Next time you install OS X? You’ll be slurping it down through the Mac App Store, not loading it up through an optical disc like some sort of caveman.
In the latest build of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion seeded by Apple, one notable change is this:
Enhances the Mac App Store to get ready for Lion
This ought not be such a surprise. The Mac App Store is already how dev versions of the Lion beta are distributed. While not a surprise, though, it certainly is nice to hear that when Apple does get around to releasing Lion, we’ll be able to just suck it down over the Internet instead of — gasp — fighting the rest of the hoi polloi for a physical copy.
[via Razorian Fly]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
98 responses to “You’ll Be Able To Install OS X Lion Through The Mac App Store”
DVDs and CDs are the 8-track tapes of tomorrow.
That will be pretty handy. If we need to restore though, that might cause a bit of hassle. I guess we’ll all have to make our own backup disks/flash drives to do so.
Hmmmm. What if I want to erase my disk and do a completely clean install? (Which is what I plan to do this time – )
Let’s hope they will have a utility to burn a copy to disk to restore/repair disk utilities
Since when is installing an OS from an optical disk being a caveman? I prefer to have it always at hand if needed.
They will have to allow you to burn it to DVD. What would you do if you needed to re-install but had no access to the Internet? Re-install Snow Leopard, and the download Lion all over again! Cannot see that happening, media is the way!
Since people generally stopped using optical disks for much. about four years ago.
Floppy disk?
I bet they will have something like iOS apps, where once you’re bought it you can reinstall it for free on the same device.
The Mac App Store won’t be the only way. I’m hoping there will be a USB disk of sorts, like with the MacBook Air.
I’m not sure that that is the correct interpretation of the phrase. It could just mean that they are ensuring that Lion doesn’t brick the MAS
If you are not geek enough to know how to make a partition, load SL and then Lion etc and make a bootdisk, then yes that is exactly what you might have to do. Frankly most folks won’t really care about the extra step. How different is it from loading a disk that is 4 point updates behind and having to update to get back up to speed after all
Don’t count on it. They could be setting this up as a true upgrade to SL. So the last physical item could be SL and then you hit the store for any thing more
Bad development since there are still many people that do not have fast Internet. Also (if this practice continues) it will even be more difficult to revert to older versions.
Which (fresh install) what I always do then there is a major release. Great moment to do a full clean of my system.
What is pricing going to be?
Any word or guesses on that yet?
The retail boxes of SL are not being manufactured anymore, at least, there are very few in the supply chain right now, just like the MobileMe boxes. If I’m currently on leopard, how would I upgrade to Lion? The Mac App Store is only in 10.6.6.
Plus, many people still want to do fresh installs. The demand is there for a physical copy. I think the debate should be whether they will ship with an optical or USB copy.
I’m still not convinced that they’ll offer it in the Mac App Store at all. ‘Enhances the Mac App Store to get ready for Lion’ doesn’t mean anything. They could just be updating the Mac App Store app with features of the Lion version of that app.
I’m betting on both options will be available, to send everyone to the Store seems wreckless.
It’s also great for people who have MacBook Air. If it wasn’t for the Mac App Store, they’d have to get it installed by an employee. What is this, 1987?
I’m excited, personally.
lol I dread to think of a general end user doing any of that!
I on the other-hand will keep my fingers crossed they give us an ISO to create a backup in case of emergencies!!!
you could probably burn an image to a dvd if you want.
And how would you install it then? Erase the disk, got no operating system on DVD, tough luck. You’d have to install Snow Leopard again, and then upgrading to Lion. Not what I call a clean install
Given how many aeons it takes to download a new iOS version when they come out, I hope Apple cut a better deal with their storage & CDN partners. It would be quicker for me to code 10.8 myself than wait for 10.7 via the App Store.
Hope so :)
Would like to be able to start up Lion from an USB or DVD though. Sometimes one needs to do a disk repair from a bootable DVD or USB. Or what about the hardware test? I doubt Apple has made Lion into the ultimate operating system that doesn’t need any form of maintenance and protects your mac against any form of malfunctioning. So being able to put the Lion download on a bootable media is something I would like to have just in case of trouble.
Absolute fantastic move by Apple. I’ve been saying for a long time that MSFT has wasted an opportunity to make similar, dramatic, shifts to the way software for full desktop OS’s is delivered. They have the tools for the enterprise, and on the Windows platform Steam and other app stores have given us streamlined digital delivery and management of games, but somehow the Windows team simply refuses to let go of past models and as a result, MSFT has stagnated both in the mobile arena and in modernizing the Windows delivery mechanisms.
Well, Apple has gone ahead now and just leapfrogged them in yet another vital area. With the addition of the app store, and now OS delivery via that app store, all other features aside OSX is really pulling ahead in terms of being a “next gen” desktop OS that leverages the lessons learned from the mobile device space.
The way the OSX vs Windows saga has played out is a powerful of example of the difference a strong cohesive vision, and effective management, at the top makes. Ballmer et al had better be paying attention.
But what if I want the box to add to my iShrine???
At last! Servers that won’t crush whenever more then 3 people are trying to download the same thing! *ahmAmazonahm*. When Apple does something – it’s being done correctly.
HP TouchPad to hit Wal-Mart June 12, OfficeMax in July?
http://www.gadgets5.com/2011/0…
Eyeshadow of the future uses LEDs not makeup
http://www.gadgets5.com/2011/0…
Thats a completely idiotic statement. Most people don’t have internet fast enough to sit there for 5 hours while some 16GB file downloads onto their computer and cripples their data cap… I think you’ll find a lot of people still buy discs…
is this going to be a nail in the coffin of the optical drive for future Macbooks? OS and other programs through the App Store.
Before any OS update, I update my clone on a USB HD via SuperDuper and test the clone by booting from it. Then I do the update and (if everything is OK), I clone the new version of the OS to a different partition on the removable drive. I trust that Lion will not contain anything which would interfere with me being able to continue that system.
If I buy the “Family Pack”, will I have to d/l it 5 times?
Yes, this is MUCH better than plugging in a USB drive. I agree that CD/DVD’s are dead for software distribution, however with the Mac Air’s using a USB for the installation disk, I was hoping for the same with Lion (…and I would expect this to be an option as not all users have high-speed connections)
Tony
Hope that it come in a format that can burn into a bootable DVD. It’s still essential to have a disk around in case something bad happen and a full restore is required.
you sir need to actually understand how most of the world doesnt have 100MB plus download per second and to install an OS for yourself. get learning boy
hope not. Apple, cop on!
i hope its 40 euro like SL
why would I want to download gigabytes from the app store when tens of thousands of other people are doing the same thing at the same time! No thanks, I would rather have a nice official Lion disk.
i remember the days when you used to get disks when you bought a pc
The thing is, as many others have said, discs are the best way to deliver an OS.
The App Store won’t help you one bit if the OS on the computer is broken or non-existent, you’d have to install Snow Leopard, update to the point where you can install the App Store and then spend some time downloading Lion…
They must have a way to at least get the downloaded files on to discs…
So having to sit there downloading what 16+ Gb is better than just plugging in a USB drive and be done 30 minutes later? Honestly, just can’t see how :p
Yea, right… Because they couldn’t possibly get it on a thumb drive like Snow Leopard?
OMG! Calm down everyone! There will be an App store for download version and there will also be an option to buy it in DVD discs version online or at your local store! While it’s generally true that optical discs usage are being phased out.
Apple Support Team.
Because OS X is 16GB.
Everyone’s missing the point here: hoi is the definite article, so the phrase ‘the hoi polloi’ is incorrect.
Ah, Classical education. I knew it would come in useful some day.
Did I say they would. Nope I didn’t. Because they won’t. They won’t think twice about popping in the restore disk, running software update, the MAS etc. Especially if they were PC users. It’s still less than they did at times for Windows.
Burning to DVDs is so 1990s. These days it’s bootable thumb drives. With the OS and all your core 3rd party apps
We shall see poser, we shall see
Who says it is 16GB. If this is done as a true upgrade of Snow Leopard it could be half that easy, more like one quarter.
So they do it disk on demand, they do it on USB sticks whatever.
Or maybe there are no disks in the supply chain cause the software is up to 10.6.7 and as of even now the disks are still 10.6.3. Maybe they are updating the freaking DVDs