While Apple released new MacBook Air and Mac mini models alongside OS X Lion last week, the company also updated its other Mac lines to begin shipping them with Lion. But Apple changed a bit more than just the operating system on those models, as MacTrast details with a comparison of a new MacBook Pro with Lion pre-installed to another MacBook Pro purchased just a few months ago.
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The difference between the two versions is immediately obvious from the product packaging, as the artwork now shows a machine with the OS X Lion default desktop image rather than the Mac OS X Snow Leopard one. Apple has also tweaked part numbers and manuals to reflect the change to Lion.
And, as seen in Apple's standalone keyboards, the company has also quietly tweaked the MacBook Pro's keyboard to convert the F3 key's function from Exposé to Mission Control and the F4 key's function from Dashboard to Launchpad.
Finally, Apple no longer includes restore discs of any sort, a move that could cause difficulties for the occasional user who finds the need or desire to perform a clean install of Lion on a bare hard drive. Apple's new MacBook Air and Mac mini models support a Lion feature called Internet Recovery that allows the operating system to be reinstalled to a bare hard drive, but other current hardware now shipping with Lion does not support the feature.
For its part, Apple does not consider hard drives to be user-replaceable components on most machines and would expect users experiencing failures of their hard drives to go through Apple for replacement during the one-year warranty period, under which circumstances Apple would of course provide a replacement drive with Lion installed. But for other circumstances, Apple has clearly made it difficult for users to perform clean installs of OS X Lion on new hard drives on their own. The Lion USB thumb drive set to debut next month will offer one solution for the problem, but represents a separate $69 purchase for users who are already licensed to use Lion through their machine purchases.
Top Rated Comments
Windows 7 is amazing. So is Snow Leopard and Lion. You do know that two great products can co-exists right?
Try drinking a few glasses of salt water and call me when you need a kidney transplant.
I don't mean to sound soo negative, but Steve's thoughts that no one uses CD's anymore is recockulous. Not everyone has high speed internet...and sadly...some people still don't have internet at all (shudders).
Also.. Apple sure has gotten a lot more greedy in the last few years. $69 for a USB stick!!!
Don't get me wrong... I really like OSX, but Apple is dumbing down the idea of owning a computer soo much. I actually enjoy cracking open my stuff and swaping out parts. I don't want to pay Apple to replace a hard drive for $200 when I can buy a hard drive at best buy for $40 and do it myself.
Good luck with Windows 8.
Sincerely
Lion users
And people keep cool in the desert by dressing in full clothes that block out sun and control body temperature, not by drinking water. Water is again to keep you hydrated, something you need to do at sea also.
Water is valued both at sea and in the desert. Your "philosophy" wasn't quite that deep or profound, quite the contrary, you basically just showed us how you don't scratch farther from the surface for the truth. You basically blurted out some non-sense that while might have seemed sensical at first glance, fell apart upon the most basic of detailed analysis.
Yes, give up before you end up not being able to climb out of the hole you're digging yourself into. ;)