I got my bargain Intel 2 Duo Core Imac from eBay. I got an upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard. I got the vertical lines on my display fixed by AppleCare free of charge (despite the replacement campaign ending in June 2010). So I'm nearly good to go. (And very happy) I have a question for the community. Should I... (a) upgrade to Lion to get the latest Xcode? (b) stick with Snow Leopard and use the best Xcode I can get with that? The premise behind my question is that I've seen reports that Lion is not as fast as Snow Leopard. There are other gripes I've read.... but I also realise that (as well as the improved Xcode I could use) Lion has many other new features. Just wondered which you'd recommend? Cheers.

Hi @krumike, Welcome to Buzztouch! I'm running Snow Leopard on Mac mini, and the latest Xcode from Apple. Absolutely no issues! I'd stick with Snow Leopard. Thanks, Mark

Alot of the new Lion features are gesture based, so if you were using a macbook pro, or if you plan on getting a touchpad for your iMac, then I would upgrade. Otherwise, I haven't seem much difference either way.

Stick with Snow Leopard and XCode 4. I've been trying to update a few Macs to Lion and run into all kinds of issues (mostly with Flash/Chrome/YouTube) Your Imac may not even be upgradable to Lion which could be why they dumped it on the bay. I've got a Snow Leopard 10.6.8 running both XCODE 3.2 and the latest XCODE you can download from Apple Deveoper which is 4.2 i believe. I'm not on that system now but can give you more detailed specs if you need them. and don't forget about Hackintosh kids- i've built Macs on Intel 915, 945, 965 and a few i3/i5 boards

Agreed with the posts above. Lion is very buggy, and I've had xcode crash many times with Lion. With SL its smooth sailing.

Many thanks for the replies. Seems conclusive. Any differing opinions?

Some useful info for anyone following a similar path... I initially registered as an Apple Developer (free) and thought I'd join the iOS Dev Program when I was ready to submit to the App Store. But could only use Xcode 3 at this level. I could test on the simulator but not on a real device. To test on a device I registered as iOS Dev (and paid $99 equiv in GBP) and got Xcode 4.2 for Snow Leopard with iOS SDK 5.0 However, my iPhone 4 already has iOS 5.1 and cannot be used for testing with this setup. I cannot restore iOS 5.0 on the iPhone 4. So the only way from here (as I see it), if I want to test on a device and submit to the App Store, is to upgrade to Lion with Xcode 4.3 and iOS SDK 5.1 OR buy another iPhone that still has iOS 5.0 or below. For those of you still on Snow Leopard... do you test on iPhones running iOS 5.0 or below? Is this the way you see it too? I will hold back taking the plunge upgrading to Lion until I see a few responses here. I value your advice. :)

Anyone? ;)