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Apple Ships OS X 10.7 Lion 'Gold Master' For July Push
An anonymous reader writes "Apple released to developers the 'gold master' version of Mac OS 10.7, known as Lion, in a move that positions the company for a July roll-out. 'With Snow Leopard, Apple's previous Mac OS release, the time between going from gold master status to hitting store shelves was approximately two weeks. However that release required Apple to stamp and produce boxed discs to send out to retail stores. Lion will be the first by Apple to be released only through its Mac App Store as a digital download.'"
It doesn't come as a burnable ISO, but people that lack fast Internet aren't necessarily screwed, since Apple is allowing anyone to use the Wi-Fi in their retail stores to download the OS. Presumably, they'd have it cached on-site in their stores so that it wouldn't take long at all.
And most Mac users already created an account with Apple anyway. Their online store, iTunes Store, iOS App Store, Mac App Store, etc. have all had linked IDs for years now, so if someone ever purchased anything from any of those, they already have the required ID.
As for applications, they're still in those folders, but they're adding something akin to the way iOS organizes apps. Basically, it's a first step towards hiding the file system, and it's essentially a layer that can appear on the screen with all of your apps. With the new way of doing cloud syncing with automatic saving and versioning that Lion adds, people will have less and less need to manage the files themselves, and will instead merely interact with the apps, which manage the files for the user. This new launcher is a way of helping to change that focus, from what I can tell.
Posting as AC cause this is NDA stuff.
1) 10.7 can be burned to a DVD or dumped to a USB Flash Key and installed off of. It does NOT require an existing installation of 10.6.8 to INSTALL. You only need an existing 10.6.8 installation to download it- IF you want to get it from the Mac App Store. The relevant file is called "InstallESD.dmg" and weighs in at around 4GB. It is essentially a restore image of what you would otherwise find on a shipping DVD. It comes with what you get off the Mac App Store.
2) 10.7 does NOT REQUIRE AN APPLE ID.
There is NO PROTECTION in 10.7 against piracy. There is NO ONLINE ACTIVATION. There is NO receipt checking through the Mac App Store. For all intensive purposes, it is IDENTICAL to 10.6.8 in that the Mac App Store is just another application in /Applications. The operating system IN NO WAY attempts to verify the legality of your installation, nor does it case.
You can install, configure, and use your machine WITHOUT creating an Apple ID. It is -TOTALLY- optional.
3) 10.7 Server does NOT REQUIRE AN APPLE ID. The Server administration bits come as a single app ("Server.app") that downloads and installs Server Essentials, which is basically all the server side stuff (Open Directory, PostFix, etc). This application does NOT attempt to verify the legality of your "server" NOR DOES IT REQUIRE A SERIAL. Just like #2- if you obtain Server.app from some other place, you can install and use it on a Mac OS X 10.7 system without the need for an Apple ID, or even an internet connection after the Server Essentials packages have been downloaded!
So, please, stop spreading FUD!
10.7 is identical to 10.6. You can clean install it. You don't need 10.6, except for the initial download (which Apple expects you'll do legally- through the Mac App Store). You do not need an Apple ID for anything (you don't loose functionality).
The only thing that has changed- is that Apple is going the digital *distribution* route. They have NOT gone the "digital distribution and locked down DRM and online activation" route.
-AC
Pay attention! Xcode 4.x is free from the Mac App Store if you are running Lion. They said this 2 weeks ago.
What do you want to do with the Dock, exactly? A lot of hidden options in OSX can be customized with programs like Tinker Tool, iTweax, OnyX, or Secrets.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Xcode 4.something is going free once Lion is released.
gcc is still included in Xcode, iirc, it will be gone in 4.2 or 4.3 (this was explained during WWDC). The gcc less xcode is going to be released around hte same time as iOS 5. "i686-apple-darwin10-gcc-4.2.1" is installed with 4.0.1
Xcode right now, iirc, defaults to LLVM, but if you want you can change it to GCC or LLVM/GCC
What the hell do they put into that package to make it 4 GB? Isn't XCode just an IDE and a compiler bundled together?
There are tons of libraries and frameworks for the current version of OS X as well as for past versions of OS X (for cross-compiling projects) and now for different versions of iOS, since the iOS SDK is included. There are also sample projects and an interface builder and debuggers and probably lots of other neat things that I'm not even aware of.
What you install to your hard drive may not end up being that big since there is a lot of optional stuff included in the main XCode download. So no, it's not just an IDE and a compiler. And it would be quite silly of Apple to include something so huge and unnecessary with every download of Lion. Anyone who wants it can just download it separately.
How do you define "far superior"? According to most benchmarks, LLVM still has some miles to go before it produces binaries that are faster than gcc (it does produce a few special cases where LLVM is faster though so it does show promise for the future). For example check out: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=gcc_46_llvm29&num=1
$ du -c -h -s *
312K About Xcode.app
234M Applications
2.3G Documentation
62M Examples
29M Extras
1.8M Headers
4.0K Icon
159M Library
1.1M Makefiles
151M Platforms
468M SDKs
244K Tools
509M usr
3.9G total