Apple Starts Selling $69 OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive

[MacRumors]

Apple has started selling the OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive, intended for users without a broadband connection.

As noted by 9to5Mac, the USB thumb drive is available for sale on Apple's online store for $69.00. Apple had pre-announced that they would be selling the USB stick back in July. The USB stick offers the full OS X Lion installation without any need to download it over the internet:

OS X Lion is available on a USB thumb drive for installation without the need for a broadband Internet connection. Just plug the drive into your USB port and follow the instructions to install. OS X Lion is also available for a lower price as a digital download from the Mac App Store.

Earlier this month, Apple released a downloadable utility that would let users create a Lion recovery partition. That partition, however, still required you to download Lion from Apple's servers.

At $69.00, this USB option costs $39.01 more than the corresponding digital version through the Mac App Store. OS X Lion also remains available on the Mac App Store for $29.99.

Article Link: Apple Starts Selling $69 OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive

 

[brandscill]

Sorry Apple but this has to be the biggest joke ever. £55 for a thumb drive with lion on it!

 

[isoMorpheus]

Can this drive be erased to be used as an empty drive?

 

[JS77]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

Prepare to get downvoted by the apple defence force...

 

[chrono1081]

No clue why they are selling it for so much, but at least they give users an option to make their own install off of their own thumb drive for free.

 

[nicklad]

Sorry Apple but this has to be the biggest joke ever. £55 for a thumb drive with lion on it!

So, erm, don't buy one and make your own if you want one. It's trivial to do.

 

[Ice-Cube]

Can't wait to get my hands on these.

 

[rodpascoe]

Hmmm

Sorry Apple but this has to be the biggest joke ever. £55 for a thumb drive with lion on it!

Not sure I agree.

For someone with no technical savvy (unlike probably the readers of this site) this would be a godsend.

The price is to encourage people to download rather than buy it.

We've been used to paying hundreds for OSX in the past, the price is still keen for an operating system as sophisticated as OSX.

 

[Jerome Morrow]

Sorry Apple but this has to be the biggest joke ever. £55 for a thumb drive with lion on it!

There is no option - you whine, there is an option - you whine. It's a win win huh?

 

[MacGeek1993]

Surely producing those thumb drives doesn't cost THAT much. I think a fair price for this USB key is around $49.

 

[hamshi]

No clue why they are selling it for so much, but at least they give users an option to make their own install off of their own thumb drive for free.

there selling it for so much because this is primarily aimed at Leopard users who before this needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard (~$35) then buy Lion of the AppStore. For those select few this has been the only way since about 2 weeks before Lion was launched

Can this drive be erased to be used as an empty drive?

this question has been around for a while with the macbook air USB's. ive always wanted to do it but apparently they have almost no, or none at all, writing capability. maybe these will be different but its unlikely

 

[alexph]

naughty naughty Apple - that seems a load way too much - you can make your own for less than £30

 

[NOV]

why usb and not on DVD?

 

[osxhero]

Pardon me if I say I think this very lame. Nearly three times the cost to be a $10 drive, and the recovery limitation? Why? Software is software. This is a fanboy toy if there ever was on. Why not start selling concert t-shirts for $30?

 

[usptact]

They should have done that from the very beginning. Even prior their fancy way of downloading from AppStore.

 

[gr8tfly]

I'm not trying to be an Apple apologist, but I would point out that a similarly designed drive (Transcend White 8GB) goes for $27 retail at Amazon. Add in the Apple branding factor, and you're well within shooting range of Apple's $69 pricing.

C'est la vie...

 

[brandscill]

There is no option - you whine, there is an option - you whine. It's a win win huh?

Basically they've charged someone £35 extra because they have a poor broadband connection, something that is all to common in the rural parts of the UK. I just think the markup is to high.

I myself managed to download the update as I luckily live in a town, yet my friend who wanted it in a nearby village had to try and download it on his 256kbps connection, needless to say it took forever.

 

[osxhero]

There is no option - you whine, there is an option - you whine. It's a win win huh?

Hurray for tyranny!

 

[chrono1081]

there selling it for so much because this is primarily aimed at Leopard users who before this needed to upgrade to Snow Leopard (~$35) then buy Lion of the AppStore. For those select few this has been the only way since about 2 weeks before Lion was launched

Makes sense. Thats a cheap price then seeing how as its a two OS leap.

 

[hamshi]

why usb and not on DVD?

because Apple have been on a mission to kill the optical drive for over a decade

 

[Dmac77]

why usb and not on DVD?

1) Jobs hates optical media, and is on a crusade to kill it (see recent mini update, refusal to add Blu-Ray, etc.)

2) Flash based media is much faster and much more resilient than optical media (ever had a disk rendered unreadable by scratches? It especially sucks if you don't have a backup)

-Don

 

[Sankersizzle]

The price is ridiculous, we can all agree on that, but it is a particularly fetching USB stick if it looks like it does in those pictures up there. I might pick one up just for the stick, lol.

 

[World Citizen]

Guys,

this is just a normal price...

Keep in mind there has to be employees selling it, and an distribution channel.. Cost to create and design it, the box, License .. etc etc...

AND they have to ship it...

Remove to cost of Lion an you come close to what it should cost...

Come on guys keep it real!!!!

 

[dr Dunkel]

Why not Thunderbolt, I thaugt USB was dead...

 

[World Citizen]

Why not Thunderbolt, I thaugt USB was dead...

They would have to make an extra connector for daisy chaining.. and the cost would be abnormal...