Lion In The Spotlight: Apple To Offer Lion On USB Drives From August

Written by Rob Nichols on July 23, 2011 · Filed under Tech 

Apple only offering a digital download of Lion has been one of the main talking points throughout the build up to the release of the new OS, and it caused quite a stir among the traditionalist tech buffs who’d still rather install their new OS via physical methods rather than digitally. If that sounds like you, then dont worry, Apple’s got you covered.

Rumour has it, that come next month Apple will retail Lion in the stores, but not on the usual optical discs we’ve come to know and love, but rather on USB flash drives. Predictably, this will mean you have to dish out a little more dough to get your hands on the latest Mac OS, to the tune of £55 in total.

So essentially, you’re parting with an extra £34 for a USB drive from Apple that has Lion pre-loaded onto it. If this sounds a little extortionate, but you’d like to have your own hard copy of the OS, then you can pick up a pen drive much cheaper and follow our simple how-to on getting Lion on there yourself.

However, we are assuming that this is only aimed at those who don’t have the means to download the image in the first place, so perhaps creating your own bootable drive isn’t as viable as it would seem. For example, we still live in a world where many people don’t have super-fast broadband, and many more have data caps. In which case, this is ideal, as the 4GB download of Lion from the app store could leave you with some pretty hefty charges on your next bill.

Alternatively, Apple has said that you can take your machine down to the retail stores and borrow their connection for the download if you so wish, though this isn’t ideal if you’re a desktop user.

It’s a little interesting that this wasn’t the case from launch, and perhaps this has been thrown up as a result of a u-turn by Apple after sensing the discontent at those who needed a physical copy to load from, and a way to make a quick buck from any put off by the original delivery method via the App Store. It’s also a further indication of Apple’s determination to get away from optical media entirely, arriving with news that they’ve ditched hard copies of much of its software entirely from the retail stores.

Would you pay more than double the digital asking price for your own hard copy of Lion? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.