Apple has officially ended sales of its last DVD installers for older Macintosh operating systems including OS X Lion 10.7 and Mountain Lion 10.8. The move was highlighted by @ClassicII_MrMac on X.
Today is a sad day…
You can no longer buy OS X Mountain Lion from the Apple online store.😂 pic.twitter.com/Pxa6pHrU9t
— Mr. Macintosh (@ClassicII_MrMac) November 14, 2023
Hartley Charlton for MacRumors:
The era of Apple’s optical discs began to wane with the introduction of OS X Lion in July 2011, which was the first version of macOS to be available exclusively through the Mac App Store.
Due to customer demand, Apple briefly reverted to offering physical installation media for Lion and Mountain Lion, primarily to accommodate users with limited internet access or older machines without access to the Mac App Store. Mountain Lion, released in July 2012, followed suit with a focus on digital distribution, introducing features like the Notification Center, AirPlay mirroring, and the Messages app. The first version of macOS to completely forego a physical release was OS X Mavericks (version 10.9), released in October 2013, and the digital update process remains similar to this day.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple still sold macOS install DVDs? 😉
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I have install discs for Panther, Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, etc. But I don’t have a Mac that they will run on.
Last physical disc I have is for Snow Leopard. I remember my old 17-inch white iMac could run Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, and Lion. It was fun lining up at the Apple Store to get the new OS in a box.
Same here Snow Leopard disks, my favorite Mac OS after Panther. Prefer the physical disks as backup, so yes, very sad day…