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Apple Releases Mac OS X Lion, Updates Air
steffann was one of several readers to note that Apple has released OS X Lion for $30 available only through the Mac App Store. It's a 4 gig download so you better not be in a hurry. Lots of new stuff both cosmetic and functional. But if you're the sort of person who is going to install it today, then you already know what they are! They also updated the Air lineup, dropping the old white MacBooks entirely.
It's a 4 gig download so you better not be in a hurry.
Yeah it takes a whopping 30 minutes. That's like...forever and stuff.
"But if you're the sort of person who is going to install it today, then you already know what they are!"
I'm not the sort of person who is going to install it today and I would like some actual details in the summary instead of links to a marketing page and a blog post about something unrelated. I do try to keep up to date even with things I have no intention of purchasing; I work in an industry where it is advantageous to do such.
For those who aren't able to psychicly deduce the details about something that just came out, here's the list of new features.
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That's not true. You have to have Snow Leopard to download it (but you can download in an Apple store or get Lion elsewhere). Burn it to DVD or put it on a flash drive and you can install it on any Intel-based Mac, regardless of current OS.
about time for the mini to get a REAL VIDEO CARD!
http://www.apple.com/macmini/features.html#graphics
only one TB port but that ok with HDMI and a HD 6630M in the $800 system.
But why not have a 7200 RPM hdd? the Server comes with dual 500GB 7200 disks? why just have 1 500 7200 HDD in the base systems?
and only 2GB in the $600 system? and $100.00 more to get 4 GB? better off paying $200 more to get a 4GB ram faster CPU and video card with it's own ram.
$150 to go from 500GB to 750GB? You can get a 3TB HDD for $150.
to be fair, i've used the optical drive in my mini (2007) about 3 times. and one of those times was upgrading to snow leopard.
For the amount of use it doesn't get, I think its a smart move - considering in the AU market they've dropped the price by $200 in compensation. If you need an optical drive, a USB one will work for you to convert your media, or just play that using your existing player.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
(A) For the people moaning about no physical media, they have also announced that there will be a physical version available on a USB thumb drive next month (gives them time for the first patches!) albeit for a considerable premium ($70 vs. $30 for download).
(B) Also interesting is the new 27" Thunderbolt Display which includes webcam, microphone, a sound system, gigabit Ethernet, Firewire 800 and a thunderbolt daisy-chain port for additional peripherals and monitors - all via a single thunderbolt connection to a Mac (plus a magsafe power output to charge your laptop).
Its still "reassuringly expensive", and only really makes sense as a "if you need to ask the price..." Macbook Pro companion, but it could represent the first example of the sort of things that Thunderbolt can do that USB3 can't.
(Yeah, the USB ports are still only USB2, but Mac users are more likely to have an investment in FW800 while they wait for reasonably-priced Thunderbolt drives).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
too. many. numbers.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
i've used the optical drive in my mini (2007) about 3 times.
Other people's experience differs. They use the Mac mini as a home theater PC and use the optical drive to play DVD Video discs.
If you need an optical drive, a USB one will work for you to convert your media, or just play that using your existing player.
Somebody with a Mac mini, a cable or satellite box for sports, and a Wii console already connected to the TV might not have another available port on the back of the TV for an upscaling DVD player.
From the Ars review, the license reads:
(i) to download, install, use and run for personal, non-commercial use, one (1) copy of the Apple Software directly on each Apple-branded computer running Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server ("Mac Computer") that you own or control;
The installer doesn't check, any system that you "own or control" you have a license for. A company system might be a grey are (you control it but they own it, and also control to some degree) but the installer doesn't check and no-one really cares.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Many months ago, I found a utility that enabled TRIM in Snow Leopard for my Intel SSD. At the time, I was running 10.6.7. Once 10.6.8 update got installed, Apple overwrote the settings so that TRIM got disabled again. I had to re-enable it with the same utility. It's still enabled btw.
I'm going to guess that Apple from a support policy, not technical, will refuse to enable TRIM for all non-Apple branded SSD drives. Perhaps they don't want to be blamed from loss of data and corruption, so they take the side of caution with hardware they don't directly control. So that would be my guess anyways. Can anyone confirm is this is still the case with Lion? If so, will Groth's utility still work?
BTW, here is the direct link to the utility and developer in question. http://www.groths.org/?page_id=322
Life is not for the lazy.
That seems rather arbitrary. Why would they do this?
I vote based on politicians' actions, unless contrary to my preconceptions. Often wrong, never uncertain. #iamthe99%
Apple: Bringing vendor lock-in to new levels!
I don't respond to AC's.
Chances are those $329 monitors aren't 2560x1440 IPS panels.
Not quite. Apple's 27" offering is a real monitor with real high resolution. The ones your local shop sells are just HDTVs. 1920x1080. Thus I can't see anything more on your average 27" HDTV than I can on a 20". Thunderbolt is 2560x1440. Quite a bit of difference. I used the older large apple screens (the ones that required a dual-link DVI video card), and have to say more pixels is very nice. Wish more companies would sell honest-to-goodness high resolution monitors. I type this on a 22" LCD that isn't any higher resolution than my screen 5 years ago. It's pretty sad.
So what's going to prevent this appearing on the famous p2p sites in 20 minutes?.
It'll be there (in fact it's there already since the GM version and this are the same). The only thing stopping you from using it is your personal sense of morals.
Isn't it better to have things that way than to have to maintain some kind of uber activation system that pirates just work around in 20 minutes ANYWAY, but that at some point mean you have to have a frustrating two-hour long phone chat because your activation is failing?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Why is it not unreasonable to force users to buy previous versions of the OS, if they aren't dependencies for the current version?
You can apparently just get the physical media or do it from the store to get the current version, but otherwise you have to pay for a version you won't use just to pay for the version you will use (from what I surmise from GP's post).
My old laptop runs XP. Should I be forced to buy Vista to buy Windows 7? (Actually, the next step for it is probably Linux, but that's beside the point.) I don't see how this behavior is justifiable at all.
I vote based on politicians' actions, unless contrary to my preconceptions. Often wrong, never uncertain. #iamthe99%
Back in the 80s, Apple used to pretty much give all their OSes away for free, I think they started charging around System 7 or so. Later on they had a policy to make old versions available for download so people with old hardware can get their machines running. Once Steve Jobs returned, that policy stopped so the latest you can get on Apple's support site is System 7.5.5.
As pointed out in the Ars Technica review, the installer creates a small (1GB) new partition on your hard drive without destroying any existing data. It then uses this partition to bootstrap the remainder of the install process.
(That's just the sort of approach I took with a Linux system years and years ago, though my reward was a whole weekend spent trying to fix a broken system and finally just erasing the HD).
For a thorough and interesting review see ARS: http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2011/07/mac-os-x-10-7.ars Even I as a non Mac user find the detail Ars always goes into with a new Mac release entertaining.
Basically, Apple has gone back to being a hardware company. I wish Microsoft would do this too, most people never upgrade Windows except when they buy a new machine because Microsoft charges an arm and a leg for each upgrade. With Apple there is little excuse not to be running the latest version.
That said, there is one reason not to upgrade to Lion: If you still use PowerPC based applications (like Quicken!), they won't work in Lion. Apple removed the compatibility layer and doesn't even offer a way to install it as an optional package.
I read the internet for the articles.
It's like complaining the Toyota Prius can't go 0 to 60 in 3 secs and can't carry 8 people.
I think that the only vehicles that'd fit into those specs are called airplanes. Catapult launched carrier versions, to be specific.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Mac .APP files are actually folders. The OS just visually packages them up to make it pretty.
Right-click on the Install App and choose Show Contents.
Inside the SharedSupport folder, there is a disc image called InstallESD.dmg
You can burn bootable discs or make USB sticks from that disc image. Enjoy!
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
Why focus on the drivers when you can despise the entire state?
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Not all Macs are purchased at an Apple Store; some are purchased at Best Buy or at independent Apple authorized retailers.
100% irrelevant. Apple Stores will help you in their stores no matter where you bought your Mac. Also, third party stores will be able to give you access to a locally cached copy of Lion once you've purchased it.
You keep acting like this is a common situation. It's contrived, solely to find some reason to bitch about something that won't be a problem for most people.
And for those whom it is a problem, that's the way their life is. They can't watch Netflix, they can't buy TV shows from iTunes or watch Hulu, or buy games on Steam. Even YouTube is a pain. And OS updates that can exceed 1GB? Same issue. It's not like they are exactly the sort of people who are champing a the bit for the latest and greatest anyway. They can make for for a few weeks until physical media is available, assuming they can't avail themselves of the many other options until then.
Apple has multiple solutions for the small minority who will have problems. You are exaggerating the issue.
That's why OS X Lion will be available on USB thumb drive for $69 next month.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20080981-17/mac-os-x-lion-pounces/
$0.02 (CDN)
Unless you're downloading OSX_Lion_4_Windows.exe, I doubt you're going to have a malware problem.
There is a free download (that isn't exactly working) for those who purchased after June 6, 2011.
http://www.apple.com/macosx/uptodate/ [apple.com]
OS X 10.1 was a free upgrade from 10.0. All you had to do was visit an Apple retailer and supply your own CD/DVD.