Apple will make Mac OS X Lion available to buy on a USB stick in August, priced at £55. That's almost twice as expensive as downloading the software from the Mac App Store, a privilege for which you'll pay £21.
"Who would buy Lion on a USB stick instead of downloading it straight to their computer?" we hear you ask. "What variety of chump would pay £34 extra for a USB stick?" you seem to cry.
Well, for starters, the Lion download is rather large, at around 4GB. That might not sound like much if you're a tech-savvy, broadband-enabled, walking, talking, data-partitioning, Linux de-kerneling, data-hoarding biomechanical nerd machine. But not everyone has high-speed Internet access and, if your home connection has a data cap, you could rack up a nasty bill, or have your download throttled if you try and squeeze a Lion through the tubes.
If you're reading this and don't have Internet access at home, you'll be glad to know that you can pop into an Apple Store and borrow their broadband to download Lion.
Then again, if you have a relatively immovable machine, like an iMac or Mac Pro, lugging it to an Apple Store probably isn't an option. So, if you want some Lion-esque software clout, get ready to shell out.
Would you rather have Lion on a physical USB stick? Or are you embracing a download-only future? Let us know in the comments section below, or on our Facebook page.
Android App 
RSS Feeds 
iPhone App 
Newsletters 
Comments 11
Add your comment
gatorrock 22 July, 2011 08:30
Or the other problem, like my wife's mac, she never upgraded to Snow Leopard... so she'd have to pay for an upgrade- upgrade to Snow Leopard, then download the lion upgrade and upgrade to Lion- thus spending 3x the time and as much money.
Anonymous 22 July, 2011 09:32
Having a bootable version of Lion means you can do a clean install.
Even if you download it, before you install it you can create your own install copy on DVD or USB saving you money on buying the USB from Apple
You need to copy a file "InstallESD.dmg", more details on Lifehacker website
Anonymous 22 July, 2011 10:22
I'm pretty sure £55 is more than 'almost twice as much' as £21.
1000105421 22 July, 2011 10:43
From an environmental perspective, it's a good choice by Apple. What do you think happens in 5-10 years time when all these USB sticks end up in the bin? They'll either rot in the ground, leaking heavy metals into our water supply, or be incinerated and fill the air with dangerous plastic and metal fumes.
So pushing for downloads is good, and at £55 instead of £21, this sure is pushing for people to download.
Regarding the clean install, that's more of a PC thing really. I have both Mac and PC, and I have never felt the need to clean re-install the OS on my Mac.
anonymous 22 July, 2011 12:06
It is good that they offer a physical copy for people who's net connections cant handle the download, but why no put it on a DVD and sell it for a small amount more rather than a £35 memory stick?
Adam Wills 22 July, 2011 12:07
Even though I know clean install on a Mac is not always as useful as on a PC, I still like to do it from time to time. I clean installed Lion yesterday by burning my own DVD of the install file etc. I don't like not having the option for a physical disk.
One annoyance doing it this way is that the 'customise' option which would normally allow you to opt out of installing 300 languages that you don't want or need along with countless printer drivers you will never use, is greyed out in the installation so I can't help but feel that the whole clean install wasn't quite as worth it as I thought it might be.
I could clean install with Snow Leopard and then upgrade to Lion the 'non clean install way'.... but that would be even more faff than it has been already. Poor show Apple.
However, Lion is really quite nice!
A
anonymous 22 July, 2011 12:43
I just did a Time machine backup before I started the install, that way if something screwed the computer up, I could put the snow leopard disc in and restore from Time Machine. Otherwise, if I do ever need the Lion installer again, I'll just download it again from the app store
Anonymous 22 July, 2011 15:07
Ok so it costs £55 how much does a copy of windows cost?
anonymous 22 July, 2011 23:16
I prefer my OS' on a physical device, one will hopefully save disk space as I have a first gen base MBA11 and disk space is at a premium and two I don't think 4GB download is a healthy wodge to download over broadband... oh and read the reviews from the App Store? No? Go read 'em before buying Lion there are issues with 'old' software kind of core software for Macs not functioning.
I will be holding out til August or maybe September, wait for a few updates before making a graceful feline leap of faith,
Anonymous 23 July, 2011 18:22
i like the idea of downloading it, so does another odd million when its first released.... the servers can't handle it and i aint gonna wait an hour for it to be faster and less clogged up at the apple server and neither does anyone else.... -
Anonymous 8 August, 2011 11:39
I dont have Snow Leopard so cannot download via App Store, which i would have done.