Now that Apple has released Lion they have also revealed that for those who cannot download Lion, they will be offering a $69 USB drive that contains the Lion installation files.

For those of you that are affected by this there are a few potential solutions. At roughly 4GB (it is slightly less) Lion is undoubtedly a very large download for anyone on dial-up or slow broadband and those with minimal download caps of 15GB or less. A side issue is that to ensure a smooth upgrade, Apple released a software update for Snow Leopard, meaning users must also be running 10.6.8 – the most up-to-date version of Snow Leopard.ĭistributing Lion through a digital platform does pose some problems for a subset of users that have sub-standard internet connections. The first implication of primarily distributing Lion through the Mac App Store is that it means users must be running Snow Leopard (because it is the only version of OS X which can run the Mac App Store). Note: Apple is also discontinuing the OS X Server version, opting instead to offer a separate download that includes the server elements for $49.99 What is new however is that Apple is focusing the distribution of Lion mainly through the Mac App Store - although they have backtracked and will be offering Lion on a USB drive for $69 sometime in August. Astute readers may recognize that this is identical to the cost of the previous version of OS X, Snow Leopard. Introduction to Mac App Store Distribution of Lionįirst things first, as we noted in our post earlier today, Apple has decided to offer Lion for just $29.99. The Simple Upgrade Installation (from Snow Leopard)ġ.Introduction to Mac App Store Distribution of Lion.So as a side note to those who wish to read the whole article, be warned some parts and information is repeated multiple times. To make things as simple as possible we have split this article into several sections so you can jump right to the section you most want/need to learn about. So jump after the break to see the full article and learn more than you would want to know about the Lion installation process. In this article we include a step-by-step guide for the typical Lion upgrade process, explain what the new Recovery Partition is, how to make your own bootable Lion Installation media, how to do a clean Lion installation and a helpful Q&A section. To help you (or perhaps a family member or friend who may need a little guidance) with the various installation methods, and how the Mac App Store changes things, we’ve prepared the following post.

That digital channel, the recently released Mac App Store, is the main way in which Apple is selling Lion. Apple today released Mac OS X 10.7 Lion and it is the first release of OS X to be distributed primarily through a digital channel.

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