Download Macformat Lion - Learning on the Loop

OS X LION
THE LION LICENCE / OS X 10.7 for home, education and business
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Lion is downloaded from the Mac App Store, and it
follows the same licencing rules as other Mac apps
bought from Apple’s online downloads shop. This
means if you have more than one Mac, you can
install the new operating system on all of them at no
extra charge. Apple has also announced volume
licencing deals for business and education users.
Business customers can buy Lion or Lion Server
directly from Apple or by using the Business Store
found at http://store.apple.com/uk-business.
Business volume licences cost $29.99 each or
$49.99 for maintenance contracts, and a minimum
Business users of Lion can take advantage of volume
licencing deals offered by Apple at its online store.
version of OS X; Snow Leopard for the
App Store, then Lion. Not that this is a
huge expense. Snow Leopard sells for
just £26, and Lion is even more
affordable at a penny shy of £21. As
older versions of OS X cost £89 for a
single-user licence, the combined
cost of Lion and Snow Leopard is not
much more than half the price.
With Lion, Apple makes a complete
break from PowerPC Macs by
abandoning Rosetta, the dynamic
translator used to run applications
written for PowerPC processors on
Intel machines. Snow Leopard
downgraded it to an optional install,
but it’s been removed from Lion
triangle to its left, if it’s not already
open. Highlight Applications and click
on the Kind column header at the top
of the window to sort your apps
according to their type. Intel or
Universal applications run fine in Lion,
but PowerPC apps must be updated
or replaced; they cannot be used with
the new operating system.
Lion greatly expands the range of
multi-touch gestures available to Mac
users. The new OS adds a fourfingered pinch to open Lion’s
Launchpad feature, an iOS-like
application launcher. Unpinching with
four fingers takes you back to the
desktop, or if you’re already there,
“A three-fingered upward flick summons
Mission Control, Lion’s combined Exposé,
Dashboard and Spaces feature“
completely. This means PowerPC
applications cannot run on Macs using
the new operating system.
Apple famously described Rosetta
as ‘the most amazing software you’ll
never see’. It works so well you don’t
notice it’s there, so it’s worth checking
if you’re running applications you’ve
long since forgotten were written for
the PowerPC architecture. From the 
menu, select About This Mac. In the
window that opens, press the More
Info button at the bottom to open the
System Profiler, showing even more
about your Mac. In the left-hand
column (labelled ‘Contents’), open the
Software list by clicking on the
of 20 licences must be purchased. Education users
can volume-licence the Apple Software Collection,
consisting of Lion, iLife and iWork, through the
Education Store or by contacting their Apple
Education Account Representative. Prices start at
$39, with a minimum order of 25 licences.
Volume-licence customers receive a single App
Store code for each transaction; after using this code
to download Lion, the installer is downloaded to
your Applications folder, from where you can
retrieve it and copy it to an external drive, optical
disc or network location. You can then use it to
install Lion on all Macs for which you have licences.
Updates to the new OS come through Software
Update, so there’s no need to enter an Apple ID.
hides all windows. A three-fingered
upward flick summons Mission
Control, Lion’s combined Exposé,
Dashboard and Spaces feature, and
flicking three fingers downwards
gives a single-app Exposé. Another
gesture carried over from iOS is Tap to
Zoom. With your pointer on a specific
part of a web page, tapping with two
fingers zooms in on it to give a clearer
view. You can also enlarge and shrink
web pages using pinch and unpinch.
These extra gestures will certainly
be welcomed by Apple notebook
users, and if you own a desktop Mac,
it might be time to buy a Magic
Trackpad. Apple’s standalone device
features the same multi-touch
controls and glass finish as the
trackpads built into the MacBook Pro
range, but it’s almost 80% larger.
Like the Magic Mouse and wireless
keyboard, it connects to your Mac
over Bluetooth. If you’re planning on
buying a new iMac or Mac Pro from
Apple’s online store, you can opt for a
Magic Trackpad instead of (or indeed
as well as) a Magic Mouse, or you can
buy one from your local Apple Store
or reseller for £60.
So how do you go about upgrading?
After purchasing from the Mac App
Store, the new OS downloads and
installs automatically. The download
is around 4GB, and after buying it
once, you can install it on all your
personally authorised Macs. This is
generous given previous versions of
OS X were also sold as ‘family packs’,
with licences for up to five machines.
If you’ve already bought Lion and
want to install it on another Mac,
August 2011
MAC237.news_feat.indd 27
If you’re planning to
upgrade to Lion, you need to
update or abandon all your
PowerPC applications.
DID YOU
KNOW THIS?
If you bought a new Mac
from Apple or an
authorised reseller
between 6 June and OS X
10.7’s release, you might
qualify for a free upgrade
to Lion through Apple’s Up
To Date programme. See
http://bit.ly/loVdmr for
more details.
MacFormat.co.uk
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7/1/11 3:41:59 PM