A blog called Apple Bitch points to an Amazon Germany listing of Mac OS X 10.7 which says the Lion OS will ship on a DVD format. This hints that the update may actually be available as a more traditional DVD purchase, instead of the all-digital Mac App Store download that the preview was released as, but then again this could just be a default listing for the software, set to become available later this year. The US Amazon listing doesn’t mention a DVD format at all, instead promising that the page will sell Lion if and when it becomes available in the store.
Though the Mac App Store is clearly the future for Apple’s distribution of their software, if Lion were only a MAS download, Apple would be excluding many Macs that could run it. Why? Lion is set to require an Intel Mac with a Core 2 Duo processor or higher. There are many Macs which match those specs that are still running Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Since the Mac App Store requires 10.6.6 or higher, having Lion as MAS download only would eliminate a lot people from upgrading to Lion, even though their machines would be more than capable of running it. So those of you who have never updated to Snow Leopard on your Core 2 Duo Macs need not worry, you’ll still be able to upgrade to Lion the old fashioned way. However, you’ll want to make sure you do, as I’m willing to bet Lion will be the last OS available on optical media.
Amazon Germany lists Mac OS X 10.7 Lion on DVD originally appeared on TUAW on Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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