Apple Details Lion Purchase Process for Business and Education

[acslater017]

We should have gotten a clue from the name that apple gave to this release.

It's not "MAC OSX" Lion, now it's only "OSX" Lion.

First, they dropped "computer" from their name, demoted the Mac to being another appliance and now they killed the "Mac" in their OS. I don't want to go into crazy speculations, but it doesn't look good looking into the future.

I think you're looking too deeply into it. Even as the iPhone was getting ready, they started re-inserting the word "Mac" into all of their Mac product names. iBook = MacBook, PowerBook = MacBook Pro, etc.

The Lion "About This Mac" pane still refers to it as Mac OS X.

It's just a matter of official name, short name, nickname etc. In their videos, they simply refer to it as "Lion". I mean not everyone calls is "Microsoft Windows XP". More often just "Windows XP" or simply "XP".

 

[Tower-Union]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/8J2)

If you are expecting to run Lion on that same machine then that is wishful thinking on your part. Leopard was the last version of OS X to support PowerPC.

Are you for real? Are you telling us the you are too damn cheap to pay 30 or 60 (30+30) bucks for a new version of OS X? Really?

Again another assumption. No that machine is happily playing as a media server now. Money isn't the option. Not everyone throws money away on pointless and needless upgrades. Which is what Lion is. Some people actually treat their Mac's as tools Lion will not improve my productivity, so no i'm not going to waste money on features that are included for the thick and lazy.

Yeah! His performa 5200 runs just fine and OS 8 is all he needs to get online and bitch about software he doesn't want in the first place! Now get off his lawn you damn kids!

 

[acslater017]

Still comes off as an arrogant and shambolic palaver to me.

I don't think it's about digital distribution being the future as much as it's about forcing everyone to have an iTunes account.

That, and reducing piracy. Come on, who hasn't bought a single OS X CD and let their friend "borrow" it? Apple's been extremely lenient and generous in the past on this - no serial numbers, no registration required...

Despite its flaws, I think this method will go a long way towards encouraging people to obtain legit software. That, and it somehow allows them to price it at $30...

 

[840quadra]

Never mind what "should" happen. Apple is not performing a public service. If you don't find the upgrade worthy enough for your system, then don't upgrade. That's entirely your choice, but that choice INCLUDES the risk that you may get left behind next time.

Personally, I think it's high-time Apple and Microsoft BOTH start leaving users that refuse to upgrade behind. They've held the rest of the world back for a long time.

Apple already leaves users of old software and hardware behind quite quick as it is. They really don't need to speed up the forced obsolescence cycle, it is a bit too quick for many people's taste as it is.

 

[Eidorian]

XCode was definitely a sign of thing to come. It is rather annoying to get dragged alongside.

 

[Soy Cowboy]

The price is essentially $30 dollars. Companies take off a penny to trick people into thinking the price is cheaper than it is. When people see $29.99, they think twenty something dollars. I think it would be more accurate for sites to report the price as $30 as that gives readers a better sense of the real price.

Sorry, pet peeve.

 

[benthewraith]

The price is essentially $30 dollars. Companies take off a penny to trick people into thinking the price is cheaper than it is. When people see $29.99, they think twenty something dollars. I think it would be more accurate for sites to report the price as $30 as that gives readers a better sense of the real price.

Sorry, pet peeve.

True story, studies actually prove this is effective.

 

[Yamcha]

The price is essentially $30 dollars. Companies take off a penny to trick people into thinking the price is cheaper than it is. When people see $29.99, they think twenty something dollars. I think it would be more accurate for sites to report the price as $30 as that gives readers a better sense of the real price.

Sorry, pet peeve.

Yeah that is true.

 

[Cougarcat]

The price is essentially $30 dollars. Companies take off a penny to trick people into thinking the price is cheaper than it is. When people see $29.99, they think twenty something dollars.

Indeed, this is why most (all?) Apple accessory prices end in a "9."

Lion would have probably been $29 again if it weren't for the app store, where prices have to end in ".99."

 

[alent1234]

Some people don't upgrade EVERY release. They upgrade every other release, or when they feel the features apply enough to them to warrant an upgrade.

I'm set, as I run 10.6. But I know a number of folks who are going to be left behind by Apple's plan.

apple will just sell them a new Mac, the real profit maker for them

 

[DannySmurf]

Apple already leaves users of old software and hardware behind quite quick as it is. They really don't need to speed up the forced obsolescence cycle, it is a bit too quick for many people's taste as it is.

Hardware obsolescence isn't particularly quick, I think. When Lion is released, most machines up to 5 years old will be able to run it without hacking.

On the software side, I'd argue that Apple is making this better, not worse. The upgrades are not coming significantly faster than they have before (Snow Leopard was released 22 months after Leopard; Lion will be released 21 or 22 months after Snow Leopard). But, they've been getting cheaper.

I paid $130 for the Leopard upgrade, $30 for the Snow Leopard upgrade, and now I'm going to pay $30 for the Lion upgrade, but with the added benefit that I can legally put it on every Mac I own. This is NOT a raw deal.

So now you have to download the new OS instead of buying a CD/DVD. If that's the price to pay for drastically cheaper upgrades (at roughly the same interval as before), so be it.

 

[cirus]

I wonder if Apple will offer fee SL via the web to Tiger and Lion users?

I'm not in need myself. But there seems to be a few people affected by this. It is a small minority though because the statistics show SL has been adopted by a large majority of Mac users which is impressive. In the Windows world it is 25% W7, 25% XP and the rest use other versions. I only used it occasionally so I can compare but I guess XP was pretty popular for many Windows users.

Anyway Apple can't expect to make sales of SL now with Lion out for $29. So why not let people download it if necessary or release an App Store for Tiger and Leopard that can download one thing: Lion.

Some hasn't looked at wikipedia in a long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows
~ 53% worldwide is XP, 25% is 7, Vista is 10%. That is of the total operating system usage worldwide (windows is 88%).
So in reality of windows users, 60% use XP, 28% use 7, and 11.4% use vista. 50% DO NOT use other versions. It works out to ~2%.

 

[yadmonkey]

Hardware obsolescence isn't particularly quick, I think. When Lion is released, most machines up to 5 years old will be able to run it without hacking.

On the software side, I'd argue that Apple is making this better, not worse. The upgrades are not coming significantly faster than they have before (Snow Leopard was released 22 months after Leopard; Lion will be released 21 or 22 months after Snow Leopard). But, they've been getting cheaper.

I paid $130 for the Leopard upgrade, $30 for the Snow Leopard upgrade, and now I'm going to pay $30 for the Lion upgrade, but with the added benefit that I can legally put it on every Mac I own. This is NOT a raw deal.

So now you have to download the new OS instead of buying a CD/DVD. If that's the price to pay for drastically cheaper upgrades (at roughly the same interval as before), so be it.

I'm trying to keep an open mind and reserve final judgement for when this all actually shakes out, but for now my gut says that I'd rather pay more for a DVD.

I like clean installs. Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but doing a clean install of 10.6 and then upgrading to 10.7 through an application just seems less clean. Add the third step for 10.7 server and it gets more cumbersome.

And there are a ton of users still out there on 10.5 who will want to upgrade at some point and their apparent upgrade path is truly bizarre.

 

[Kar98]

I still don't quite understand how Apple expects Leopard and earlier users to upgrade to Lion if they only do digital delivery via Mac App Store. Are they still going to sell Snow Leopard DVDs, so you upgrade twice? That would be very un-apple like.

Digital only delivery of the OS: it's how I upgraded my mini to Leopard and later Snow Leopard. No physical disc was involved after the Tiger discs that came with it. I don't even know where they are.

 

[Xenomorph]

Digital only delivery of the OS: it's how I upgraded my mini to Leopard and later Snow Leopard. No physical disc was involved after the Tiger discs that came with it. I don't even know where they are.

It doesn't matter how you upgraded in the past, Apple has stated that you can only download Mac OS X 10.7 from 10.6.

What about the 10.5 or even 10.4 users then?

 

[109582]

What about those users that have 2 or 3 macs at home? Should they download Lion three times?

 

[DannySmurf]

I'm trying to keep an open mind and reserve final judgement for when this all actually shakes out, but for now my gut says that I'd rather pay more for a DVD.

I like clean installs. Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but doing a clean install of 10.6 and then upgrading to 10.7 through an application just seems less clean. Add the third step for 10.7 server and it gets more cumbersome.

And there are a ton of users still out there on 10.5 who will want to upgrade at some point and their apparent upgrade path is truly bizarre.

You can do a clean install of 10.7 now if you want to. As others have said (repeatedly), it's a simple matter to create a DVD or bootable USB stick from the download. There's no evidence that that is going to change with the final release.

As for 10.5 - Apple may simple not be interested in catering to those users. It's nothing personal. The cost of creating and distributing media to allow these people to upgrade is probably not worth the potential (their upgrade intent is questionable if they're still on a 4-year-old operating system) revenue to be gained.

 

[DannySmurf]

What about those users that have 2 or 3 macs at home? Should they download Lion three times?

They can. Or, as enough people have said now, they can download once and create bootable media from what they've downloaded.

 

[Cougarcat]

It doesn't matter how you upgraded in the past, Apple has stated that you can only download Mac OS X 10.7 from 10.6.

What about the 10.5 or even 10.4 users then?

They can buy SL and Lion for $60. Apple will have to offer some sort of a solution after they stop selling SL. Maybe they will update the Mac Box Set with Lion media.

 

[Kar98]

It doesn't matter how you upgraded in the past, Apple has stated that you can only download Mac OS X 10.7 from 10.6.

What about the 10.5 or even 10.4 users then?

What about them? The number of people that use 10.4 and 10.5 on their machines AND would/could upgrade to 10.7 has to be insignificant at this point in time for various reasons.

 

[yadmonkey]

As for 10.5 - Apple may simple not be interested in catering to those users. It's nothing personal. The cost of creating and distributing media to allow these people to upgrade is probably not worth the potential (their upgrade intent is questionable if they're still on a 4-year-old operating system) revenue to be gained.

How do you know people's upgrade intent? 10.5 may be nearing 4 years old, but 10.6 hasn't even been out for two years. There are a ton of Macs still running 10.5 and whether or not they intend to upgrade now, I have a feeling that iCloud services and the Mac App Store will eventually push a lot of them in that direction. 10.7 will offer a lot more temptation to 10.5 users than 10.6 ever did.

 

[grahamperrin]

Apple Software Collection (Mac OS, iLife, and iWork)

That price drop on Lion Server is enormous. I can't get over it.

Even more impressive than the cost of Server:

"… the Apple Software Collection, which consists of Mac OS, iLife, and iWork, with pricing starting at $39 per license for an order quantity of 25 licenses. …"

I don't expect pricing to appear in the UK Apple Store for Education any time soon but I'm sure it'll be equally appealing.

 

[grahamperrin]

download once, install to many

ten macs

Download once. Use Apple Remote Desktop to run the Lion installer on multiple Macs.

 

[azentropy]

Apple's distribution plans for Lion are just unacceptable. My primary workstation is a MacBook owned by the company, but the App Store account on the system is my own. Regardless of the difficulty that alone brings, a downloadable-only distribution means I don't have a bootable disk for emergency repairs... I don't have a bootable DVD with hardware diagnostics...

What are you using now as your bootable DVD with hardware diagnostics and emergency repairs and how does upgrading your MacBook change that? I must have missed the part about Apple coming and taking the DVD's you already have if you upgrade...

 

[winston1236]

no

Most users who didn't upgrade to snow leopard probably won't upgrade to lion either, so this is probably not really an issue for apple. For those still running leopard, you're already one release behind, so upgrading to snow leopard now will be exciting for those people.

Wrong. I skipped snow leopard to wait for lion because I didn't really see a need for the upgrade. I bought snow leopard a few days ago to get lion.