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Apple Targeting Mac App Store as 'Preferred' Mac OS X Lion Distribution Mechanism

KnightWRX said:
I said it in the other thread : All for a download version of OS X Lion, but it should not be through the app store like the current DP. Checkout should provide you with a disc image that you burn to your own DVD/USB Thumb drive.

It's how Linux distributions have been doing it for the last 10 years.

Or if it really must be through the app store, provide a small disc image download that when booted off of, just provides an interface to sign-in to the App Store and install Lion, like RedHat was doing in 1996 with its "NetInstall" floppies that were just an installer than fetched its media over FTP or NFS.
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i'll have no problem with it being in the App store, so long as disc backups will be allowed (and easy to accomplish).

Currently, 0% of app store products come with the option to make a physical backup. sure there's ways to do it, pretty easily in fact, but no apps are sold with this in mind because there's never been an app that'd need this feature before.

I personally wouldn't buy Lion from the App Store with the current store's setup, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else either.
 
I don't mind this as much as the requirement to be logged into your Apple account in order to use free app's from the App Store. Safe to say that's obnoxious.
 
KnightWRX said:
I said it in the other thread : All for a download version of OS X Lion, but it should not be through the app store like the current DP. Checkout should provide you with a disc image that you burn to your own DVD/USB Thumb drive.
Click to expand...

You can already make a bootable USB thumb drive/DVD/external HD partition with Lion. You just have to use "Show Package Contents" to access the .dmg. Hopefully Apple will make a more user-friendly way of making a hard backup, perhaps through the installer itself.

To the guy who asked about software updates: They are still done through Software Update. OS updates will never be downloaded on the App Store (except, perhaps if you want to re-image your install with the latest point release you'd be redownload it.)

One thing that concerns me is educational pricing. There is no mechanism for edu discounts on the App store currently. That may force me to go the DVD route, if Lion turns out to be a full $129 release with an edu version for $69.

Other than that, I couldn't care less whether I get the Lion dmg either via apple.com or the app store.
 
This is great, with Snow Leopard I couldn't buy it for weeks as they were constantly "out of stock" in the shops.

But how do you boot from a disk image without a disk???
 
baryon said:
But how do you boot from a disk image without a disk???
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Restore it to an external (but you do not have to do this to install Lion. The installer will install some things while in SL, then restart and finish the installation).
 
Cougarcat said:
You can already make a bootable USB thumb drive/DVD/external HD partition with Lion. You just have to use "Show Package Contents" to access the .dmg. Hopefully Apple will make a more user-friendly way of making a hard backup, perhaps through the installer itself.
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Everything I heard said this image is not bootable nor usuable as a recovery media/installation media.
 
Lesser Evets said:
... plain, brown rapper.
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Don't be racist... what is wrong with other color rappers?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

I for one will opt for the hard media unless I can download the image and burn it. I'd want to start with a completely fresh install.
 
Cougarcat said:
One thing that concerns me is educational pricing.
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That's something about the App Store I've been keeping an eye on since the beginning. I'm developing some educational games that I want to distribute freely to schools, and only charge for the home version. It'd be nice if the App Store could distinguish between different types of customers.
 
I don't like this at all.

I mean, yeah, hopefully they will distribute Mac OS X Lion on disc in retail stores but I like to have physical copies of my software, rather than a file on my computer. The chance of data corruption is far less likely, depending on how well you take care of your discs.

Also, I'm estimating that Mac OS X Lion will be a pretty large file. Maybe 4gb? Not everyone has broadband, some people are still on dial-up. Can you imagine how long it would take downloading a 4gb file over 56k?

Also, how will they distribute the download? Will the file be an ISO or DMG file? How do you install it from that file?
 
Sad

MrWinters said:
In 3 years there will be no "PREFERRED" anything with Macs. Everything that is installed on Mac will come from the App Store. It WILL BE the EXCLUSIVE method of loading ANYTHING on Macs. OS X will become exactly like iOS and ALL of you will just happily accept it. I expect to see statements on Macrumors like "Oh how wonderful it is that Steve is looking after us and protecting us from the evil world of Malware that those crappy PC's get. Thanks Steve for looking out for us and our elegant, delicious, sexy, and magical devices"......
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Pretty much...
 
Rather have a disk

While I do enjoy downloading apps from the app store since I get the immediacy of not having to drive to the mall, find a parking space, go to the Apple store and then having to drive back home, I do not like the idea of downloading an entire OS over the Internet. The size of the file would mean several hours waiting.

I rather just have a DVD that I can reuse if something goes wrong.
 
MacGeek1993 said:
Also, how will they distribute the download? Will the file be an ISO or DMG file? How do you install it from that file?
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I don't think it will change from the developer preview. Download an installer, double click, run and restart. (As I said above, hopefully with the added ability to make a hard backup without Disk Utility.)

KnightWRX said:
Everything I heard said this image is not bootable nor usuable as a recovery media/installation media.
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It's bootable (the, ahem, pirated versions of Lion are distributed as dmgs.)
 
Come on Apple, that's just being cheap. Great, so let the user download the image and then what? Now they have to burn it to a DVD (probably a double-layer DVD too, which are a lot more expensive than a regular single-layer DVD). I love the App Store concept, but not for OS releases like this. And no way in hell am I using some "upgrade" option instead of a clean install.

Of course this is assuming it even does download it as an image file that could be burned to optical media. If not, then that would be even worse. I guess being able to run it off of a flash drive would be pretty awesome though, but somehow I don't see that happening either. In any case, I hope this doesn't catch on.
 
KnightWRX said:
That doesn't mean the App Store version is. Only that the "pirated" versions are. They could have been made bootable after the fact.
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Quite true, I'm pretty sure it was. But at least it's possible somehow.

I don't see how Apple could get away with not having a way to make an install backup. The recovery partition is not good enough. It's a fact of life that hard drives die.

Stridder44 said:
Come on Apple, that's just being cheap. Great, so let the user download the image and then what? Now they have to burn it to a DVD (probably a double-layer DVD too, which are a lot more expensive than a regular single-layer DVD). I love the App Store concept, but not for OS releases like this. And no way in hell am I using some "upgrade" option instead of a clean install.
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1. You don't need to burn it to DVD to install it.
2. You can still wipe the disk via Disk Utility in the installer if you want to do a clean install. For separate disks/partitions at the moment, I think.
 
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Since I have been using the app store more and more, I do not miss the cd method. However for an OS to do a clean install, you must have a disk/physical media. Linux distributions give you an ISO that you must mount or burn to disk.

I think Apple is doing it this way to cut down on the ability to make hackintoshes.

Here is what I think. Since the new IMacs have the ability for a SSD plus hard drive - I think in the future all macs will have it build into the bootup the option to hit the app store and download the OS without the need to have an OS already loaded. Would be nice if upgrades would backup and fresh install everything for you automatically since 90% of apps will be bought through the app store. Just click, wait an hour or more and come back to a fully usable system.
 
Daveoc64 said:
Why put it in the App Store if it isn't an App?
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Like Xcode, it isn't an app, it's an installer. When you download the app, it puts the installer under Applications, which you have to run to actually install the product. Apple violates the basic App Store rules by distributing applications that require installation and kernel extensions.
 
Chupa Chupa said:
I think I still prefer a hard copy. If I download then I still have to burn a DVD for backup and emergency boot. I'd rather have a professionally burned copy that is going to be reliable long term.

Also I don't have a big pipe to quickly download a 3GB package. I'm living in the slow lane here w/ 2mbps DSL.
Click to expand...
The betas make a recovery disk on the HD
 
Cougarcat said:
Quite true, I'm pretty sure it was. But at least it's possible somehow.

I don't see how Apple could get away with not having a way to make an install backup. The recovery partition is not good enough. It's a fact of life that hard drives die.
Click to expand...

Not to mention why would I want to waste space on a recovery partition anyhow ? ;)

I do hope Apple gets a clue from how the different Linux/BSD distributions have been doing it. Just give us something to make our own installation media as a download, not some glorified app installer.

If they do, great, if they don't, I'll buy a physical copy.
 
shervieux said:
I think Apple is doing it this way to cut down on the ability to make hackintoshes.
Click to expand...

No, they are doing it to make installations easier. You can already install Lion on Hackintoshes.

KnightWRX said:
Not to mention why would I want to waste space on a recovery partition anyhow ? ;)
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It's not huge...792 MB. Handy for the times your boot drive isn't around. But I could see why you wouldn't want it on your air--every bit of space counts on an SSD.
 
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Cougarcat said:
No, they are doing it to make installations easier. You can already install Lion on Hackintoshes.
Click to expand...

What was hard about previous installations ? Pop CD in, run upgrade. Same process.

You didn't have to boot off the SL CD to install it, you could start the upgrade process from Leopard just fine.
 
Cougarcat said:
Quite true, I'm pretty sure it was. But at least it's possible somehow.
Click to expand...

You can burn Lion already. In LionDeveloperPreview2/Contents/SharedSupport burn the "InstallESD.dmg" to a single layer DVD or a USB drive/stick.

Creating a bootable OS X 10.7 Lion disc (Update: …and USB stick)

KnightWRX said:
What was hard about previous installations ? Pop CD in, run upgrade. Same process.

You didn't have to boot off the SL CD to install it, you could start the upgrade process from Leopard just fine.
Click to expand...

True. Yet I miss the "Archive and Install" option that was replaced by "Time Machine" backups. Somehow "Archive and Install" didn't carry over any issues with a 10.X upgrade whereas I noticed that some upgrades over a previous OS or using your last "Time Machine" backup carry over or create issues. I'd rather erase the drive, install a clean OS, then copy over only necessary documents and reinstall important programs manually (and port over the plist's from the previous OS in a "Time Machine" backup restore point folder).
 
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What if you want to do a full erase & restore? Surely they won't require you to burn it to a disc or USB drive, I can't see them expecting "average" users to do that, and wouldn't that be defeating the whole purpose of using the App Store to bypass the need for physical media in the first place?

I wonder if it somehow partitions the hard drive to make a small partition with a bootable installer on, and then installs Lion onto the larger, primary partition?
 
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