Mac OS X Lion Set for July Debut Priced at $29.99, Mac App Store Exclusive

[dfs]

zzzz

At least for my own purposes, Lion sounds like a yawner. Some of its most highly touted features are stuff I've been doing for years using third-party software (for inst., DropCopy to move files between Macs on a LAN, Overflow to give me a tiled launching app., and I know there are auto-save utilities if I cared to use one). One new feature even manages to scare me a little (what are continual archived backups going to do to my hard disk space?). On the other hand, what seems to be conspicuously missing is any new "under the hood" innovation such as would make my Mac work better or faster. Even at the cheap price, weighing the advantages, such as they are, against the hassles inevitably involved in a system upgrade, since some third-party software developers take weeks or even months to come out with a new version, I seriously have to ask myself if this upgrade is worth it. This is a question Apple has never made me ask before.

 

[mariov]

For the people worried about restoring their Macs without a disc, the full overview of new features has an answer:

Internet Restore and Utilities

Built into Lion
OS X Lion includes a built-in restore partition, allowing you to repair or reinstall OS X without the need for discs.


Reinstall OS X
OS X can be reinstalled on your Mac from recovery mode.

Restore from a Time Machine backup
Use recovery mode to restore your Mac from a Time Machine backup.

Great. But i want to be able to create a bootable usb drive. For sure, that built-in recover partition will use a lot of space on my small 64GB SDD. (MBA)

 

[PatrickCocoa]

Options, options, everywhere!

i'm kinda skeptical about this too...i was planning on doing a fresh install of this as well and i'll be slightly disappointed if that's not an option. the 4gig download thing isn't a big deal to me but it's weird they don't even offer it physically, i guess they just really want to get everyone on the mac app store bandwagon (i personally think it's totally unnecessary and kind of annoying frankly)

i also really hope you can turn off the stupid ios things they've brought over to lion (disappearing scroll bars for instance - i like knowing how far down a page i am, and the reversed scrolling on trackpads - years of going one way why would i want to switch it just to make it more iphone-like)

all in all i'm not totally convinced by lion, i'll upgrade eventually i guess once i'm sure everything i've gotten used to in snow leopard will work in lion. i'm way more excited for ios 5

You can turn off most of the "stupid iOS things" in Lion, including the disappearing scroll bars and the reversed scrolling.

 

[Razeus]

DVD's don't exist in the post-pc era.

 

[OmegaRed1723]

cd drives are going goodbye man. people complained when new MBA didn't come with a dvd. then realized how cool the USB stick is.

Exactly — so why can't apple give us a USB stick instead of a download? None of Lion's Internet Restore & Utilities features are of any use on a brand-new hard drive.

 

[darkeartg]

LMAO they just screwed most of canada. Most Canadians have a 25 gig bandwidth cap.

 

[azentropy]

Lion has some nice features, but others just make me shake my head.

Scrollbars disappear when not in use.

This is not a feature to me. Sure on a smaller screen it is nice to save the space, but on a larger screen I like the smart scrollbars that quickly show me where I am on the page and how big the page, windows, text area actually is!

The de-colorization (just made that up) of iTunes continues to the Finder and to Mail (and probably other apps). Again being able to quickly identify folders and tasks by color is lost.

Overall the GUI is just bland. The radio dialogs, buttons, windows, scrollbars etc. all look like a huge step back. Some of the objects are now counter intuitive to what is in the foreground and what is in the background.

Oh well, I guess it is something I'll get used to - but been working with Lion Developer for a while now and still not a fan.

 

[gnasher729]

my question is... if after i purchase Lion, what if i want to wipe my mac and install from scratch?

do i have to install 10.6 from DVD first and then upgrade to 10.7 via appstore? if yes then that is insane.

No, you don't have to. You can continue with 10.5. I think people who didn't upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6, and therefore for example never were able to use the App Store, are not the target group for Lion.

I guess I don't understand one thing: If someone is running an older version of OS X that does not support the app store, how are they supposed to upgrade?

They are not. If they upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6, why would they upgrade from 10.7? And why should Apple sell an upgrade from 10.5 to 10.7 for $29.99?

 

[PatrickCocoa]

One Download

Back to what another user said, so we need more details about the multiple users purchase.

So as a household that has 5 macs, will each machine have to download the 4Gb file, or will they make it possible to flash drive a dmg? Or are they going to force each user to download via the app store?

This isn't a huge deal breaker for me, as I usually file the DVD upgrade forever (unless something goes wrong and I have to reinstall on a clean drive, which has happened once to me). But 4Gb times 5 computers turns into 20Gb, which could take some serious time to download.

If the Lion update is handled like the developer preview (which was also distributed via the Mac App Store), then the download will be an installer that you should be able to burn to DVD and use on other machines.

 

[MacManTexas56]

Exactly — so why can't apple give us a USB stick instead of a download? None of Lion's Internet Restore & Utilities features are of any use on a brand-new hard drive.

what's so hard about downloading it yourself and burning to cd or put on a thumb drive??

do you people complain when you burn a song on itunes and expect apple to send you the cd?

there is a reason technologies exist such as "CD" burners and "thumb drives"

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

You can turn off most of the "stupid iOS things" in Lion, including the disappearing scroll bars and the reversed scrolling.

£20.99 for a bunch of On/Off buttons. Dubbed as being 'awesome'

 

[Yamcha]

What I don't understand is how are you supposed to do a clean install, is that gone now? we all have to upgrade? thats an annoyance, but I'm sure someone will probably have it leaked and available on the net for us to burn on dvd's ..

I don't mind upgrading, but I don't know about u guys but sometimes I want to clean install because of all my old junk & mess that I don't even need, now the only method I can think of is installing Snow Leopard via DVD & updating to OS X Lion, I'm not against digital downloads, but this has now become a painful process..

Although if you download from the Mac App store and you are able to burn it to discs then I have no problem at all..

 

[Porco]

I'm thinking my parents with their flaky slow connection can probably live without the latest and greatest OS. As long as they're happy with their emailing and web browsing and facebooking on their rinky dink line, I'm not messing with them.

Maybe when they're ready to upgrade their cable, it will be time to upgrade to Lion.

Oh believe me, if they could upgrade their internet connection (cable?! lol, they get 1mbps ADSL at best, there is no cable) they would have already. They run a small business on that, and it often isn't fun, but possibly just as critical as whatever you do on your connection.

You realize you can copy an App you download to another computer or backup to a disc drive?

When you install it on another machine, iTunes launches and then checks to see if that account on that machine is authorized to run the app.

My assumptions (same as when I transfer apps to another computer):

1. After you download the "OS X Lion Install App", drag it to a thumb drive (from iTunes).
2. Put the App on another computer (desktop or put the thumb drive in), and launch the App.
3. iTunes opens up to transfer the App to the iTunes folder and verifies that you are authorized to use the App on that machine.
4. Launch "OS X Lion Install" and your on your way.

Works for all my existing apps between my PC fileserver, where I sync my iPhone, and my MacBook, where I sync my iPad.

Thanks for a sensible answer that attempts to help.

That's fine for one user, but for 3 or more different people's machines?
A) I'd hit the 5 machine limit pretty fast.
B) I'm not sure that's really going to be legit, because I'd be using my iTunes account to buy one copy for my machines, not for several different people's. Unless Apple is just going to give a free pass to install it on an many machines as you like as a special exception for the OS, as opposed to apps.

Either way, to be honest I think they should just give the option of a DVD install for those who want it.

 

[Gasu E.]

My only query is the option to make a 'disc image'. Since the purchase is linked to ones Apple account, it wouldn't make sense for Apple to allow people to exchange these disk images and thus contribute to piracy. However, Apple would also be stupid not to give people the option of putting this OS on a USB stick/DVD for back-ups.

At $29, I do not think they are terribly worried about piracy.

 

[freiheit]

No upgrade path from 10.5 Leopard?

Available via App Store only? So if someone never upgraded from 10.5 Leopard to 10.6 Snow Leopard, they cannot upgrade to 10.7 Lion? That seems a bit... silly. Apple must be really betting that everyone who could upgrade to 10.6 did, or is rubbing their hands together gleefully at the prospect of selling them a brand new Mac even if their 8-core model is more than sufficient to run Lion.

Personally I'm on 10.6 and plan to give 10.7 a pass because there's simply too many stupid "features" and not enough good ones to make it worth my while. I suppose this means I won't be allowed to upgrade to 10.8/11/whatever in the future.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

DVD's don't exist in the post-pc era.

Yep - Apple instead settle for compressed music, compressed 'HD' movies/TV shows, and presume that creative industries no longer need disc drives.

 

[MH01]

Burn your passport and credit cards too then. Go live the wild then, because now it's just hypocritical.

What are you going to do? Put your passport and credit cards in an envelope , send them to apple and let them decide?? You might want to check what hypocritical means..... cause your using it wrong!

 

[Stella]

Lion Exclusive to AppStore.

Apple haven't thought this through very well. Not everyone has broadband / fast internet connection.

I foresee that Apple will be introducing a DVD option.

Downloading 4GB just isn't practical for everyone who has a mac.

 

[chaosbunny]

DVD's don't exist in the post-pc era.

Privacy doesn't exist there too.

On topic, I will avoid Lion as long as possible, it always takes some .x updates until Adobe CS, Cinema 4D, all my fonts etc... work hassle free. And then, well, I don't like the direction Apple is going. Some years ago I really enjoyed the platform and found it far superior to Windows XP back then. But now, I don't really know what is the better of two evils...

Unfortunately none of the productivity programs and games that I want to use are available under Linux.

 

[Lennholm]

im sure if you have slow internet connections or data caps then you will be able to take it to an apple store and do the download over their wi-fi connection

You really expect people to carry their 27-inch iMac down to the store just to upgrade? Not to mention, my nearest Apple Store is in another country, across a lot of water

I wonder how bootcamp will work without a mac os disc

Perhaps exactly like it works on the current MBA?

Internet Restore and Utilities
[/B]
Built into Lion
OS X Lion includes a built-in restore partition, allowing you to repair or reinstall OS X without the need for discs.

Lol, the same solution that PC makers have been using since the 90's and Apple and its fans have discarded as a bad and unreliable solution.

Oh wow, so if I want Lion I'm going to have to buy Snow Leopard and then buy Lion? That's ridiculous.

(The reason why I don't have Snow Leopard yet is simply because my mac was still new when Snow Leopard got released and I decided to skip a version)

You weren't allowed to install 10.6 on top of 10.4 either according to the license (though it was certainly possible) without doing it from the $129 Mac Box Set version. The $29 price for 10.6 only allowed you to install it onto an existing 10.5 install.

I could imagine that this "Only through the Mac App Store" is for the upgrade that you purchase and that new Macs that actually ship with 10.7 will have a reinstall flash drive like the current MBA has

 

[iSee]

Helps explain some of the methods available to reinstall Mac OS X Lion but not sure what you do if you have a HD failure?

First, reinstall from your original discs.
Then reinstall Lion.

You probably want to copy the Lion package to a thumb drive or burn to disc if you don't want to have to download it again.

Not super convenient, but then a hard drive failure never is. Hopefully it happens infrequently enough that this isn't a major concern one way or another.

 

[MacManTexas56]

Yep - Apple instead settle for compressed music, compressed 'HD' movies/TV shows, and presume that creative industries no longer need disc drives.

how do u plan on ipads and iphones working when you are using physical media? bust out ur blu ray or dvd and rip it to your mac then sync it to your iOS device?

that's ridiculous.

there is a reason the streaming market exists. physical media is slowly dying.

 

[ComicJ27]

Do you think...

What are the chances they'll let us get a free Snow Leopard update in order to update to Lion? I hadn't updated my MacBook to Snow and if Lion is only downloadable through the Mac App Store, I need Snow to get the App store.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

how do u plan on ipads and iphones working when you are using physical media?

I beg your pardon?

bust out ur blu ray or dvd and rip it to your mac then sync it to your iOS device?

Thats what televisions are for. And if Mac's had Blu-Ray drives built in, then their would be no need to rip it.

physical media is slowly dying.

Blu-Ray sales are actually on the rise, and physical media is used all day, every day by creative industries across the world. To go to the studio where I work without a DVD drive in your notebook would be almost laughable.

 

[Ieo]

I am quite fond of cash.

Activation is bad enough but you are not tied to a name, address, and credit card number. I really do not see a way around the sovereignty of nations in practical terms for me. Not to mention the additional risks and costs are far beyond just getting a passport.

If life ever gets bad enough I can always download a Linux distro over the free wireless at the library.

It must be awesome being that afraid of everything. I bet It's like a roller-coaster of adrenaline every time some guy on the street asks if you're happy with your cable provider.