How to upgrade to Lion without Snow Leopard

You never mentioned "2013", in your original query as you've suggested as far as I can see, to be fair you did mention "future", but it wasn't really clear it was a future Mac you were talking about, quite a different query now & a little bit more understandable, and wilst I see your concerns, nobody here has a 2013 Mac, or a Mac that comes with 10.7 Installed to possibly know what options are available yet.

While I absolutely detest the APP Store method, I'm going to surmise that there'll be workarounds, whether from Apple or Users. Right now you can burn an Install DVD of the Lion Download, who knows what'll happen when Macs Ship with Lion, but surely a Clone or Backup would be in order.

BTW, I see ZERO things about Lion that I care for. 😟

I did, however, mention that after the fact when qualifying my original statement.

"I was refering to future macbook pros (eg. macbook pro 2012, 2013,2014, etc.) that WILL NOT, as acknowledged by Apple, come with an OS x disc."

I hope its true that we can burn Mac Os X lion to a dvd. That would be nice. 🙂 We do need a method of backup.

As for clones, thats always possible. Good point! We will most likely need to use an external drive enclosure though. Nevertheless, I do see the new thunderbolt port comming in handy for that if we are forced to go that route.

Phew, no need to shout.

Anyway, let me get this straight;

The date is - don't know, but it's the day Lion is released and you are purchasing a new MacBook Pro with a 250GB HD.

You get it home which is 500 miles from the nearest Apple store and are unlucky enough to have a complete hard drive failure 10 mins after setting up and before you had a chance to backup.

You have an SSD you bought earlier.

You now want to install Lion on it?

You cannot use the SL disc as you are aware of how sometimes Macs will not run with an older OS than that with which they shipped.

That sound about right, (albeit somewhat farfetched?)

In this case I suspect there may be some way to burn a Lion installer? I can't believe Apple would leave people out in the cold.

MBP 2012, 2013, 2014, etc. wont come with OS discs. So the Os X snow lepoard disc is not an option for future MBp owners who never owned a Mac and are upgrading their HDD to SSD.

Maybe, but you haven't answered my question. Is the scenario that I put forward close to what you are thinking?

jpcwa wrote:

MBP 2012, 2013, 2014, etc. wont come with OS discs. So the Os X snow lepoard disc is not an option for future MBp owners who never owned a Mac and are upgrading their HDD to SSD.

Where does it say that all future Macs won't come with an OS disc (or some other form like the MacBook Air's Software Reinstall Drive)? I don't see how Apple could leave people out in the cold like that.

Dude, Mac Os X Lion is on the app store only. There are no Operating System discs for Mac Os X lion.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/

Dude is kind of an insult around here, please refrain.

You can only purchase Lion on the app store (that is all Apple has told us so far). Apple hasn't released any details stating that they will not include some form of system recovery, either a physical disk or a flash drive, with future Macs. It seems highly unlikely that future apple computers would ship without a physical restore of the OS, and if you do manage to lose such a device and you install a new blank SSD drive then you will be making a trip down to your local Apple store. At least this is how I see things. And another thing, in the link you provided Apple gives us information on how to upgrade to Lion on the day it's available and nothing more. I hope this clears some of the confusion up, and my advice is to calm down and go with the flow, all of our questions will be answered in the coming weeks when Apple releases Lion to the general public.🙂

There are no OS X Lion Discs. Os X Lion is download only!

jpcwa wrote:

There are no OS X Lion Discs. Os X Lion is download only!

We won't know that definitely until someone look into the box of a Mac that ships with Lion pre-installed.

This is by far the most repetitive thread I have ever read in this forum. Are you reading each other's posts at all?

jpcwa, how many more times do people need to tell you that yes, there will be no DVDs in the future. But, as you see with the MBA, they come which some kind of physical drive, i.e. thumb drive or something you might be able to hook up to your fancy Thunderbolt port or whatever. I think it is highly unlikely you will not be able to install Lion or future versions of the Mac OS only by being connected to the Internet and having Snow Leopard installed. This assumption makes zero sense.

Do I know for sure? ****, no. I don't work at Apple. And I don't think anyone knows, other than people at Apple. So chillax and wait what happens once Lion is out - which I hear will be today.

Good luck with yourself, and your Solid State Drive.

I just talked to the Apple team here in San Francisco. The word is there currently are no plans to produce discs with Lion. There will also no longer be any install/restore/utility discs included with new computers. The Apple rep was not clear on where those utilities would exist. He suggested that he'd read somewhere in the Lion documentation that various apps and utilities that were previously on discs would now be accessible via key commands and an internet connection which would allow the OS to access the Apple servers.

But as any network admin knows from unfortunate experience, you cannot always get a machine to behave exactly the way Apple anticipates.

So for now, if you're trying to upgrade to Lion from a legacy OS (anything older than Snow Leopard) you have to purchase a SL disc from Apple in order to attain the coveted Mac App Store from which you can download Lion.

It's very forward thinking, but many of us live in the present - as do software developers who may hinder the progress of adopting new OSes due to incompatibilities.

As a side note, there are already many threads with users reporting problems downloading and installing Lion from the App Store. I would expect as much on day one, but knowing that we have no alternative for an install, I feel less confident rolling this out across our company network.

Once you download it, do not install immediately; make an installer. See: Making a Lion Install disc or partition

Also, from http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2011/07/20Mac-OS-X-Lion-Available-Today-From-the -Mac-App-Store.html

"Users who do not have broadband access at home, work or school can download Lion at Apple retail stores and later this August, Lion will be made available on a USB thumb drive through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com) for $69 (US) "

So far this is what I've found,

http://www.apple.com/macosx/recovery/

And on the MacBook Pro and iMac lines under included software it is showing Snow Leopard, and SL recovery disks.