac Book from 2011 a few days ago.
Runs smooth and fine, and is 111 times better than Windows 11 on my Acer.

Java 26 on it, Android Studi, most recent Dart and Flutter, and Xcode compatible to it, did not check which version it is. Newest Chrome browser, too.

it still does not release diagrams and information for people to repair easily.

YOu keep biting that apple though.