Lion only? Apple keeps turning the screws

I cannot sufficiently express my contempt for this decision. They can turn the screw but all it is doing is driving me faster into the arms of Android or Linux. I have been an Apple customer and supporter for ten years but now I hold them in almost the same low esteem as I did Microsoft when I first made the change.

I have used Lion on other computers. It is poor and on a similar spec machine to mine made things run very, very slowly. I am not prepared to downgrade from Snow Leopard to Lion but now Apple try to force our hands. May they shortly go the same way as Microsoft. The time is right for a new company to emerge and a new OS, while Apple have taken their eye off the ball.

Hi. I'm currently running iBooks Author on my 10.6.8 install. It requires you to tell your OS X that it is version 10.7.2 so you can download it from the Mac App Store, then you change the iBooks Author to think that the minimum version it can run on is 10.6.8, then you switch your OS X back to thinking it's 10.6.8. Then you run the app. You'll still get a different icon than the usual icon that shows when it works on your OS X version, but you can run it and use it.

Okay. Here we go.

1) Go to Finder

2) Press CMD-Shift-G (Go To Folder -dialog pops up)

3) Type in "/System/Library/CoreServices/"

4) Zoom around until you find "SystemVersion.plist".

5) Edit it. Your editor will tell you that it is Read Only, but edit it anyway and save it.

6) The two lines you want to change are: ProductUserVisibleVersion and ProductVersion.

7) Change them from 10.6.8 to 10.7.2, both of them. Save the file.

8) Start up Mac App Store, download iBooks Author.

9) Do NOT run iBooks Author now, instead go back to Finder and press CMD-Shift-A (takes you to /Applications)

10) Rightclick on iBooks Author and select Show Package Contents.

11) Open Info.plist in your editor of choice.

12) Search for the string "LSMinimumSystemVersion"

13) Change the 10.7.* anything to "10.6.8". Save.

14) Start iBooks Author.

The Icon will stay with that "can't be run" graphic slapped on top of it, but the app will run. on your SnowLeopard. There are numerous articles on the web describing how to do this, here's one from OS X Daily:

http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/20/install-ibooks-author-on-mac-os-x-10-6-8-snow-leo pard

*puts on best Monty Burns voice*

Excellent! Excellent!

If they are pushing us around like that, why did it show 10.6.6 and up as requirements on info I read about it on my iPad?

I went through the links on the Macworld newsletter and wound up in the AppStore (on my iPad, remember, this is not the same as the result you get doing this on the Mac)

Sorry about the blur :-) But you can see where it states OSX 10.6.6 or later

I know it doesn't happen on my Mac, but only on my iPad after visiting the link on the Macworld newsletter page here:

http://www.macworld.com.au/news/summing-up-apple-grades-ipad-head-of-the-class-4 2955/

Part way down the page is the following article

iBooks Author offers free e-textbook creation

and just below that is the link on the words "a free Mac app ..."

Now if i follow that link on my iMac, I get the same as you...Lion only. But if I follow said link on my iPad I get the information show in that rather wobbly photo I showed - makes you wonder if they were thinking about enabling it for Snow Leopard originally and then changed their minds.

Weird.

I think the text is just erroneous. 10.6.6 is what is required to use the Mac App Store.

Maybe, certainly very ambiguous indeed.

It's moot now as I have followed the instructions mentioned and am downloading it quite easily, how it behaves will remain to be seen.

I'm certainly very pleased to find such excellent help so promptly.

Thanks a million folks - this is a great place

😀

All done and works great! Thanks so much.

I also pulled the icon off the launchpad (the one with the strike through) and pulled a fresh one out of the app folder and it now shows the icon without the strikethrough, so it even looks like it should.

Very very happy camper today.

Ohh!! Awesome. Thanks for pointing this out. The strikethrough was really beginning to sadden me. 🙂

Remember to switch the OS X version back to 10.6.8, this was missing from the instructions

15) Remember to go back to /System/Library/CoreServices/ and edit yourSystemVersion.plist back to 10.6.8 for ProductUserVisibleVersion andProductVersion.

Yes. All done and it works a treat.

The clearest set of instructions for this was here:

http://www.digitaltweaker.com/mac/mac-tips/2012/01/how-to-install-ibooks-author- on-os-x-snow-leopard/

putting the .plist on the desktop and changing it then replacing it was easy then change it back the same way.

Who knows, maybe it would be beneficial to send them feedback asking for an OS X Snow Leopard 10.6.8 version..

http://www.apple.com/feedback/ibooks-author.html

I'm sad that I have to upgrade to Lion to use this... there's no reason for that.

Lion's new UI with the reversed scroll bars and the removable of the scroll buttons is really going backwards I think.

I can highly recommend the link above to show how to get Author going on Snow Leopard - worked very well for me.

I really don't want to go anywhere near Lion, at least yet - I need support for Rosetta for old software I have no replacement for yet.

You could say that Lion 'bites'

Maybe this method has a chance of working for other Lion - only apps. It would be interesting to know if anyone has tried it on other things.