Lion represents something of a landmark in the history of operating systems, for many reasons.
One of them, I think, is the way Apple has “appified” their operating system to make it as simple, as hassle-free as possible to install.
Lion will cost 30 bucks. It will be a 4GB download from the App Store, purchased using your existing Apple ID. It will download, extract itself, and install itself, with the minimum of fuss and disruption. Apple’s aim is to make it as easy to upgrade your OS as it is to install Angry Birds.
This is a big deal because for many people, OS upgrades have been a barrier. People get nervous about doing anything that they think might mess up their computer. Traditionally, OS upgrades have come with warnings, they’ve been the kind of thing bloggers write how-to guides about. Apple wants to remove the fear, to make the OS upgrade no more hassle than installing everything else.
Why do they want to do that? Well, partly because making life easier for your customers is always a good thing. But also because making life easier for customers means more customers.
Lion is more than an operating system. It’s a gateway to the Mac App Store, which itself is a gateway to vast chunks of Apple income for many years to come. Apple has to get more people using OS X, so it has to make it as easy as possible to get hold of it.
Giles Turnbull is a freelance writer in England. He also writes for the Press Association and The Morning News. You can find out more at his website, and follow him on Twitter @gilest.
14 responses to “Lion: The “Appified” Operating System”
If you didn’t upgrade to Snow Leopard because you didn’t think it was worth it and now you want to upgrade to Lion, the upgrade will cost you $60 plus a headache of having to upgrade to an outdated OS to get the newest version.
I’m waiting for Apple to do the same with Xcode.
P.S. I’m wondering how they will deal with Lion on multiple computers. I’m hoping it will be like the apps in the Mac App Store.
Always an early adopter, I’ll be waiting on this one. Exactly how is this better than Snow Leopard?
How will one go about installing Lion if your, say for instance, installing a new HDD? Nothing is active at that point, without the OS?? Do you need to/can you then go to a Mac or (dare I say it PC/Linux machine) and burn an ISO or copy to USB the App store download and boot from it?
there is a way to burn lion to a disk once you download the installer
http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/07…
I’m the same, even fell in to the trap with this release and then down graded back to Snow Leopard from my Time Machine backup. Apart from the fact that it looked almost exactly the same after the 35 minute upgrade.
I think that at the moment if your Snow Leopard install is working, fast and stable then there is no reason to rush in to this upgrade.
My experience was that it felt laggy, slow and slightly buggy with some of the new features. Also, some changes felt like they have been made ‘just because’ and not because they needed to be made. For example, the re-ordered Finder side bar. I don’t see any need to change it.
I just went back to snow leopard.. thank god