Ryan Cushley

Of the more controversial moves taken by Apple with Lion is a decision to switch to digital-only delivery via the Mac App Store. Criticism has ranged from the lack of a hard copy, to the lack of universally available high speed Internet connectivity. Apple has chosen not to reverse this decision, and on release, Lion will indeed be delivered digitally only.

As any user of the Mac or iOS App Store will know, Apple have very capable servers, able to match the speed of almost any residential Internet connection. For most users then, the download of Lion should be relatively painless. When the final version of Lion became available, I was staying at my girlfriends parents home, a far distance away from the high-speed Internet connections I am used to in the city. Even then, downloading at a measly 60kbps the download only took around 13 hours. Left overnight, the whole operating system was ready to be installed in the morning. On a more standard suburban download speed of 500kbps, the download should take a maximum of a couple of hours. It is difficult to suggest that this in itself is a problem, but issues could arise for customers with low monthly bandwidth caps, or no access to broadband.

Once downloaded, the process of installing Lion is a simple one of just a few clicks. The installer, like any other download from the Mac App Store, situates itself automatically in the dock. Upon opening the installer application, three pages must be navigated through to begin installing; a confirmation that Lion is to be installed, then the software licensing agreement, and finally the user must select where to install the operating system to. After selecting ‘install’ from this final window, the process is automatic, right through until the OS X Lion desktop appears.

To give an idea of install time, I have Lion on both my girlfriends 2010 MacBook 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, with HDD and 2GB RAM, and on my own 2011 13” MacBook Pro 2.7GHz Core i7, with SSD and 8GB RAM. On the MacBook, install time was approximately 45 minutes, from unpacking the files, right through until the Lion desktop appeared. On my own MacBook Pro, installation took just short of 12 minutes, largely down to the SSD performance. Both times are very comparable to Snow Leopard installation times. However, despite the dramatic growth of the SSD – even in Apple’s own products – the installer seems unable to sense the presence of an SSD, and still counts down the install time from 30 minutes, skipping forward now and again.

Following a final reboot, the Lion desktop appears. Notably absent during the initial boot is a welcome video, which have appeared in various iterations since OS X launched. Instead, the desktop is available immediately, with a new Setup Assistant widow launched explaining how Lion scrolling works (Apple term the new scrolling ‘natural’; it is the same as iOS scrolling behaviour). This new Setup Assistant is context aware, sensing either a trackpad or Magic Mouse, and adjusting itself appropriately. This is a necessary move, as so drastically altering the scrolling behaviour – literally reversing movement – will be an unknown ‘feature’ for many. More on this later, but don’t be tempted to switch back straight away; the learning curve for the new behaviour is just a few hours.

Through the method of delivery, Apple block out a likely very small minority of upgraders, however, while the switch to digital distribution may appear an unfathomable one for some in 2011, it is a process that would inevitably come. The transition to digital delivery has been handled well by Apple, with the Mac App Store being a good platform for rapid distribution. Having an alternative delivery method available for those who, for whatever reason, cannot download Lion should have been implemented, but no doubt Apple will somehow be able to accommodate those who cannot get it through the Mac App Store. Personally, I would rather walk into a shop and purchase a DVD, but the download experience feels so robust, that what could have been an unnerving experience felt natural.

In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 1: Introduction
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 2: Installation
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 3: New Visual Changes
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 4: Launchpad and Mission Control
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 5: Full Screen and Mail
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 6: Auto-Save, Versions and Resume
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 7: Multi-Touch and AirDrop
In-Depth OS X Lion Review Part 8: Conclusion