First, “a positive: Hardware support for [Apple’s OS X] Lion seems pretty extensive. Just about any Intel-based Mac released since the middle to latter part of 2006, meaning an Intel Core 2 Duo processor or better, will work with Lion,” Gene Steinberg writes for TechNightOwl. “A five-year Window is pretty good for Apple. At the same time, I expect that the $29 upgrade price for Snow Leopard, plus loads of new Macs sold since 10.6 arrived in August of 2009, only leaves a small number of eligible Mac users still using Leopard or Tiger.”
Advertisement: Education pricing. Students and faculty save up to $200 on a new Mac. Only at the Apple Online Store.
“However, to upgrade to Lion from Leopard, it’s a double installation at best,” Steinberg writes. “First they have to upgrade to Snow Leopard, and upgrade that initial installation to 10.6.7 (Mac App Store debuted in 10.6.6). The reason is that Lion will only be available via that route. There will be no retail upgrade kits, no DVDs. That’s the price you pay for convenience, assuming downloading a 4GB file is convenient for you.”
Steinberg writes, “Once you’ve running 10.6.7 or later (and there’s a rumor of a 10.6.8 under development as we speak), you can then install Lion. Does this make sense for the company whose products ‘just work?'”
Read more in the full article, in which Steinberg asserts that, “at the very least, Apple ought to consider a combo installer DVD in a retail package at a special price, say $39,” here.
MacDailyNews Take: What do you think? Is Apple’s OS X Lion upgrade plan misguided? Are you running Mac OS X 10.6.7 Snow Leopard? Is a 4GB download a huge or non-issue for you?
Aside from the fact that I have no supported hardware, it would take around 12 hours to download, so I won’t even be following along vicariously.
12 hours? Are you kidding me? That’s like saying…..for example, “..thank you Steve for offering me a job at Apple, as your own personal advisor on everything, but unfortunately I have to decline because it will take me 12 hours to get to work on my bike”.
Give me a break!!
Not everyone has Apple’s preferred high bandwidth internet connection.
If I lived in a Jungle I wouldn’t buy a Porsche.
Thats an ignorant and very smug response for a very valid point. 1st of all I have a high speed connection (5-7 mb/s) which during the night….when they aren’t throttling my bandwidth, I might actually get close to that. Its still going to take me 3-6 hrs to DL unless Apple can give me my full throughput then maybe knock an hour or two off that. Apple is basically penalizing the people who don’t need a highspeed connection (or can’t get one due to location or finances) to the past (oldschool, legacy) and this person could even have a new mac capable. I think Apple better reverse course on this one.
And is six hours a terrible thing? It’s for a major OS upgrade that’ll happen maybe once every year or two. Kick it off before you go to bed, install Lion in the morning. Still faster than getting a DVD for most people, even if you’re on Amazon Prime…
Now, I still think a DVD (or USB memory stick, as comes with the MacBook Airs) should be an option, but I can easily see me happily going for the download option, even over my slowish DSL line.
So your point is that if you don’t have a high-speed connection, you shouldn’t own a Mac? What a stupid thing to say.
Not all of us like living in the city, or even close to the city. Don’t take that as a complaint, it’s not; I chose to live in the boonies, and I knowingly accepted the sacrifices. But your assertion that that somehow disqualifies me from owning a Mac is moronic.
That’s right, @Sucker! I have a hard enough time with the iOS updates, not because I don’t have three or four hours to spare to download them, but because Apple’s servers usually time out long before it’s finished. I have better luck if I wait a few weeks before trying. There’s no way the iCloud stuff is going to work for me. I only have a 3/4 Mb connection.
Wait…
4 Megabit per second = 0.375 Megabyte per second
4000 Megabytes / 0.375 MBps = 10666 seconds
10666 seconds / 3600 seconds (one hour) = 2.9627… hours
Three hours. Seriously? That’s not 12 hours, nor an unacceptable time.
Sorry to have misled you, @lukeskymac! I didn’t mean 3 to 4 Mb, I meant 3 over 4 Mb. That’s 3 divided by 4 or three quarters or 0.75Mb, which rarely attains that speed and has very poor QoS.
I agree, they make the iOS updates hard enough. This process is made harder by HughesNet’s convent data cap (which is smaller than an iOS update and still very slow.) Lion is impossible. You could download it at an Apple Store, there wi-fi is fast enough to download Lion.
Also, if Lion is an issue leave feedback at http://www.apple.com/feedback. Make them realize that digital only isn’t the way to distribute an OS.
Um, no it’s not… you’re comparing buying a $30 upgrade to your operating system to a life changing career opportunity? Wow.
It sells for $39. It is actually worth a lot more.
It sells for $30. It is actually worth a lot more.
Give us a break–your logic is moronic lol
He offered me that job but I told him to shove it. 12 hour commute my ass Jobs.
12 hours? Took me 40 minutes to download the developers’ copy on my burdened office connection.
4GB is 40 minutes? And you call that burdened? Wow. I guess some people really DON’T know what it’s like to be without.
it would not surprise me if Mac magazines supplied a free upgrade DVD to their readers.
Could you go to a friends house with a faster connection, have him make a temporary admin account for you, open App Store on your account and download Lion, burn to disc or flash, and have your admin account deleted from that computer?
Just sayin’….
Just saying’
Wow. Thank you iPad for that confusing double whammy.
Spend an hour at Starbucks or Panera and download it to a thumb drive, then install on all of your authorized computers.
The Starbucks here gets around 4MB download stream. And Panera Bread is even worse. And I’m not about to take my iMac into either of them.
dude, this is lame. I have let torrents run for a week for stupidly lesser content. Try Linux distros, etc.
Stop being a baby, and start the download. If you have a laptop, pause it and continue the dl at work.
Too many people can’t wait for something good.
Also, why would you need to pay for Snow Leopard to get Lion? I think this is one pirate solution Apple won’t mind you performing. Also, since you can easly make a bootable installer on a USB stick, this is one easy sneaker net to manage. Not everyone lives in a Montana forest; use your friends for once.
The problem with that idea is, from my experience, when you “pause” a download in the app store, it doesn’t pick up where you left off. It starts all over again. Which is weird because that’s not how it works in the iTunes app store. That’s not how it works when downloading a piece of software from Adobe, either. When you pause a download and resume either one of those, it actually picks up where you left off. Not the Mac App store…and not downloads in Safari, either.
I don’t get it. You guys are complaining that some files take hours to download? So what?! Am I not getting something? I mean, it would take me probably a day or two if I had to organize a trip down to the computer store and back to buy a DVD, plus gas and maybe parking. Besides, if you ain’t already on Snow Leopard… well I got nothing to say about that.
How long would it take you to order something online and have it shipped to your house? Is that still a day or two excursion? lol Come to think of it, that would be a good exercise for me. I could start downloading Lion the day it comes out, then order something from the Web, and see which one gets to me faster. How much you wanna bet i’m cuttin open a box while the download window is still going?
It’s no problem for me and I have AT&T DSL which is the worst.
Under my previous ADSL service (nominally 3Mbps download, around 2.3 Mbps actual performance), I could download around 1GB per hour. I upgraded to 6 Mbps service (around 5.1 Mbps actual), so I am hopeful of being able to download 4GB Lion in around two hours.
That said, I would be more than happy to pay extra for a DVD copy at the Apple Store. They don’t have to provide a retail, shrink-wrapped product. Just burn a DVD on demand!
My opinion is that Apple will include a Lion DVD alternative to downloading by the time that Lion is actually released.
Steinberg paints a poor picture for upgrading from Leopard to Lion. Frankly, anyone who did not upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard for $29 doesn’t deserve a whole lot of sympathy, IMO. But it would be nice if Apple would provide some type of patch to Leopard to enable use of the Mac App Store to obtain Lion.
Steinberg writes that a “five-year window is pretty good for Apple.” That is a rather backhanded compliment. I would say that going back five years is darn good for any computer manufacturer. Especially since Lion will probably work pretty well on that older hardware. A Core 2 Duo cutoff seems eminently reasonable (especially since I have a 2007 iMac!).
Has anyone had a positive experience attempting to upgrade a circa 2006 PC with Windows 7?
Rather have it on a flash drive.
My opinion is that Apple will include a Lion DVD alternative to downloading by the time that Lion is actually released.
Not unless they charge a lot more for it. The digital download of Lion, and having it tied to your Apple ID, is why it can be so much cheaper – no more need to overcharge the honest paying folks.
If they do end up making this concession (either by disc or USB drive), I’m guessing it would cost $129. Kind of like with Aperture, where the Mac App Store version costs way less than buying the disc.
The situation is truly bad for you Americans!
Here I am in Brazil, a 3rd world country with higher cost internet and lower acquisition power, and even I have a 10Mbps connection!
You sir obviously have no concept of the meaning of “worst”.
I have clients area would kill for DSL service.
So to answer the MDN take, this is a bigger than huge download. Maybe ginormpus starts to apply.
“Maybe ginormpus starts to apply.”
In Virginia, that’s VA-ginormous!
He makes a good point. But I wonder if a Mac user is still running Leopard, is their hardware even compatible to run Lion?
It may surprise some to hear that not everyone has access to high speed Internet. Maybe apple could let those users download it at apple retail stores.
You can. Apple store wifi has always been open.
I’m a long time Mac user/Apple store peruser, but I didn’t know that.
However… that still requires you have a laptop. Another condition some people can’t meet. Luckily I can.
Great – so now I only have to drive an hour and a half into a city that has an Apple store to get it
Not so convenient
Surely there are some wifi spots closer to home for you…
Non-issue…. Especially since you can download once and then burn an install disk or use USB stick.
But still, they should have a “full” upgrade option with a single download if you happened to skip Snow Leopard.
For those like me with a 50Mb cable connection, the App Store update from Snow Leopard to Lion will be a breeze …
But for those still using Tiger or Leopard who have a slow internet connection, upgrading might well be a deal-breaker.
Maybe for this release, Apple should consider supplying a Combo DVD Installer to get as many users up to speed as possible.
Anyone using Tiger or Leopard are unlikely to be upgrading to Lion, don’tcha think? I mean if they couldn’t be bothered to upgrade to Snow Leopard, then why would they be willing to upgrade to Lion?
That’s an over simplification. You’re denying a whole bunch of people who might want to upgrade. What? Have we reverted to communism in Cupertino now?
Communism? Seriously?
Oh, I get it… the people with slow internet connections and who didn’t upgrade to Snow Leopard (but suddenly want to upgrade to Lion) are the proletariat.
I guess those of us with Snow Leopard and decent internet access are the bourgeoisie?
Nice try at a joke, but communism would actually tend towards trying to provide Lion to everyone.
Rationale: Lion would be “property” and all property is considered to be publicly owned under a communist approach.
Replying to your reply to BLN…
“…The failure of these idealist political/economic theories when applied at the macro scale can be attributed to flaws
in human nature rather than in the theories themselves.”
So… flawed human being came up with the perfect, ideal socio-economc systems?
Not likely. The reality is that theory behind these “ideal” systems is inherently flawed because they don’t take so-called “flawed” human nature in to account.
I dispute the notion that human nature is “flawed”. It is simply human nature. Saying it is flawed reveals a lot of presumptions on the part of those who use it.
FWIW, my antipathy towards socialism/communism isn’t because I consider them evil.
It’s because I consider them stupid.
No. Communism is supporting the one view you have of the world, against all logic, thinking that the one view is the only correct view and no alternatives exist.
You do know that’s not really what communism is, right?
But… using your “definition”, does that make you a communist? Since you seem to think that your view of Apple’s chosen distribution method is the only correct view?
If everyone based their decisions on trying to accommodate 100% of everyone, then nothing would ever change from the status quo…
I was attempting to make a joke. It didn’t work…
Sorry, BLN, but your vague description applies to many political, social, and religious doctrines and does not really provide any useful information regarding communism.
Regardless of how you feel about communism, socialism, etc., those terms have *specific* meanings which appear to be lost to the general public. What intrigues me is the hatred that is spawned in the U.S by these terms. The failure of these idealist political/economic theories when applied at the macro scale can be attributed to flaws
in human nature rather than in the theories themselves.
From the Mac OS X dictionary app:
Communism: A political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.
Socialism: A political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
• policy or practice based on this theory.
• (in Marxist theory) a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of communism.
No. I didn’t say that Apple’s view was incorrect but I argued for choice – either Mac App Store or installation disc. Removal of choice is the essence of communism and having one view that only the Mac App Store is the correct avenue to install Lion despite the availability of cheap alternatives is communism at its height.
You tell ’em!
@Ballmer’s Left Nut
Are you an American by any chance? Because You’re confusing communism with fascism. Americans seem to do that alot.
Anyway, Apple isn’t denying Tiger and Leopard users from upgrading to Lion. They just have to install Snow Leopard as an extra step(or Leopard -> Snow Leopard). What they are doing, though, is denying people with PPC Macs and dial-up connections from upgrading to Lion.
What you have just described is a Rube Goldberg way of upgrading to Lion. Why go through all the unnecessary steps when the solution lies in plain sight – offer Lion as an installation disc. Whether it’s known as communism or fascism, all forms of totalitarian government are bad by virtue of absence of choice, reasonable though that may be.
yup, and they’ll kill the ones that don’t upgrade
This is true. 2008 MacBook running Leopard. I don’t like upgrading old macs. Tiger was great on my 04 iMac. It died with Leopard on it (not that Leopard caused it).
No, this lazy guy will be purchasing a new MacBook Pro and iPhone 5 to enjoy Lion and the like. Patience is a virtue 😉
Got a 12″ PowerBook G4 from 2004 running 10.5. That’s the end of the line for the old aluminum square. But the 13″ Air appears to be a very worthy replacement…
Oh yeah, that is a worthy replacement. I had the same G4 and sold it, thinking that a Mac Book Pro would take its place. But then along came the iPad…and now the iPad2. But I bought my wife an MBA 13 to replace her Dell laptop, which I immediately sawed in half. Can you say “hero”? She loves it.
On the matter of the Lion upgrade, surely there will be alternatives for those with slow or no Internet. I’ve been there: my former highly compromised DSL was so slow that at times it was barely faster than dialup. Cost me $2,000 and a ton of work with a trencher to upgrade to vastly faster cable. I hate to see equipment become obsolete — which is why my backhoe is from 1975 — but I have reluctantly made my peace with the advance of Apple technology. Beg, borrow or steal to upgrade. It will be worth it. Uncle Steve will see to that.
10.5.8 her on two Mac Books and one of them is a G4. 4GB is huge. Well, time to upgrade one machine and cross my fingers on the other. Oh well.
No MacBook ever used a G4 processor. Perhaps you meant iBook.
Anyhow, running Snow Leopard or beyond on a G4 is at best a painful experience.
Snow Leopard is INTEL ONLY. The latest operating system you can run on a G4 is Leopard…
PowerBook G4 it was. Sweet little laptop, but you could fry an egg on the underside. Cooked the mobo on mine the day I bought it from a buddy. He bought a replacement used board for me. Whew.
Uh… Last I checked Snow Leopard REQUIRES an Intel Mac, which an iBook G4 certainly is not. Leopard is the highest level of big cat OS that computer can use.
i can understand what he means. But i don’t think it’s misguided by any means.
Only real issue is, can I go to the Apple Store and get it on a thumb drive? I only have dial up.
To me, that is the real drawback. Many people are on a slow internet access. I would hope Apple does allow use of thumb drives and going to the Apple Store to acquire it.
I download about 8 to 10 GB a week. It’s just another night I let alone my Mac with the MagSafe make out while downloading, I guess…
Not an issue. If you are running a top machine, more likely than not, you have at least a cable connection to the net. If not, let it download while at work or at night. Non issue.
I think it is fine to make Lion available as a download from the App Store but it should also be available a DVD for a small extra charge. MANY of those who live in rural areas in this country only have satellite internet, or even just a phone line and modem. A 4 Gb download will take an eternity for them. And some of those with faster internet access face the problem of using up a significant proportion of their monthly download capacity. And things like internet cafes and Apple stores can be a long ways away in rural areas. In northern Maine, where I summer, there is no cable, nor will there be in the foreseeable future, and the nearest Apple Store is 200 miles away. They are even further in parts of the West. Bottom line: an internet download is a good idea but not if it’s the only option. This country isn’t yet sufficiently wired.
“….a phone line and modem. A 4 Gb download will take an eternity for them.”
Not only that. For the large number of people still using dial-up, chances are they have no chance at all of successfully downloading something that large. Rural lines are, standardly, FAR too “dirty” to keep a connection for that long, or to reconnect reliably. Whatever back and forth error checking happens on such a large download is not going to work on such dirty connections, either. I used to do my work from such a rural area. My limit for downloads was massively smaller than 4GB due to this connection factor.
Misguided? How about brain dead. Where were all the thinkers that should have jumped on stage and stopped Steve from pronouncing Lion to be Mac App Store only.
I foresee this will be another painful reversal by Apple similar to the retraction they had to do over the in-app purchase for online publications.
What about people who prefer physical media like a lot of older folks? How do you get them to subscribe to high speed Internet just to download Lion? It doesn’t make sense and Apple should recant.
Was it brain dead to forgo the floppy drive? When was the last time you used a DVD drive? Do you really think that NO research has gone into this decision?
The last time I used a DVD drive on my Mac was to install Windows 7 in Boot Camp. I would have used it to install iWork but for the fact that I ordered it as a bundle. Using a DVD drive that’s available on my Mac to install Lion is a smart use of a resource. Denying the use of it is brain dead.
I think Ballmers left nut has migrated to you cranium.
I bought my most recent MacBook about a year ago. It has a built-in DVD drive, but I don’t know if it is working or not; I never used it yet.
I have plenty of software on my MacBook, as well as data. I can’t seem to find a use for that built-in DVD drive, though.
It’s not a valid proposition to extrapolate your use case as a template for the other 60 million Mac users. Just because you can’t find any use for your DVD drive doesn’t mean it can’t be used to install Lion.
I found a use for my built-in DVD drive. I pulled it and put a second hard drive in its place. I now have 1.75TB of drive space in my MacBook Pro 13″
Sweet idea! Didn’t know this was possible.
This logic is flawed. Yes, research went into it, but to not even *offer* a simple physical disc for the general populace in case of an emergency is stupid. Remember the bulk of people commenting here are experienced, tech savvy mac users– but that’s not who Apple is trying to win over. Your average Joe should have access to a disc – even if it’s the only one he ever uses.
I last used the DVD drive to rip a CD a couple of weeks ago. There is no iTunes music store in Singapore. Boo-hoo for me, so I have to use physical media. So please don’t extrapolate your non-use of the DVD burner to all Mac users in the world.
How about your rabid introverted ranting and misapplication of superlatives reduced to the proportional scope of hoping for re-consideration, which is a far cry from ‘painful reversal’ or ‘recanting’?
I don’t see a need to use any other phraseology other than recanting because that is exactly what a reversal is, which will happen soon enough if enough voices are raised against this insanity.
Apple doesn’t respond well to demands and pompous self righteousness…
In what sense is calling out an obvious error pompous? You don’t agree with my views, that’s fine. It’s not as if an installation disc is beyond the reach of Apple.
They have been known to reverse decisions based on a lot of user input, though. The action of the green light button in itunes is just one small example.
Those thinkers apparently got tossed out of the WWDC keynote by security 😉
What were they supposed to do? Boo? Get on stage and do the monkey boy dance?
What I meant to say in a roundabout way was that Steve should have consulted the people on the ground whether making Lion as a Mac App Store exclusive made sense. He’s probably too insulated from the problems an average person faces downloading large chunks of software and an OS to boot. We don’t all have GB Internet access like what the Apple campus has.
Not all people who like a physical backup are old. In April, we were hit with multiple waves of severe weather that included a tornado that passed right over our street.
Almost 48 hours of no internet, power, phone, etc. ensued. My trusty laptop with local files on the HD was packed with movies & TV shows- which helped a lot. If it was a cloud- based service like Netflix or Amazon I would have been SOL.
I’ll take a DVD any day over a download on CONcast any day.
I retract my ageist comment. I only used it for illustrative purposes. It was not meant as a universal put down. What I meant was generally people don’t trust downloads to upgrade their OS and prefer a physical disc instead.
CONcast? And here I was thinking they were Comcrap.
How about CONCrap?
xFinity my arse.
That’s exactly what Apple did. Sat around the ol’ board room and thought up the best way to screw people with slow internet connections.
Pitiful. Instant gratification can’t be yours so off to whinerville you go. “No you can’t have another cookie”. Waaaaaaaaaa!!!!!
Take a break. Go outside and introduce yourself to sunlight. Find a girl and show her your “purpose”. Dolts
Apple does have brick and mortar stores, so it does not seem logical to not have their OS available for purchase in them.
Most people who purchase Lion with take the extra step of creating a bootable disc or thumb drive of it.
Apple just make it purchasable in your retail stores.
I think it’s a good plan. DVD’s should be available for those individuals stuck in BFE and nothing but dial up or DSL. That said, I’m excited to try out this new route of OS updating. It’d be cool if my Airport Extreme could house the OS upgrade so it won’t be a 4GB download for each of my authorized Macs.
My guess is that this will be a non issue. There will most likely be a way to create a DVD from an ISO or procure a USB install stick from Apple. There are only so many details they give out at an event and they are probably working on alternative for those situations where lack of broadband is an issue. Maybe you can walk in to an Apple store with an empty USB drive, pay your $$$ and have them make the bootable drive on the spot for example.
I’m running Snow Leopard, my concern is the time that it will take to download Lion over the ATT wifi network I have. iOS updates take forever to download and they aren’t nearly as large. Of course my problem is more so with ATT as they claim I have their “high speed” service, not to mention the frequent outages. Any suggestions? I know I would prefer a disk, it would make upgrading my iMac, Macbook, and Macbook Pro a lot easier
Only problem I have is my Media Center iMac is G5 – not supported. No big deal though, Snow Leopard and the G5 are all I need to store my kid’s iTunes Library and stream to the 3 AppleTVs in the house.
The remaining Macs are good to go, and my cable ISP is running at 25+ mbps down. I’m ready and eagerly waiting!
Snow Leopard is Intel-only compatible. You must mean “Leopard” for the G5.
No.
It’s a non issue for me with Comcast’s fast internet but, I know it will be for others with slower or dialup internet. I do think Apple should offer a DVD install disk for those that want it or need it.
I have a friend who lives in a distant state. He has a couple of masters degrees, but no expertise in computers at all. It took him the better part of a year to set up his email account in Mail. He’s one of those people for whom Dell is nightmare and Apple is a dream, and there’s no way to talk him through a procedure over the phone. He just doesn’t get it. His gray cells are otherwise occupied. The nearest Apple Store is too hard for him to get to. It’s in a very congested area and the route to it has very heavy traffic all the time. He loves his iMa to death, but he’s running Leopard. He never upgraded to Snow Leopard because he never heard of it. He definitely needs a one-step upgrade path to Lion.
So yes, there should be an alternative for people who are still running older versions of OS X.
Sounds like a good use case. I’m not even sure…does the Mac AppStore run on leopard? If so a different upgrade app at a slightly higher price would be a great option.
It’s an uncontestable fact that Mac App Store does not run on Leopard and there’s no clear upgrade path for Leopard users as it stands.
“He loves his iMa to death”
Apple make Mothers now? Wow, I want one!
If he never heard of Snow Leopard, maybe he’ll never hear of Lion either?
Or you can tell him Snow Leopard is the new OS (via telegraph or homing pigeon).
Wait ’til he finds out that Lion’s lack of Rosetta has killed all his apps!
I agree – this is not going to work out so well for many people. I purchased the 4GB+ Xcode 4 from the App Store, and it has not gone so well. It took a couple hours to download, didn’t work the first time. Huge time sink. No thanks, Apple, I will stick with Snow Leopard.
MANY people in rural areas only have satellite internet, or just phone modems. And many in rural areas are hundreds of miles away from an Apple store. For these people not being able to purchase a DVD at a small premium will be a deal breaker. This country is not yet sufficiently wired (and has no hope of being so in the foreseeable future) to rely on the internet as the sole means of delivering huge software programs.
Absolutely true. Our networks are woefully behind the times thanks to the greed and stupidity of Comcast, AT&T, et al. For years, they’ve milked their aging networks for every penny they could squeeze out of their customers… And now here comes Apple with a grand scheme that will sink like a stone if forced to depend on the internet we have today. Only Verizon is even attempting to roll out a 21st-century network, and theirs is available in only a few select cities. The whole industry has been caught with their pants down, and Steve Jobs may be aiming a little too far ahead of the puck in this instance. Time will tell.
I agree completely with Boonies Gal. Although I may be in a position to get Lion in July, beginning in August I will (again) be in a place with bandwidth issues. A disk is important to many people. Really, I expect Apple to make a disk available for this and other reasons. Those who live in urban areas, or who have good bandwidth won’t understand the issues BG has raised.
Won’t be a problem for me, but it makes a lot of sense to offer a tangible upgrade product for those still using older versions of OS X or living without broadband.
Yes.
i never bothered getting the family pack to upgrade my home computers from leopard to snow leopard since leopard worked just fine. if i had known i would need snow leopard i would have bought the family pack and gotten some use out of it. now to find out i need snow leopard just to get to lion sounds like a microsoft approach to things.
You don’t need the family pack.
I run Leopard and I am peeved.
I think what this article is missing is this:
Iif users are interested in upgrading they have snow leopard. If not, they won’t be interested in Lion.
Maybe a new self contained install could be introduced at a higher price as it contains more than just the delta.
It’s a problem, yes… for some, like me.
My Macs are production machines and I have them frozen at 10.6.5 because I can’t risk new updates breaking current software/functionality.
No App Store for me, so I’d first have to update to 10.6.7, then download from the App Store, then extract the DMG, burn a DVD – and then update (I like to do clean installs… it’s better for the system).
As for people with slow ISP’s, I suppose they could just set a Genius Bar appointment and have their Mac updated for them. But what about all the customers that don’t have an Apple Store nearby?
it’s just stupid to start complaining on these subjects. Of COURSE apple has it figured out, all the different routes of upgrading. Lion is just presented more or less as as a teaser and why the f###k should they take precious time at wwdc to go thru all technicalities petaining to all different scenarios in the mac community???
Maybe they do, but during they keynote, they specifically said that Lion would only be available as a download in the App Store.
lol I hope that’s sarcasm. Why would they ever choose to get technical at the wwDEVELOPERconference? Are you kidding me? I don’t know…that sounds like crazy thinking to me. But I’m willing to be stranger things have happened. 🙂
Oh, another one! I have friends who are very Mac-savvy, but they live in a remote area. To get internet access, they had to put a 110-foot tower on their property for a line-of-sight radio connection with the ISP. The connection is still very slow. I doubt very much that it would be possible for them to download Lion from the Mac App Store within their lifetimes.
Has Apple stated that they won’t accommodate users that aren’t running Snow Leopard? I don’t remember hearing that. Maybe they’ll have a software update for older OSes that will allow them to upgrade to Lion without jumping through any hoops. Doesn’t seem to difficult to create an application to run on Tiger and Leopard that would allow the user to connect to the Mac App store and only allow the purchase and download of Lion. People need to ease up a little. At this point, we only have a little information on how this all works. Geez.
What Apple said is that OS X Lion will be available only through the App Store, which is only available to those running Snow Leopard. Maybe Apple has anticipated the problems that many people are pointing out, and maybe they haven’t. Even brilliant people like Steve Jobs can get so caught up in their grand visions that they overlook important details close to home. I don’t think the reactions we’re seeing on message boards across the internet are overly dramatic by any means. The aggragate response of Apple’s customers to Apple’s road map is an important part of the picture. As Steve Jobs himself has said many times, “if people don’t like our products, they won’t buy them.” If people don’t buy into Apple’s vision because it doesn’t “just work”, then Apple will have a big problem… But so will we! What else can we do… buy pc’s???
Many Mac users may be able to get along for several more years with Snow Leopard, but this is obviously not the response that Apple is looking for. Nor do most Mac users want to stay in the same place for the next five years because their way forward is blocked. Sounds like a good, old-fashioned cliff hanger to me. Stay tuned for the next exciting episode!
The show stopper for me is available disk space. I don’t have 4GB available, let alone the extra space needed during installation.
How can disk space be a “show stopper” when hard drives are dirt cheap?
He means that his iMac or Mac mini has run out of disk space. These are not user upgradeable components within the casing.
Well for those who cannot download there might be an option to order a disc or usb version. They might also have a byob kiosk in the store (bring a stick or disc)–
now for those with fine internet speed but leopard or tiger–perhaps there will be a software update that will create an installable state for Lion to just work.
The only issue I have with the idea of downloading the update is that if I want to reformat my machine from scratch and do a fresh rebuild, which I don’t do very often but it happens, I’ll have to do it in a two step process. Install Snow Leopard from the DVD and then install the update.
That said though, others have given instruction on how to make a DVD from the download so my concerns may be moot. 🙂
Cheers.
J\
Not everyone has High Speed Internet. It would be a pain to haul an iMac down to the Apple Store to use the WiFi. But I don’t think people w/out access to high speed internet is Apple’s target consumer, after all, all of their products and services rely heavily on internet access, so dial-up’ers I guess need not apply.
As for people that may be holding onto Tiger. I think Apple should make a special piece of software that is basically the App Store shell, that only offers Lion upgrade, that works from Tiger on (Intel Processors only) to the most current version. That way everyone that has high speed internet can upgrade.
But as I said, if you can’t download the file, you are not their target consumer. If you don’t like it, you can use Ubuntu (still better than Windows) 🙂
A 4gb download can be problematic for people with mobile network connections only and meters bandwidth quotas. On such connections a reliable download of that size can be hard to achieve if the network keeps flip flopping between edge and 3G as they often do over the span of a few hours. For these people an Apple retailer may be far away and be no alternative. They have possibly relied on mail order from the Apple store or others in the past.
Up until a year ago my parents only had dialup so updating would have been hard. They are still on a very slow DSL link so it still won’t be fun. I hope Apple will offer a DVD disk option for a fall back for folks on a slow link to the net. I know of others that are still on dialup they have new computers that are OSX 10.7 able but have no cable or DSL access to the internet where they live.
For me personally I will have no problems installing Lion.
I really love apple, the only machines I buy now are macs.
but downloading xcode 4 was hellish
downloading a 4gb os install image?
…. maybe I should start re-thinking this whole mac thing
I download movies that are almost as long all the time!
This is another example of Apple dragging the whiners and complainers into the future kicking and screaming. Apple is skating to where the puck will be… again.
Thank God!
Holy bat shit. Common sense does still exist. Thanks Jay
And for the record, what exactly about download times is hellish? I can understand the slow download speeds interrupting the evening wanker pull, but an OS? You have got be pulling my…….
And being pissed at a company that is catering to the overwhelming majority of humanity is misguided…and frankly, childish. Lord knows, all the whiners are way more smarterer than the dumb asses at Apple. Jobs is a butthead because I can’t get what I want when I want it. And I want it NOW!!!
FO!
Although, of course, sadly the “overwhelming majority of humanity” has no internet access at all.
Don’t forget that 4GB may get a user very close to there monthly download limit. I am in a good cable area in Ireland and I have a 100mb line with a monthly allocation of 500GB so I will be OK but a lot of users don’t have as good broadband.
My guess is that there will also be a DVD but maybe at a slightly higher price point. That way everybody would be covered.
John
Are policies created for the majority or the exceptions?
What a total waste of time this discussion forum is. Only one person’s opinion counts – Steve Jobs – and all the spouting of Apple fanbois is total junk worthless – that’s how Apple sees it at least.
So you’re saying that the opinions of Apple’s customers don’t count? That’s bunk.
You’re right. Apple has been known to turn around if the dissenting voices are loud enough. Witness the about turn on the in-app purchase as relates online publishing. Apple did a complete U-turn there.
Guys whining about bandwidth, there’s a Starbucks on practically every US corner with FREE wifi. Order an ice mocha, sit back and relax. Not that big of a deal.
Not if you have a Mac Pro or iMac. Or are these suddenly not Apple products any more?
Non issue for most. If you still connect to the Internet via dial-up, then most likely your machine won’t even be compatible with Lion.
• Apple hasn’t sold an Airport BaseStation with an RJ45 since 2007.
• They started eliminating the internal modem before the move to Intel.
• If you didn’t upgrade to Snow Leopard then it was because it wasn’t compatible with your machine then or now
Apple is doing this to encourage users to try the Mac App Store. Once users see how well the Aap Store handles the OS upgrade, they’ll come back to try some software titles.
I predict that after the first month or so, Apple will make a DVD installer available at special request.
One use for the DVD drive is to watch DVD movies. Yup, some of us still do that. It’s called Netflix when it is not available on streaming.
Not a problem for me.
I see the biggest problem coming in for businesses. I personally do not have an Apple ID at work and have no intention of using my personal ID on my work machine.
I already upgraded to Lion DP4. Just download from the app store in the night, wake up and install Lion with a fresh coffee. The app store supports resuming and pausing downloads, its not like you go to apple site and download.
This is going to really suck for people like me who have to support a fleet of aging Macs (white Core 2 Duo iMacs) that are still running Tiger for cryin’ out loud! I cannot convince the management to get rid of these ancient machines before they start failing and upgrade to AT LEAST new Mac minis (the geriatric employees would rather use a low-res 19″ LCD with a Mac mini so they can read what’s on-screen).
If they still can’t understand why it’s a good idea to upgrade BEFORE there’s downtime due to a failed system, I guess I’ll zero the drives, install Leopard, then Snow Leopard, then Lion. UGH!
Perhaps everybody should just calm down.
To think that “Lion will only be available via that route, [i.e., is downloading via the Mac App Store]. There will be no retail upgrade kits, no DVDs…” is completely ludicrous.
Otherwise, why would Apple describe the upgrade process in print with a “To upgrade on day one:”?
It’s only the first day!
I would suggest that Apple will have more to add to satisfy all the concerns posted here, i.e., providing that your Mac can run Lion. Just like they did prior to the release of Snow Leopard. Remember the upgrade bundles for both Leopard and Snow Leopard?
And remember you could upgrade to Snow Leopard from Tiger thereby bypassing Leopard.
Really, anybody that thinks that Apple isn’t fully aware of what, how and when they customers are capable or are able to do in order to upgrade their OS’s, are just plain ignorant.
Anybody that believes that Apple hasn’t or won’t satisfy the majority of its users, is just plain stupid. Excluding those that seem to feel they have an entitlement to everything being free.
You may be right, or you may be in denial. Time will tell.
He’s in denial as he assumes that Apple is all encompassing, all seeing. It may just be a simple oversight on Steve’s part – not realising that the majority of people and markets that Apple sells to do not have access to high speed Internet, unlike the pipes that go into the Apple campus.
I don’t think it’s an oversight at all. I think it’s just a matter of Apple looking at their bottom line and not looking at the user. The more people they can get to buy upgraded machines, the better…for them. People who have older Macs with Leopard or Tiger are either going to have to risk damaging their old computer by doing multiple upgrades or they’ll just have to buy a new machine. Pretty smart thinking on Apple’s part, actually. But not very attentive to the needs of users without access to broadband. Even if I had broadband, wouldn’t a 4GB download cut quite a bit out of my monthly data cap? If I had one?
Who said anything about free? Actually, if I do a search on this page, the only one who said anything about anything being free is you.
I think you’re right, though. Apple knows full well what it’s customers are going to have to go through in order to upgrade to their newest OS. I wonder, though…do they care?
Most of the comments here fall into two camps:
1) I have no problem, therefore there is no problem.
2) I have a problem with this.
The issue here is that X% of people are going to have a problem with this. They may live in rural areas with poor connectivity. They may have restrictive data caps. They may be in an office where they’re behind a firewall (many Mac users in offices are on their own for things like upgrades). They may be in a studio where none of the production machines can connect. They may be far from any Apple Store. Heck, I know some people with many Macs that are stuck with this because they need to order through an approved vendor account, and in the past would just place one large order.
Whatever the case may be, when a user finds out there is a new Mac OS available and they hit any issue in regards to ordering it, that’s a problem.
And on the other hand, we have Apple, which could very easily make Lion available on thumb drive and DVD. Allow it to be purchased online and in stores. This would be available as an option.
Apple could then see how many people choose this option and determine whether or not to continue it. This is much better than not having this option and then dealing with the complaints.
Isn’t it odd that the computer vendor with the most expensive computers has the cheapest method of distributing their OS? Because, I’m sure if it was cheaper to do so, they’d be distributing DVD’s like they’ve done in the past…right? o_O
I find almost all of my customers want the software I sell sent to them on DVD even though I offer the same software as a download. Many people, including myself, want to have the physical media in their hands.
I have been offering downloads of my software since 1996, and I can’t tell you how many times customers have called because they were having trouble downloading a 20 MB file. That is why we always ship them a DVD as well. Bad Internet connections equate to I/O Errors. If that many people had trouble with a 20 MB file, I can’t even imagine what it will be like for some to download a 4 GB file.
You’ve hit the nail on the head. I always ask for a physical disc where one is provided as an option even if the software is available as a download particularly where it concerns a production machine. Not having a physical disc to fall back on if something goes wrong is just asking for trouble.
From the proofreading department;
“Once you’ve running 10.6.7 or later (and there’s a rumor of a 10.6.8 under development as we speak)….
Hey MDN, shouldn’t there be a (sic) in there somewhere?
“Once you’ve (sic) running”
If there are a sizable number of complaints, I imagine we will see Lion DVDs.
My prayer to the faithful is that someone comes up with a Rosetta hack. I think there are a large number of folks who require PPC software for their livelihood.
MDN, how about a poll on how many folks need Rosetta??
Why not offer a disc image that can be purchased at The Apple Store and load it to a jump drive the customer brings in?
Some people have really shitty DSL or lice well out of town- relying on a 3G link for residential Internet. That file is going to take a long time to download.
I think Lion will be available as a download only at the start. A month or two later, it will be available as a DVD. That way the App Store gets tried out, and then others get it as well.
4GB is a non-issue.
10.6.7 ofcourse. why would one not use the latest version?
Misguided…if Apple does not provide the means to download a .dmg, .cdr or .iso image!! How do you rebuild a computer with a new hard drive? How does an IT department purchase Lion for the department? Apple does not have a solution for “Corporate App Store”, so who buys it? When they leave the company, does Lion go with them? If the employee buys it, what stops them from installing it on their personal home computers? Does that put the corporation at risk for violating the terms of use?
What about netinstall and netboot from Lion Server? How do you make those?
I think Apple needs to think this “App Store Only” idea through a little more. There needs to be a means to burn our own installation DVDs.
Hopefully they have a plan for these non-consumer scenarios.
His point about it being difficult to upgrade from Leopard to Snow Leopard to Lion is silly. Snow Leopard cleaned up and streamlined quite a bit of Leopard code, and Lion obviously builds off of Snow Leopard, so the download and install process must be smaller due to not having to install bits and pieces which are already in Snow Leopard.
The latest test build of OS X Lion was a 3.7GB download. So much for “streamlined”.
There is always a vocal minority that complains when Apple does something like this. If you live in the boonies and you don’t have fast Internet, you chose to live there. You don’t hear people blaming Dodge because they can’t get their Charger up the snowy mountain road to their secret hermit hut, do you? Dodge isn’t obligated to provide you with snow tires and sand bags. It’s called the cost of ownership. My in-laws have horribly slow DSL. They own an old Dell that works for them. They’ve chosen to spend their money elsewhere. There are so many analogies you can use.
Apple represents less than 10% of the total worldwide market in PCs. Why would they want to alienate a large part of their user base on a matter of principle that can be easily solved by having an install disc. It’s not as if the ‘problem’ is insurmountable or costs millions to rectify. Apple should be actively courting users to expand their customer base not treat people as out of the loop simply because they lack a fast reliable Internet access. Isn’t Apple’s vision of the cloud opposite to that of Google’s simply because their vision is to not have always-on Internet available to their customers.
Because Apple just announced iCloud, and is intent on removing CD drives from its machines. That’s the future, not to be burning CDs and toting them around. Just like the uproar heard when Apple killed the floppy drive.
Someone has to be first, and it’s often Apple.
What I haven’t seen an answer for yet is okay so I do the web download of Lion, later on my hard drive dies and I get a new HD. What do I install with I don’t have media, Lion is on the net, my HD is blank???? OSe’s should come on disks so you can rebuild boxes.
When I replaced the HD in my MBP, the HD came with Leopard preinstalled.
There’s a lot of people making silly assumptions about the kind (speed) of internet connection other people have. I, for example, use a 3G stick which only allows 6GB of data a month. Anything over that and I get charged an extraordinary sum. Apart from the risk of blowing out my data limit (because a 4GB download is never ‘just’ 4GB), 3G downloads of this size takes many, many hours.
I think it was pretty short sighted of Apple to ONLY offer Lion as a download.
Not everyone has a true broadband connection.
Not everyone on high speed internet has an unlimited data limit.
Not everyone has access to a public wireless hotspot.
Not every wireless hotspot will allow large downloads.
Not everyone is within spitting distance of an Apple Store.
It will be interesting to see how Apple’s servers cope on release day.
Apple wants to get more people exposed to the App Store, but they also they want people to get faster connections (remember all that iCloud syncing they’re doing). That’s my guess as to why the online only release. They’ll bend if enough of their customers complain and release a disk, but they’d really rather you have the infrastructure in place for what’s next on their agenda.
People are reporting the ability to burn the disk image to a DVD and boot off that. Just use a friend’s computer to download the file and burn it. Then boot your Mac and install.
Why are “hardware” and “window” capitalized when they have no reason to be?
At least we will be able to make a OSX Lion Boot Disc from the installer
wheeew!!
I’m in favor of both the download option and a physical media option. This way customers can purchase the best product for their need.
Lion looks great except for one thing. Lion is only available through the App Store?
This is a major oversight. Why?
Reduced sales – several of my clients who went to the Apple Store to purchase Snow Leopard, returned with iPod nanos, iPads, a Magic Mouse or a Trackpad. Having Lion available only at the App Store will reduce store traffic and therefore unplanned sales.
Long download times, data caps, office network policies will prevent many potential customers from upgrading to OS X Lion. (It will take 7 hours to download in some of the wealthiest areas of Phoenix). Two clients have already told me that they cannot believe that Apple would it this difficult to upgrade to Lion. Only 27% of the US has high speed internet. A significant percentage of that 27% is below 1.5 mbps. (There are plenty of Mac customers in these low speed areas).
If your hard disk dies you have lost your ability to reinstall, now what do you do? Two weeks ago, I had a client with an apparent drive failure, had to boot from DVD to run diagnostics. (A restore partition will not help in this situation)
Based on my experience, two major selling points to Windows customers, US Based Phone Support, and re-installation media. My Windows clients absolutely hate not having re-installation media. This is why many refused Windows computers at the last upgrade cycle and instead began purchasing Macs.
Apple must be aware that download caps exist in markets like Australia. Unless Apple make deals with ISPs to not count downloads from the iTunes and App stores in users’ data plans, the new OS X will not be accessible to everyone.
4GB download? No Problem! I’ve got a 160Mbps cable connection. Even considering “best-effort” speeds 4GB shouldn’t take too long at all. As for those that have to do a double-install just to get to the point of downloading Lion…. Life is rough!
They never said it would be app store only- I think it will be available in stores for 39.99-49.99
Exactly. They are “selling” the idea that it is easily downloadable. It sounds advanced. It says “who else can do it like us”.
We will all get our OS in due time. No worries.
Main issue, as I see it, is that making the OS download only (and skipping physical discs) makes it damn near impossible for a home user to recover from hard drive failure. Sure, if said home user has been using Time Machine regularly, it’ll all be cool…but what about the guy who’s on the road a bunch, and only gets to plug in his backup drive when he’s home? How’s he recover without discs to boot/install/repair from?
Isn’t this: “OS X Lion includes a built-in restore partition, allowing you to repair or reinstall OS X without the need for discs.” one of the things we always bemoaned that Dell did? Refused to provide physical back-up discs for its customers?
Yes, it’s an ‘issue’ for me. My sole access to the net is via a data card with a 5 Gig per month limit. Please, Apple, give me a way to purchase the update on a DVD.
Apple knows exactly how many Macs are capable to run Lion.
Apple knows how many of those Macs have high speed internet, at what speed they are on and where they are.
Apple is quite capable of doing the math and thus knows how many Mac users will require alternative non-wireless installations.
As Jobs has stated previously, if you think like some of you have and think that you are being neglected, you don’t know Apple.
Sounds like the same shit coming from the same assholes everytime Apple dares to change the paradigm. TIme to change your underwear guys.
I pay $40/month to Time Warner Cable for ~25 Mbps. You people need new ISPs.
I just got back from Afghanistan where $100 per month gets you an unreliable constantly reseting Internet connection that in theory is 128kbps down / 64kbps up but irl was more like 25kbps down / 16kbps up. At that rate, the war will be over by the time the Lion upgrade file is downloaded. It might be faster for apple to put Lion on a small flash drive and attach it to a carrier pigeon and send out the update with that method. Seriously.
Of course 10.8 is under development right now. What a stupid fucking statement.
This is immensely stupid stupid stupid. We have a few hundred computers. When we build images we ideally start with a fresh OS. I want a self contained Lion installer disc. Burned discs fail. I need something reliable and bullet proof.
Humpf…..well I will download it, I can always find a place with multimegabit internet. To all you smart asses criticizing people with slow internet, you can kiss mine. Why would I pay cumcast $60 for 25mbps speed so I can open my email in 10 miliseconds, there is a word for that, sucker. Still I’m not complaining about the download issue, just the large swarm of ego maniacal dip shits that populate these comments. That said they could offer a DVD for an extra fee, you know the make some butt stupid decisions from time to time even though they be coo.
How long would it take you to order something online and have it shipped to your house? Is that still a day or two excursion?
Not upgrading. Too many apps that are PPC only. This is the first time that I haven’t done a system upgrade on the day of its release since before System 7.6. I’ve been a lifelong Apple fan, but they’re really starting to lose touch with reality. It’s not like Macs have that many software options to begin with, why cripple that aspect even more? Apple failed big on this one.