Lion will be available for 21 this July, exclusively as a 4GB download through the Mac App Store so you'll need to be already running 10.6.6 Snow Leopard. This is extraordinarily cheap MacOS X 10.5 Leopard, the last major release, cost 85 when it was released back in October 2007.
It's unclear if there will be an alternative delivery method for Mac users without fast broadband connections or how users will reinstall and troubleshoot their computers tasks which have traditionally required a physical boot disc. We suspect Apple may include a utility allowing users to create a bootable USB flash drive for such tasks, similar to the one included with the MacBook Air.
How will I be able to deploy Lion to my office full of Macs if it's an App Store-only download?
Good question. Currently, apps bought from the Mac App Store can be installed on up to five Macs associated with your account, so it's likely Lion will benefit from the same generous licence terms generous for home users that is. We're still awaiting word from Apple on how volume licensing for greater numbers of clients will work.
That Mac App Store seems like more trouble than it's worth.
That remains to be seen. The Lion version of the Store will allow apps to have iOS-style features such as in-app upgrades and push notifications. More significantly, App Store-bought apps will benefit from sandboxing so security holes in one app can't be used to exploit another app or the system itself in theory at least.
Golly, that sounds exciting.
Yes it does. We'll bring you a full review as soon as we can.
