Posts tagged with "mac"

Apple Releases OS X Lion, USB Thumb Drive Coming at $69

As widely expected, Apple released the next major version of OS X, Lion, on the Mac App Store today. The new OS is now available at $29.99 as digital-only download and is propagating through all the international App Stores at the moment of writing this.

You can download OS X Lion here. OS X Lion Server is available as a separate add-on here.

Lion is a major upgrade to Apple’s desktop OS that introduces over 250 new features and blends several typical desktop UI elements with design concepts and implementations first explored on the iPhone and iPad. Indeed, at the “Back to the Mac” event in October 2010, Apple described Lion as “OS X meets the iPad”. The Launchpad, for example, is a new way to install, organize and launch apps that’s heavily inspired by iOS’ Springboard, which lays out app icons in a grid against a default background with possibility of creating, moving, and deleting folders. Mission Control, a new way to manage app windows, combines the best elements of Snow Leopard’s Exposè and Spaces to create a new experience that unifies windows, desktops and full-screen apps in a single, easy to use interface. Lion brings hundreds of changes and subtle refinements, most of them delightfully added throughout the whole operating system in apps like iChat and System Preferences, others immediately visible like “All My Files” and “AirDrop”, two new Finder features to browse all documents and share files locally with others, respectively.

Lion brings new functionalities and APIs that should make users and developers alike excited to try out the new OS. For instance, developers can enable the new Automatic Termination and Resume APIs in their applications to make sure the “state” of an app is always saved upon quitting, and resumed on the next OS boot or app launch. This behavior can be reversed, but it’s enabled by default to put the emphasis on an operating system capable of saving your work and “app state” without you even thinking about it – app state means anything from open windows to position on screen and mouse cursor. Similarly, the new Auto Save when combined with Lion’s Versions will allow you to never worry about “saving” a document again, and have the OS perform continuos versioning in the background that you can access from a new Time Machine-like UI. Versions allow you to restore a document’s previous changes and edits from any point in time since you first created it.

Lion is a milestone in Apple’s desktop OS history, and we’ll have a complete review, as well as a detailed installation guide, in a few minutes on our site’s homepage.

Update: In the official press release, also embedded below, Apple confirms that Lion will be made available on a USB thumb drive at $69 for users without broadband access.

Mac OS X Lion is available as an upgrade to Mac OS X version 10.6.6 Snow Leopard® from the Mac App Store for $29.99 (US). Lion is the easiest OS X upgrade and at around 4GB, it is about the size of an HD movie from the iTunes Store®. Users who do not have broadband access at home, work or school can download Lion at Apple retail stores and later this August, Lion will be made available on a USB thumb drive through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com) for $69 (US). Mac OS X Lion Server requires Lion and is available from the Mac App Store for $49.99 (US).

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Apple Shuts Down OS X Downloads Page

As announced back in December 2010, Apple has shut down [thanks, Daylen] the OS X Downloads page that used to list applications, widgets and utilities users could download for their Macs. Instead, Apple is now featuring the Mac App Store at the same URL, which you can find here (the old apple.com/downloads/macosx URL also redirects to the new page). It’s unclear when Apple made the change to the webpage, but the last time we checked a couple of weeks ago the Downloads website was still active and listing apps for OS X. With OS X Lion approaching its public release, the fact that Apple has replaced the Downloads website with a Mac App Store banner doesn’t come as a total surprise – after all, Lion is going to be distributed exclusively on the Mac App Store, and Apple wants it to become the most popular way to discover and install new software for OS X.

Back in December, an email from Apple to developers said:

Because we believe the Mac App Store will be the best destination for users to discover, purchase, and download your apps, we will no longer offer apps on the Mac OS X Downloads site. Instead, beginning January 6, we will be directing users to explore the range of apps available on the Mac App Store.

We appreciate your support of the Mac platform and hope you’ll take advantage of this new opportunity to showcase your apps to even more users.

The Downloads page used to be a good source of traffic and page views for developers willing to showcase their apps on Apple’s website, for free. Now, they’ll need to submit their apps to the Mac App Store, which is organized in categories and has a front page with featured software and staff picks, but can’t be accessed from a web browser.

As a side note, the Widgets site can still be accessed here. On the Downloads page, Apple is also featuring links to iOS Software Updates, Safari Extensions, Mac Software Updates, Safari 5 and iTunes 10.

Ahead Of Next Week’s Earnings Call, Analysts Predict High Mac, iPhone And iPad Sales

Ahead of next week’s earning call, there are two reports out today by analysts that paint a rosy picture of Mac, iPhone and iPad sales. The first report by Barclays Capital anaylst Ben Reitzes, claims that Apple is likely to exceed 22% growth in Mac computer shipments during the June quarter. This is despite US market data that has been less optimistic, but Reitzes suggests that overseas sales may compensate for the “somewhat muted” US sales due to the fact that many consumers are waiting for new MacBook Air models.

The second report from Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities included some revised figures and claims that Apple is likely to have sold a record of 8.5 million iPads and an impressive 17.53 million iPhones in the June quarter.

After our recent trip to Asia, we indicated that we felt our iPhone estimates for the June quarter were overly conservative, while our iPad projections were achievable and well above the Street.

Apple’s previous record for iPad sales was last years holiday quarter where they sold 7.3 million units. The iPhone sales according to White would be less than last-quarter’s record 18.65 units but still more than double the 8.4 million units Apple sold in the same quarter last year.

While many larger tech companies rely on more cyclical trends to grow sales, we believe Apple enjoys the tailwind of strong secular industry trends, hot new products and market share gain opportunities

[Via Barrons, AppleInsider]