Why I love My Mac

[Sysman]

There's only dev releases, not gold master. In fact rumor has it that you can't install a gold master unless you already have Snow Leopard installed. No one is sure how that will work for brand new kit though.

I don't think it's a rumour that Snow Leopard is a prerequisite.

I think that brand new kit will have Lion already installed. Apparently Lion comes with a recovery partition and recovery tools.

You will want to be taking backups in case the system disk fails. Maybe this is an attempt to boost Time Capsule and/or Extend Care sales.

[d000hg]

I wouldn't mind upgrading from 10.5 to 10.7, but it appears I won't be able to... I also don't even have an iTunes account and would rather not get one. Sell me a damn DVD/CD...!!!

[stek]

Also not there. I checked before I posted. There's only dev releases, not gold master. In fact rumor has it that you can't install a gold master unless you already have Snow Leopard installed. No one is sure how that will work for brand new kit though.

It's there on TPB and the Green Demon. Version reported after install is 11A511.

Looks finished to me but there's always the chance of a last minute change. Having said that I've always been a beta freak and the OSX GM torrents have usually been the correct release.

[Sysman]

I wouldn't mind upgrading from 10.5 to 10.7, but it appears I won't be able to... I also don't even have an iTunes account and would rather not get one. Sell me a damn DVD/CD...!!!

To upgrade you can buy a Snow Leopard DVD, then go from there. If you have the right hardware it might be worth buying Snow Leopard while it's still in the shops.

I've managed to avoid getting an iTunes account so far (what did they really expect when so much stuff "isn't available from your local Apple Store"?). Someone told me that iTunes vouchers may be another way to go. With all the hacks going on at the moment I really don't want to give start dishing out credit card details to yet another company.

I like Apple software, but they seem to want to force US buying habits on us.