why is os x lion downloading slow?

I don't agree with this at all. I had a terrible time downloading Lion. Slow as a dog. Took hours. I had ZERO trouble prior to that, and I have had ZERO trouble since the download completed. The one and only problem I've had with data in the past two months has been Apple and Lion download. Coincidence? Perhaps. But the facts are - the only problem I have had is downloading from Apple. (not itunes, which must be a different source).

Sorry mate, I have to agree with MacFair - the OX Lion download is horrible. I am currently downloading it on two late 2010 Macbook Pros from 2 separate wireless sources (the projected download time being 14+ hours on each). It’s **** appalling.

Before you tell me its something from my end, I verified my download speed on one computer by downloading a package off the Telstra Bigpond website which downloaded concurrently at close to 2Mb per second. It clearly isn't an isolated event, yet you still have the audacity to imply that it is coming from Booziesusie’s system. What a joke.

Also, I wouldn’t waste my time going to a Mac “Genius”, because they are barely qualified – a few forum searches generally brings back more relevant results plus the wait time to see those people is laughable.

In sum, some relevant asssitance would be appreciated - if not keep your thoughts to yourself.

Yeah New Year and same old issue. I have re-installed a late 2010 Macbook Pro with Snow Lepord and done the updates (some of which where around 2 Gig) which took less than 50 mins on my 8MB line.

I am now trying to install Lion and the download time jumps between Less than 1 Second to 3 Hours to 4 days.

So Far 785MB downloaded in about two hours. Not Good. I might keep it downloading in the background but I am tempted to just stay on Lepord.

Really Stange and annoying.

Well you'd have to buy another Mac with Lion installed! Or make sure nothing else is running except Finder and the download.

Why would I have to buy an other Mac with Lion installed?

Nothing else is running other than the download at the moment, but while downloading the other updates I was streaming videos on line at the some time and still had a decent download time unlike this Lion download.

I've done this upgrade on 3 seperate hardware platforms (Mac Mini, Macbook and an iMac) using 2 completely seperate physical Internet connections, one DSL and one cable. The Mac Mini was purposely wiped with a fully patched bare installation of Snow Leopard on the fastest connection and IT MADE NO DIFFERENCE. So much for 'something wrong with your Mac'. All of them took an inexcusable amount of time to download regardless of the machine or it's connection. It's an Apple problem regardless of what blindly loyal bubbleheads claim.

Apple, Make your OS installs on disk that cost less than a penny rather than trying to steal more money with overpriced thumb drives.

Was this using the same ISP in each case? Is your large download being throttled by your ISP? Several ISPs have admitted that they throttle large downloads.

Apple, Make your OS installs on disk that cost less than a penny rather than trying to steal more money with overpriced thumb drives.

You are not being fair.

In volume production it costs about $0.45 to manufacture a DVD. Actually many experts recommend creating your own DVD of the Lion operating system. You will find procedures on how to do this all over the Internet.

Most importantly, be sure to clone your hard drive prior to installing Lion. Many end up wanting to go back to Snow Leopard and having a clone of your hard drive makes this easy.

I'm not aware of any single ISP within any area that offers their clients either DSL or cable. The DSL provider in this case was AT&T and the cable provider was Comcast Business Class (20d/5u). Speeds were tested before, during and after on the cable connection to speakeasy.net and confirmed a wide open pipe and no evidence of throttling. There is only one consistant element in these failures, Apple.

😮 so slow......

Kind of lucky it is not due to my internetconnection.

I am downloading Lion for the first time and can hardly believe there are millions of people doing the same right now. How big (mb) is the downloadfile in total?

Kind of bad Apple couldn't adress this problem over the last 1/2 year.

After writing the previous post, all of a sudden: Downloaded within 1 hour

is apple reading this post too....

Please fix you download speed of OS X Lion from the Apple store.

After 2 hours I'm barely over 1.5GB's. I HAVE A 35Mb INTERNET CONNECTION!

Everything is downloading and installing fast except the Lion Update on my brand new MavBook Air. I thought I would be done with installing and setting up the new PC to gift tomorrow in a few minutes but it is going to take the whole night because of this slow Lion download. I am in Singapore

I can't believe that slow speed, it's embrarrasing. Please Mr. Apple Inc. do something! I used to love everything that comes from Cupertino. Today, with this astonishing slow download speed, I'm changing my mind. I'm really angry with you Apple, you must not do this ever again. BTW, it's March 2012, so I gues the "everybody is downloading right now" problem should be over, isn't it?

This new drive by Apple to force OS updates and installs through the app store shows a complete lack of regard for the users and their experience. I know there are ways to create your own bootable DVD with the app store version of OS X Lion, but you shouldn't have to create work-a-rounds for features that should of never been dropped. Not everyone happens to be in a location where they can get fast internet speeds, which usually also means they are entirely too far from a Mac Store to go in and download it there. I'm grudgingly getting the OS X Lion update only because I don't want to be forced into having Mountain Lion as my only option. Had their been a DVD available I most likely would of upgraded much closer to Lion's release date. Apple makes a great product, but moves such as forcing 4gb+ downloads as the only way to update your system move the company down a path that is hostile for users. I can honestly say that this will be my first and only purchase of a Apple OS update from the App Store. If a company can't do something as simple and customer orientated as ship a dvd copy of their OS updates, then they don't deserve our business.

All that said, I don't really expect anyone from Apple to really read these forums, as they've updated their use policy to state that these forums are officially montored by Apple...after all, why on earth would they want to know anyone's complaints ;-)