Apple sells world's most expensive flash drive You can now purchase Apple's Mac OS X 10.7, aka Lion, on a flash drive for $69 – and, yes, it's the exact same operating system that's available at the online Mac Store for $29.99. The USB thumb drive is available through Apple's online store, where Apple explains that the $69 lets you install the company's new OS without a …
You have all been abused by the brick and mortar so long you don't understand the cost of physical distribution anymore. The big players artificially hike up digital distribution but Apple is trying to changing all of that. Do you realize the markup most software has at BestBuy, and other distributors? Apple is selling Lion digitally for far less because it make sense to! If you assume $29 is wholesale price for the software alone and say $10 for the flash drive you are looking at a retail markup of about 60%, which is high but not so crazy.
Note: I just saw the "OEM" price for Windows 7 Pro at $35. Boxed Retail price is $299 but nobody is getting all crazy about the over priced DVD and cardboard box Microsoft ships!
"Note: I just saw the "OEM" price for Windows 7 Pro at $35. Boxed Retail price is $299 but nobody is getting all crazy about the over priced DVD and cardboard box Microsoft ships!"
OEM and Retail are two different licences. You also can't buy OEM as a consumer for much less than about $150.
Anyone can be an OEM. Last time I checked you get this from Newegg as long as you bought some new hardware along with it. Literally a $.99 bag of screws qualified.
Even if you don't want to game M$ (and really doesn't even M$ fans want to stick it to them?), you can still make this a very legit OEM purchase by buying a new HD or Video card, or adding some memory to your PC, any of which can be a reasonable upgrade to consider when upgrading to a new OS.
OEM === One off installation. Once you register the software, it is bound to your PC by a # Hash checksum of your system components. You cannot transfer this license to another machine.
Also, this means that if you upgrade the hardware, say CPU or Motherboard, you are also stuffed as the # Hash checksum changes, your license will become invalid.
Hence this being OEM. e.g. OEM license keys on Dell, HP, Lenovo etc.... The key is hardware locked.
The OP obviously doesn't know the difference between a Retail box which can be reinstalled as and when you change hardware or upgrade..... and OEM.... Should really educate yourself in such basic matters before speaking out or your rear end.
It's illegal to put a disk image you paid for and downloaded on to a USB drive you bought ?!?
When did this happen ?
Copying an installer disc and selling it or giving it to friends is illegal but buying your own disc and copying it to a USB drive is not, it's the same fair use principle that allows you to copy CDs to your iPod.
The funny thing is it's incredibly easy to make a USB installer with a Mac (using Disk Utility) thanks to Intel's EFI, Mac fans really don't have a clue.
I guess you are living in the US?
IANAL but I think that in the UK, it is indeed unlawful to copy a CD onto your iPod. There is no "Fair use". I think that the law allows for "copies" that are necessarily made to use an item (such as the vibrations of a gramophone needle that are "copies" of the track), but that doesn't extend to format shifting.
Also some wily lawyer apparently suggested that the "copying" of data from a disk into RAM to do something with it requires a license to copy (even though you might think that it is a necessary copying operation to use what you've bought).
It is the Windows wonks trying to find something where nothing exists. Apple wants to encourage digital distribution because it is cheaper, so they pass along the costs associated with physical distribution. I wouldn't be surprised if the drive is an 8 GB drive and the OS is $29. Figure $20 for the drive and we are talking about a retail markup of $20 which sounds about right.
I mentioned it before but Windows 7 retail is $299 but OEM distribution is $35. So lets talk about an expensive disk/cardboard Box!
Apple encourages people to make their own flash drive for catastrophic disk failure. Apple is not imposing this on anyone. Just making it available as an option for those who want/need it.
The price comparison is NOT simply about media/boxes. The OEM licence is intended for PC builders to preinstall, and assumes that the OEM supplier is providing support, NOT Micro$oft.
And NO I am NOT suggesting Micro$oft support (Oxymoron?) is worth the difference, but then the retailers, hauliers that deliver, etc etc etc all need to make their cut, and pay tax on that . . .
as long as no one messed with the little sticker, those data will last a long time...
(I use an Org II to keep track of one of my collections)
Of course, when it got full, you had to copy the files over to another, then ship the original off to either Psion or a buddy with an EPROM eraser to have it erased.
They did bring out EEPROM-based DataPaks, later though, and that again was the inspiration for the Series 3 SSDs, which in turn begat PCMCIA flash-disks and so forth...
The USB version allows a restore onto a bare drive which effectively means that it includes a Snow Leopard license. Cost of Snow Leopard is around $29
$29 + $29 = $58. Apple is really charging just over $10 for the USB key
The AppStore version of Lion requires that the user already has a copy of Snow Leopard installed
For those that don't have a previous Snow Leopard this is a relative bargain
Is it not true that the Flash version of Lion also gives license for upgrades directly from Leopard as opposed to Snow Leopard for the download version?
Also.. keep in mind that with the physical media... you have packaging and distribution expenses. Although in this case I am sure it does not account for $40 difference.
Never the less... $69 is not a bad deal for those lacking the needed requirements.
I could almost accept the "no physical product" sales pitch, but to whack it onto a (presumably hard coded, non-reusable) USB key instead of just pressing a DVD is just lunacy, even without the $40 overhead. Even from an environmental viewpoint, surely DVD is better??
The Snow Leopard retail pack was sensibly tiny (compared to Windows 7's big honkingly awful orange plastic box, say), being a slightly thicker than average cardboard sleeve.
Well, if you're upgrading your macbook air then that will be $29+x for the DVD, plus another $70 for a superdrive if you haven't bought one already. While I'm sure most people probably HAVE done just that, or have a second machine that they are using disc sharing with, it's still a series of extra steps you need to perform.
However, it's obvious that Apple is trying to do away with DVD media in the same way as it did with floppy drives. Whether that's good or bad is debatable, but it's clear that's what they're trying to do.
Not to mention you get a darling little apple branded usb key that you can wear for a pendant. I can't wait for data-enabled tattoos, that we just wave above our computers to install the software. I know where I'd stick my tattoo, how about you? :D
"presumably hard coded, non-reusable" would be a bad guess on your part. Just as with the downloadable version, you can use this one as many times as you wish. (You do have to remember to copy the downloadable version to another volume before using it, as if you leave it where it was downloaded it will delete itself upon finishing the update. However, if you copy it to, say, a USB drive, you can use it as many times as you want to.)
What you can't do with the downloadable version is install over Leopard. (Well, not without indulging in some gymnastics, anyway) Apparently you can do that with the USB-from-Apple version. As Snow Leopard costs $30, if you have Leopard and want to go to Lion (why you'd want to do that is beyond me, frankly) you'd have to either buy Snow Leopard first and then get Lion, at a total cost of $60 plus the time required to do _two_ updates. This way you spend $70, but only do _one_ update. $10 seems little enough to pay to avoid the hassle.
You can reuse the drive if you so desire. Why you'd want to is up to you, but one of the advantages that a thumb drive has over a DVD (or a download) is that you can take it to the local Apple dealer and have said dealer update it to the latest version of the OS. Or you could download the updater yourself and put it onto the drive, as there's plenty of space left over.
And as for the system requirements... that's because the download version requires the MAS, which became available with 10.6.6. There are three Apple Stores in my vicinity, and the staff there are pushing the USB drives as a way to upgrade from Leopard, without going to Snow Leopard first.
Its EXTREMELY slow. We're talking 1.5MB/s vs 30MB/sec and seek times 150ms vs 0.1ms.
To boot a Mac from DVD requires 10 minutes where a flash drive takes 30 seconds and install time of 30 minutes vs 2 minutes.
There is NO advantage to DVD in any way. Its an antique technology.
I have one in my PC that is like 3 years old, burns a full DVD in a few minutes
Surely you are aware that DVD on SATA can transfer at a minimum 15-30MB/s
Sure seek times aren't great, but you shouldn't be booting and running from the DVD, you just use it to install.
And I still find it funny the Appull fanbois trying to defend why its good that handjobs is removing legacy features to save a few pennies. "Oh who needs DVDs, its not like there movies or something you can still use them for....." sheesh
Even if you ripped all your movies to a multi-TB drive (which asspull, I mean apple would charge like $4000 for BTW) DVD are still very usefull to transfer data from one PC to another.
I can burn 4GB of pic or vids and share them with friends or family without having to ask for my flash drive back. (and they cost like $.10 a piece now)
I'm not saying DVD's are useless but with external drives and Flash Drives so cheap (and so much more reliable) I'd never wast my time with one anymore unless I had to leave something behind. I think most people feel the same way.
Oh, and I have a 2TB drive with my videos that I'll upgrade to 6TB for about $240, although I did consider only going to 4TB and keeping it down to about half that.
Digital distribution of media just makes sense.
well, in all fairness, Apple also provides a free download to create your own recovery thumb drive. (http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1433)
You can even use it and a time machine backup to go back to 10.6.8, which, after a good week, is what I did. Lion was supposed to be conjured up specifically for my 11" MacBook Air, but all it did was to require more clicks to achieve the same thing as before and throw up more fancy transitions.
But I thought all the recovery assistant did was boot enough of the system to re-download the thing again (Hopefully not the same month that the first Lion download used my entire month's bandwidth allowance!)
A better option for me was to burn a copy of the installer after downloading it.
Yeah it's not exactly cheap - but then again you can't compare the cost of this to a blank USB stick. You're paying for the OS itself + the distribution/duplication effort + the physical media.
DVD media costs very little because it's a mass produced copy with an easy method of duplication, this media is much more expensive and you're got the cost of the file copy.
Still way cheaper than purchasing a Windows upgrade, just saying.
Oh please…
I'd made my own by the time Lion was even released and Apple has since provided a free download to help non-geeks make one. Combine that with the fact that the OS costs thirty bucks and only a bitter old woman would complain, in between kicking cats and screaming at the neighbor kids to get off her lawn.
There's a point at which your insistence on perpetual pique distorts the truth and become truly bad journalism. When was the last time you got laid?
Where have you been the last few years?
"Exposed core" (for want of a better term) USB sticks have been around for a heck of a long time now.
"There is only one allowed and approved USB connector.". What? You mean as in: A, B, mini-B, micro-A and micro-B?
This type is in theory non-standard, but then I don't see a USB logo in the pic anyway.....
Either Apple users are plain stupid, have too much money or are bone idle - no one in their right mind would pay that amount for a USB stick - my god they give-away the damn things at Conference's - obviously they do not have a nice Apple Logo.
As for Lion and US$30.00 for a DL, forget it.
I've had Lion running since early July, its a GM developer copy and installed on a small boot partition on my HDD - 4.2G in fact. Problem solved.
Total cost to me, US$0.00.
Now admittedly, I had to pay a hefty premium for all my Apple hardware - Mac Mini, two 27in iMac's and Macbook - but software is not an issue.
Still, if your favoured consumers have more money than sense, what do you expect!!!!!
I run a Lion partition on all my computers and they are backed-up via Time Machine - these externals are also Partitioned and have Lion Installed as a Boot Disc - Problem totally solved.
If people can afford to run Mac's, then they need to run external HDD's, make the external a Boot Drive and work off the external, i.e., don't utilise internal drive - seems mad, but works for me.
Also, plenty of copies of Lion all over the Internet and given Apple has too much money in my opinion I'm not giving them anymore - there hardware is great, I pay a premium - but no way will I pay stupid sums for Software.
Snow leopard (Required to download the Lion update): $30
Lion: $30
That leaves the 8GB USB drive costing $9.
You also get the benefit of not having to install Snow Leopard first as you do with the downloaded update. Leopard users can update directly without having to buy Snow Leopard.
Please try to get your math right before just outright "bashing" something you don't understand.
I'm supposed to be buying "Lion" their new version right?
So you accept in your math that you owe Appull money for their last version ALSO... and you preach about not understanding....? (oh and the old version still costs as much as the new version....
Think it is u and appull that don't get the math
Oh and I'm sure just to nitpick if apppull buys say 100,000 of these damn keyfobs, I'll bet they are not costing the retail shelf price of $9, try more like $1-2 in bulk.
(BTW Ubuntu = $0 so nyah!)
"Think it is u and appull that don't get the math"
He's saying that if you buy the USB stick you can install Lion (the new version) if you have Leopard (the previous but one version)
If you want to upgrade via download from Leopard, you have to buy Snow Leopard and then download the upgrade.
The cost of buying snow leopard + the lion upgrade is 9 dollars less than the USB stick.containing the retail version of Lion.
"(BTW Ubuntu = $0 so nyah!)"
If you want support though you have to pay 88 pounds.[1]
When the fk did charging for software become seen as such a crime, as a programmer it makes it awfully hard to pay the bills. ;)
1 http://shop.canonical.com/product_info.php?products_id=715
I get what he is saying, you don't get that I am disagreeing with the concept that to buy version C (newest version) of software you have to buy version B first just because you are using version A. Appull users seem to accept this "pay us for everything no matter what" concept without questioning it. Even M$ didn't make you buy the last version to get the newest one.
Does it really seem reasonable to you to buy a old version as a poll tax? Put the concept on cars: I have a 2009 Benz, and want a 2011 model, but I have to buy a 2010 first? Only with software could a company even try such a sham.
My luddite wife and young children use Ubuntu with no need to pay anyone for tech support - (and no I don't help them, they are teaching me, i HAVE to use M$ for work and games. ) not sure why you think it must cost 88 just because it is offered.
Agree fully with you though that charging for Software is a reasonable and good thing, and would like to see people compensated for their work. But when a perfectly good community supported OS is out there, the purpose of buying one is lost and really just relates back to control, rather than function. (You do know apple is just BSD underneath anyways don't you?) I would rather pay for apps and software that run on that OS. However I seem to be able to find free software to do almost all that I want/need to do so far.
I would think only businesses would ever purchase this support, or people with more money than time.
"Leopard users can update directly without having to buy Snow Leopard."
The Ts and Cs still require Snow Leopard to be there (the minimum req's are OSX 10.6.6). There is no (legit) upgrade path from Leopard to Lion, you are paying for exactly the same product that you're downloading from the App Store, but at a $39 premium. Our math[s] skills are just fine thanks.
Plus regardless of this, you know fine well Apple could sell a DVD version for a helluva lot cheaper.
If you are a poorly paid IT worker it is probably not worth the money. Cheap and easy to download and install. Cost represents maybe represents an hour or even 2 of paid work. If you are self employed and earning top dollar, say a writer, journo, designer etc. uses a computer for work but not tech' savvy then $50 this could represent a very minutes of work time. Better value to pay the price, update your macbook, get on with work.
If you want to install Lion from scratch it's not a bad deal and makes the process quick(er) and painless. If you have a fully working system / Internet connection you would just download the update to Lion from Snow Leopard.
It's really not that expensive and if your time is valuable - very worthwhile.
I never really understand why people whinge about price - you do not HAVE to buy it.
A company selling stuff with a mark-up? Surely not!
I bought myself a Blu Ray player a couple of weeks ago from a "high street electrical store" and was asked if I wanted a HDMI cable because one wasn't supplied in the box. A gold plated cable from them cost £30 but it came supplied with a little bottle of screen cleaner.
Similar HDMI cable from Tesco: a tenner.
I hate to break it to you Apple deniers but companies do this a lot. Kinda page one of "Economics, How to Make a Profit". And, like many others have said, this is a bargain if installation is allowed on a fresh disk, without Snow Leopard being on there first...
For business this is what has been needed for the last few years.
This will install 10.7 onto 'nearly' any intel Mac, one OS installer for all.
Anyone that has been dealing with enterprise Apple deployments will know its been a real ball-ache for quite a few years.
This will simplify it back to 'how things used to be'
Not that i'm deploying 10.7 to ANYONE for 12 months..
Haven't you realised Paul, EVERYTHING Apple do is evil and wrong? Apple being good at marketing is evil as how dare they advertise their products. Apple making money is evil as how dare they run a business that makes money. Apple making products people want to buy is evil as how dare they sell things people actually want.
Its a well known fact that Microsoft, Sony, Google etc are all just in the business for the fun of it and always have the publics best interests at heart, so much so they give everything away at cost price. Wait, whats that you say? They dont? They want to make money as well but just aren't as good at it.. well I never.
As usual with Apple products, don't want, don't buy, give the rest of the world peace.
It's amazing how many people forget it's not the late 90s anymore isn't it.
As someone who was firmly on the PC side of the PC/Apple debate ("What? Even your clone is horribly overpriced and underpowered?!? Is Mac OS really worth it?") I think Apple have really shown how to do a lot of stuff right over the last few years.
They've managed to both grown their computer business substantially and enter 2 established markets with competent aplomb, then ride a global recession without having to devalue their brand in any way in order to survive. Many companies could take note here.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
