Mac OS X Lion Almost Ready?

[MacRumors]

TUAW reports that Mac OS X Lion has been released for "internal testing" last week at Apple. It's not clear what that really means, but TUAW believes that means that Lion is nearly ready for release.

This suggests the new OS might possibly ship as early as WWDC with an "available today" mention at the keynote -- or it might not. But Lion is looking to be one step closer to availability for Apple customers.

We do know the last Mac OS X Lion developer preview was said to be much faster and more stable that the previous releases.

Article Link: Mac OS X Lion Almost Ready?

 

[Eidorian]

Good to see progress but I am more interested in Llano/Bulldozer.

Maybe we can have a real launch event this time vs. the dead zone Snow Leopard was.

 

[Macopotamus]

Really? Apparently TUAW has never actually used Lion, it's still very buggy.

But that wouldn't stop AOL from manufacturing link bait to get pageviews, it is the "AOL Way" of media engineering after all, right?

 

[ollebolle]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]

but i'm still wondering what's in it for me :S

the present feature list still isn't baffling me... anyone else?
(i would like some new iphoto integration for multiple computers, possibly with a home server; just something that really makes a difference)
or am i overlooking things?

 

[roadbloc]

but i'm still wondering what's in it for me :S

the present feature list still isn't baffling me... anyone else?
(i would like some new iphoto integration for multiple computers, possibly with a home server; just something that really makes a difference)
or am i overlooking things?

No. Lion simply makes OS X work a bit like iOS.

 

[twoodcc]

sounds good, as long as it's ready

 

[daneoni]

Really? that means i won't be touching it till it has received at least two service packs...er...i mean point updates. I also agree that the feature list isn't wowing me by any stretch.

 

[Nosrettap]

Any word yet on how much it will cost to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion?

 

[striker33]

Any word yet on how much it will cost to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion?

Judging by the terrible feature list, it should be free to everyone who owns an iOS device. Very few people probably care about any of the new features, and the ones they do care about are minor to say the least.

Saying that, its probably going to be more useful for macbooks, or people with trackpads, but I doubt I'll be paying out £50 + whatever Lion costs just for a little bit more touch functionality.

 

[ollebolle]

No. Lion simply makes OS X work a bit like iOS.

since I'm a little bit of a geek iOS features perhaps aren't that interesting for me
the only thing i find interesting till now is the save feature, which constantly saves files

 

[Cougarcat]

Any word yet on how much it will cost to upgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion?

No, but probably $49-99. A Mac Developer account with OS X releases costs $99, so I can't see it costing more than that. If I had to guess, $49 for 10.7, $119 for 10.7+iWork/iLife bundle.

No way will it be released at WWDC, as developers need the GM to test their apps. If it is close, a GM at the event + a release date of 3-4 weeks later is more likely.

 

[ollebolle]

No, but probably $49-99. A Mac Developer account with OS X releases costs $99, so I can't see it costing more than that. If I had to guess, $49 for 10.7, $119 for 10.7+iWork/iLife bundle.

No way will it be released at WWDC, as developers need the GM to test their apps. If it is close, a GM at the event + a release date of 3-4 weeks later is more likely.

[Sarcasm]

Oh no, that won't be necessary, because S. Jobs will all tell us how they did it that everything is 100% backwards compatible!
(he'll forget to mention that perhaps they didn't change anything )

[/sarcasm]

 

[Andy-V]

Absolutely no way they'll release at WWDC. Release date maybe, but they have to give developers a decent heads-up.

 

[coder12]

Internal testing--that should help with a lot of bugs I'd think. Hopefully it will iron out a lot of the minor ones that are going undetected.

 

[WeegieMac]

Going by my experience with Developer Preview 3, Lion is nowhere near ready to be launched to the public.

 

[Insolence]

Going by my experience with Developer Preview 3, Lion is nowhere near ready to be launched to the public.

This.

Safari went from a Crash-Spam-Bot-Machine to something which is no less annoying. Its not ready. There's hardly anything majorly new. Sure, it looks better. Sure, Fullscreen (which sucks for Spaces Users using CTRL <Insert Number>, since it takes the Fullscreen App to an alternate Window.....), sure, we get a few App re-vamps, but there's nothing truly new.

iTunes hasn't even received a single change, no new side-bar, nothing. This is not ready to go Live anytime soon. We're not even on a GM Candidate Build. There's a mile-long list of issues to fix, and Developers need to get their Apps sorted out still.

People have started base-less rumors that Lion will be launched at WWDC because they WANT it to be launched at WWDC. Its not ready to be launched at WWDC. I doubt they ever even planned to have it launched in time for WWDC.

At WWDC all that will happen is simple: We will get an iOS 5 Preview, and MAYBE, we'll get a few more incoming Lion Features Preview, along with a Release Date and Price Tag (unlikely). Most likely, they'll show off to the public the features that they're really not supposed to know about yet, seeing as the Lion Developer Preview is (technically) under NDA.

Its funny. They gladly slap a Teenager with a Lawsuit, but nothing on any of the various sites that are publishing Lion NDA Info. Not that I'm complaining.

 

[0008652]

[delete]

 

[MuggleReviewer]

Update through Mac AppStore?

I haven't used the developer build so I cannot comment on whether it's ready or not

My questions are price and method of delivery. Seeing as snow leopard was $29 I am assuming somewhere around that price point which brings me to my second question of method of delivery. Given apples push to online distribution I am betting the update will be exclusively sold through the Mac AppStore. Just a hunch though

 

[Cougarcat]

you forgot the TRIM support. that has to count for something.

Only if they add support for non-Apple drives.

My questions are price and method of delivery. Seeing as snow leopard was $29 I am assuming somewhere around that price point which brings me to my second question of method of delivery.

The only reason SL was $29 was because it had little to no end-user features.
That said, I highly doubt they will go back to the $129 price point.

Given apples push to online distribution I am betting the update will be exclusively sold through the Mac AppStore. Just a hunch though

Exclusively that way? No. Internet needs to get better in more places first.

 

[asdf542]

No way will it be released at WWDC, as developers need the GM to test their apps. If it is close, a GM at the event + a release date of 3-4 weeks later is more likely.

Before dev build 2 there was a rumor that the next release would be GM. My guess is Apple might have hidden the GM build name and will surprise everyone on WWDC. That's the only thing that makes sense.

 

[alwaysuptil1]

Is it me or has this been the longest gap between OS's for Apple?

 

[JerMartin]

iTunes hasn't even received a single change, no new side-bar, nothing. This is not ready to go Live anytime soon. We're not even on a GM Candidate Build. There's a mile-long list of issues to fix, and Developers need to get their Apps sorted out still.

iTunes will be ready, don't you worry.

There's a reason they're not pushing the iTunes 10.4 beta builds - it contains a lot of new code and feature sets pertaining to the cloud music service. No one's paying attention to the NDA so of course they're keeping this one out of people's hands and testing internally.

PS we've been on a GM candidate build for a while, a long while. It's come and gone, they're just dicking about at this point.

 

[henry72]

I hope so. It is unlikely but that would be really nice. I'm wondering the release date of the iOS 5 too

 

[asdf542]

Is it me or has this been the longest gap between OS's for Apple?

10.0 - 10.1: 6 months
10.1 - 10.2: 11 months
10.2 - 10.3: 1 year, 2 months
10.3 - 10.4: 1 year, 6 months
10.4 - 10.5: 2 years, 6 months
10.5 - 10.6: 1 year, 9 months
10.6 - 10.7: 1 year, 10 months (if Lion gets released in June)

 

[Zod]

Speed?

Does anyone know how the perceived speed of Lion will compare to Snow Leopard?