Apple Starts Selling $69 OS X Lion USB Thumb Drive

[Hayduke60]

From the apple store,

"When you install OS X Lion using the USB thumb drive, you will not be able to reinstall OS X Lion from Lion Recovery. You will need to use the USB thumb drive to reinstall OS X Lion."

So if I use the thumb drive, I get no recovery partition? This is not the same build as the download?

Also, seems I can install this on all apple computers in my control. So one thumb drive for the two in my house? A boon for me and mine with our 3g innernets.

 

[KnightWRX]

Considering the numbers of people still running Tiger on an Intel C2D machine I could probably count on one hand, and even then wouldn't be interested in upgrading to Lion anyway, I'm not wrong.

Wait, why did Leopard suddenly disappear from the equation ? Your first post said Tiger and Leopard.

Is it because ... *gasp* you were plainly wrong ?

 

[dlimes13]

Not sure if this was mentioned, but here's why I might want it:

Sure, you can make your own flash drive installer from the downloadable version of Lion, but that build is 11A511. It'll only work on everything except the new Mini's and Air's (and Mac Pro when they do come out and so on). Basically May 2011 and back.

What about the Mac Mini and MacBook Air? On Apple's site it states nothing about specific Macs, including the 2011 Mac Mini and MBA. Thus, it will install either version you need since the Mini is 11A2061 and Air is 11A2063. No build hassle since they are all on there. At least I think that's how it's going to work. Unless there's a universal build that'll work with the new Mini and Air.

I have made my own flash drive for my '11 MBP, but I refused to buy a Mini (or Air for that matter) until I could do the same on either one. Now I may get my Mac Mini after all if I can do a clean, offline install like most IT people do.

 

[Lammergeier]

Not as you think

Guys, most of you are missing something here. The apple store says you need Snow Leopard for this to work. According to Apple you CANNOT upgrade from Leopard to Lion with this. Show me where on apples website it says you can. OS X v10.6.6 or later only.

 

[KnightWRX]

Guys, most of you are missing something here. The apple store says you need Snow Leopard for this to work. According to Apple you CANNOT upgrade from Leopard to Lion with this. Show me where on apples website it says you can. OS X v10.6.6 or later only.

That's probably just a copy/paste of the requirements from the MAS. You can install Lion on a blank disk, even with the MAS version, so it stands to reason this will install over Leopard just fine.

 

[Lammergeier]

That's probably just a copy/paste of the requirements from the MAS. You can install Lion on a blank disk, even with the MAS version, so it stands to reason this will install over Leopard just fine.

Do apple usually make these sort of mistakes?

 

[yegon]

If this was Windows it'd be a greater issue for me as I generally do a fresh re-install once a year, sometimes sooner.

Fairly new to macs in the scheme of things (2006), but one of the things I love is the very rare need to reinstall (in my case anyway). In fact, I can only recall actually performing a complete reinstall once, Snow Leopard on my '08 MBP, simply because that was itself a migration from my previous 06 white MB, and Tiger->Leopard. Largely psychological in hindsight, but I wanted a fresh install.

Now I keep multiple Time Machine backups, one offsite, so barring catastrophe it's unlikely I'll ever re-install a fresh Lion.

That said, I bought a spanky 13" MBA a month ago, which really ought to have come with one of these as part of the package, ala the 2010 MBA's.

 

[KnightWRX]

Do apple usually make these sort of mistakes?

On their website ? A few times.

 

[Lammergeier]

On their website ? A few times.

I'd prefer confirmation from apple that this does work from Leopard. Nothing to suggest this on their website.

 

[Lammergeier]

Maybe apple STILL expects users to buy Snow Leopard AND this..

 

[KnightWRX]

I'd prefer confirmation from apple that this does work from Leopard. Nothing to suggest this on their website.

I doubt we'll get such a confirmation from Apple. You'll just have to wait for users here to get their hands on it and confirm it unofficially or for Apple to fix the requirements.

I want to get a content list of that USB key and know when it's going to be available in stores.

 

[Lammergeier]

I doubt we'll get such a confirmation from Apple. You'll just have to wait for users here to get their hands on it and confirm it unofficially or for Apple to fix the requirements.

I want to get a content list of that USB key and know when it's going to be available in stores.

Thanks for your input. I just have a funny feeling this is purely for Snow Leopard users to by-pass the App Store download.
I also think it's very wrong for Apple to not make it clear if this works from Leopard only.
A lot of people will want to know.

 

[linux2mac]

If this was Windows it'd be a greater issue for me as I generally do a fresh re-install once a year, sometimes sooner.

I don't miss those days. Its nice to have true package management with Linux/OSX.

 

[Atlantico]

Yes, I am seriously considering paying an extra 40$ to not sign up to the Mac App Store. A 50$ gift card and trash mail account still gives them their statistic. If I can avoid it, the better. If this is available at the Apple Store and has XCode 4.1 on it, I'm not bothering to even touch the MAS and Apple can go get their damn fake statistics elsewhere, I will not participate in making that online heap relevant.

I hate it when stuff is forced down my throat and I don't particularly care about the 40$.

Same here, I don't want the MAS.

 

[jdechko]

For the record, colinwil and MacFanJeff, I concur.

Sorry, my brain isn't working well today.

 

[nofear1az]

Ok, I accept that Lion has a few more bits and bobs than a standard Service Pack (in comparison to the MS ones). The biggest upgrade is obviously the new API's, which I do agree are very useful. But from a users perspective, not a lot has changed. If anything its slowed down the OS, and has added a few features that weren't really needed or wanted. Launchpad for one seems fairly useless in its current iteration, hopefully that'll change with future updates.

My main gripe was that Apple lists 250 new features. What they don't tell you is that those 250 new features include silly little things like widening the spotlight search bar. Hardly a new feature, I'm sure you'd agree.

Don't get me wrong. I like Lion, but it does feel very minor (again from a user/frontend perspective) compared to previous updates.

Could you be any more grumpier? jeesh...

I personally think Lion is the best OS-X version out to date. I personally like LaunchPad, Spaces, MissionControl, and AirDrop. Very usuable features to me. Those features alone make me not want to ever go back to Snow Leaopard again.

It is faster than Snow Leopard. Why do you say it is slower?

I upgraded my mom's mac mini from Snow Leopard to Lion and she instantly loved the new features and she's in her 70's. I was reluctant at first to upgrade her and gave in to find out she likes it even better than before.

Maybe your issue is you just don't like change or don't like learning/understanding new gestures. Spend time with it, learn it, and stop being a whiner.

 

[Manderby]

Buying.

1. It's a parachute when everything else fails. By my expeirence, 1 out of 10 machines will end up being un-recoverable sometime during the five year lifespan and need to be freshly installed.

2. It's fast and reliable. Downloading is not. Can't afford to wait and hope.

3. It's unrelated to the App Store or any Apple identification.

4. It just feels wrong to not have the system somewhere in a safe place. I still have all of them since 9 and had owned many before. I'm a technical person, I need this.

5. And for those thinking that a USB stick for 5 bucks will do just fine: There are transfer rates you know. And some designs may break easily. This is not a toy where you store some pictures of your dog, this must me a reliable drive.

Summing all that up, the price is worth it. Just the time I would spend while not having this stick while installing would cost more than double the price of what this little thingy costs.

 

[Mistrblank]

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

How trivial. I've seen the guides that say how to do it with the older OS X CDs. That was not "trivial" work, it was work and following a lot of directions.

Trivial is, I stick the USB target drive into my system and click one or two OK buttons.

 

[repeters]

I don't know about that

The USB drive you make using the instructions I linked has all the files you need to install Lion without downloading any more files from the internet. That's why it needs a 4GB minimum USB key or 4.7GB DVD-R.

OK. Then why, when I used the "home brew" flash drive, did my 2010 MacBook Air download more files during the installation?

 

[cvaldes]

Buying.

1. It's a parachute when everything else fails. By my expeirence, 1 out of 10 machines will end up being un-recoverable sometime during the five year lifespan and need to be freshly installed.

2. It's fast and reliable. Downloading is not. Can't afford to wait and hope.

3. It's unrelated to the App Store or any Apple identification.

4. It just feels wrong to not have the system somewhere in a safe place. I still have all of them since 9 and had owned many before. I'm a technical person, I need this.

5. And for those thinking that a USB stick for 5 bucks will do just fine: There are transfer rates you know. And some designs may break easily. This is not a toy where you store some pictures of your dog, this must me a reliable drive.

Summing all that up, the price is worth it. Just the time I would spend while not having this stick while installing would cost more than double the price of what this little thingy costs.

Not to dissuade you from buying the Lion USB thumb drive, but I burned an installation DVD from the downloaded image following instructions I found on the Internet: very simple.

I used the disc to install completely new installations on two systems; they went flawlessly. I tossed the DVD into a cabinet, with the rest of my previous OS X installation discs. I'll probably never use it again, but it's nice to know it's on a piece of $0.50 physical media.

As far as I can tell, you don't actually need Snow Leopard to install Lion. You just need Snow Leopard and the App Store so you can buy and download it (plus burn it to physical media). My two Lion installations were to freshly wiped drives with no previous version of OS X.

 

[repeters]

Was the nternet accessed?

Not to dissuade you from buying the Lion USB thumb drive, but I burned an installation DVD from the downloaded image following instructions I found on the Internet: very simple.

I used the disc to install completely new installations on two systems; they went flawlessly. I tossed the DVD into a cabinet, with the rest of my previous OS X installation discs. I'll probably never use it again, but it's nice to know it's on a piece of $0.50 physical media.

As far as I can tell, you don't actually need Snow Leopard to install Lion. You just need Snow Leopard and the App Store so you can buy and download it (plus burn it to physical media). My two Lion installations were to freshly wiped drives with no previous version of OS X.

Did your computer access the internet to download more files? My 2010 MacBook Air did.

 

[cvaldes]

Nah, I don't recall anything like that.

Both booted directly from the installation DVD. Neither one is hard wired to my local network, they need to connect via password-protected WiFi. That needs to be reconfigured on a newly-installed system (select network, enter WPA2 password).

I don't have any printers connected to either computer, maybe your Mac was downloading printer drivers?

 

[kingtj]

Has anyone booted from one of these yet?

I'm curious what the USB stick from Apple actually does upon boot, vs. the "roll your own USB boot drive" solutions out there?

When I downloaded Lion and followed the steps to make a bootable Lion USB stick, it works great -- but the initial screen it boots to is a bit misleading. Instead of offering a selection to "Install OS X Lion", it only offers a choice worded differently (forget now exactly what it says, but something along the lines of "Upgrade OS X" -- making it unclear that the option can actually be used to do a full installation to a blank hard drive, etc.)

I figured that was because Apple never really intended you to make a bootable USB drive out of the extracted image file the way people are doing it. Does the official one from Apple present a different initial menu screen?

 

[2MorroW]

Not to dissuade you from buying the Lion USB thumb drive, but I burned an installation DVD from the downloaded image following instructions I found on the Internet: very simple.


As far as I can tell, you don't actually need Snow Leopard to install Lion. You just need Snow Leopard and the App Store so you can buy and download it (plus burn it to physical media). My two Lion installations were to freshly wiped drives with no previous version of OS X.

I have Leopard on 2 systems. Can I -
1) Borrow a friends Mac with SL and download Lion to burn on Flash Drive?
2) If YES, then can that work for Leapord or I still need SL for the App version?
3) If YES, then can I upgrade on both Macs? Or I need 2 separate ($29) licenses?
4) If NO, then I understand the Apple Flash Drive ($69) will definitely upgrade from Leopard. Again, same question - can I use the stick on 2 Macs?

I am not trying to be cheap, just dont want to overspend if there is a way around it.

 

[rufwork]

That made no sense. Read my above post and try again.

I guess he should have said, "If Lion is a minor update, what did you call Vista?"

You can be underwhelmed, but it's still a major update. Rosetta's gone. iOS is in. Resume, autosave, fullscreen, that wack screen swiping, extra gestures, an a remarkably retooled Expose seem to make Lion major version worthy.

And heck, if Apple wants to put Breakout back in as an Easter Egg and call that 10.8, they can. Who cares? It's semantics, sure, but the point is that if you're on 10.5, you can't get these new features without the USB or buying Snow Leopard too. I'm glad to hear you can apparently grab a USB and be done. And it's still cheaper than OS X used to be and Windows is now. /shrug

Edit: Shoulda read page 3 first:

That's probably just a copy/paste of the requirements from the MAS. You can install Lion on a blank disk, even with the MAS version, so it stands to reason this will install over Leopard just fine.

I'd prefer confirmation from apple that this does work from Leopard. Nothing to suggest this on their website.

Thanks for your input. I just have a funny feeling this is purely for Snow Leopard users to by-pass the App Store download.
I also think it's very wrong for Apple to not make it clear if this works from Leopard only.
A lot of people will want to know.

Not to dissuade you from buying the Lion USB thumb drive, but I burned an installation DVD from the downloaded image following instructions I found on the Internet: very simple.

I used the disc to install completely new installations on two systems; they went flawlessly. I tossed the DVD into a cabinet, with the rest of my previous OS X installation discs. I'll probably never use it again, but it's nice to know it's on a piece of $0.50 physical media.

As far as I can tell, you don't actually need Snow Leopard to install Lion. You just need Snow Leopard and the App Store so you can buy and download it (plus burn it to physical media). My two Lion installations were to freshly wiped drives with no previous version of OS X.

Sheesh. The confusion is very unApple by reputation, but unfortunately very Apple-like in practice. I wonder if saying that 10.6.6 is required that they mean your computer has to be able to run 10.6.6 to install Lion? That is, if your hardware can't handle 10.6.6, it can't handle Lion either, and vice versa. I've got a Core 2 Duo mini on 10.5 waiting to find out...