512 Pixels

This is why you don’t ever upgrade your production machine on Day One.

While the fact that Lion installs a recovery partition is fairly common knowledge at this point, a lack of physical media could leave users with a blank hard drive stranded without an OS. Thankfully, for some Mac users, there’s a solution

Apple:

If your Mac problem is a little less common — your hard drive has failed or you’ve installed a hard drive without OS X, for example — Internet Recovery takes over automatically. It downloads and starts Lion Recovery directly from Apple servers over a broadband Internet connection. And your Mac has access to the same Lion Recovery features online. Internet Recovery is built into every newly-released Mac starting with the Mac mini and MacBook Air.

I’d love to see this expand to other Macs as quickly as possible.

Last week, I wrote a little bit about the complications that can arise when writing about software.

But there’s a whole other side to writing in-depth reviews, like the one I published on OS X Lion.

While I am proud of the almost 3,000 words in that review, it was utterly exhausting to spend so much time digging into beta software, trying to explain things I discovered in a way that would be helpful for my readers. Coming up with ways to describe Launchpad and Mission Control isn’t as easy as it may seem.

Stitching a collection of informational tidbits and editorial opinions into something coherent with an actual point is mind-melting.

There’s a weight to all of this beyond the writing itself.

When Lion is released, there aren’t going to be many — if any — surprises in store for tech writers. Reviewing pre-release software takes away some of the magic of launch day.

Granted, the rush of publishing is usually enough to make up for it.

I guess what I’m trying to get around to saying is this: it’s such a relief to have this review out the door, and nerve-wrecking that people are finally reading it.

It’s here. This review was exhausting to write, and I hope you enjoy it.

In short, the company is crushing everything in its path.

Craig Grannell:

I recommend before installing Lion that even if you’re using Time Machine you also create a working clone of your Mac. This is because while you can restore data from Time Machine, it’s faster and simpler to do so from a clone.

Amen, brother.

This is a great piece by Shawn Blanc. Instapaper it now.

Paul Thurrott:

I’ve subscribed to The New York Times for over a decade now and … I just give up. This paper is so pro-Apple and so anti-Microsoft that it’s hard to excuse anymore. It’s blatant, it’s constant, and it’s too much.

When my kids ask me what “the pot calling the kettle black” means, I’m going to send them to this post.

Craig Hockenberry:

From our experience, it’s entirely possible that all the revenue for a product can be eaten up by legal fees. After years of pouring your heart and soul into that product, it’s devastating. It makes you question why the hell you’re in the business: when you can’t pay salaries from product sales, there’s no point in building it in the first place.

So, just as in the days of magnetic media, the independent developer now finds him or herself at a point where it is again becoming very expensive to distribute their products to a mass market. This time the retail channel itself is very cheap, but the ancillary costs, both financially and emotionally, are very high.

And, of course, only large companies and publishers can bear these costs. My fear is that It’s only a matter of time before developers find the risks and expenses prohibitive and retreat to the safety of a larger organization. We’ll be going back to square one.

Fraiser Speirs:

Starting to get seriously concerned about my future as a software developer due to these patent issues.

This video is cool, but how it works might be just as cool.

I laid down the law about product release rumors over on Macgasm.

With the entire Internet thinking that OS X Lion would be out today, July 14, a lack of such a release has left many Macintosh users, fans and journalists¹ lost without hope.

I’ve spoken to several people in the Mac community today, and the story repeats itself all over the place.²

Ben Brooks:

It is unbelievable this day in age a company like Apple could be so cavalier with a release date of such a major product, leaving customers across the world high and dry, making many think the company shouldn’t be trusted anymore, with things like this. Is anyone at Apple care about the Mac anymore? I thought waiting for Textmate 2 was hard, I’m done.

Joshua Schnell:

We had extra sever hardware ready to go today for the strain Lion’s release would put on the site. We worked overnight last night, finishing editing Stephen’s Lion review. I’m tired, and there’s no Starbucks near my house. Fuck.

Shawn Blanc:

I’m just going to enjoy a cup of coffee and relax. It’s all groovy, except that my MacBook Pro is dying.

Arnold Kim:

Whoops.

Consumers are hurting, too. The world over, Mac geeks called in sick to work today to be able to spend hours watching the OS download from the Mac App Store. Some, on high-speed connections, were even hoping on getting some hands-on time with the OS late tonight, post-install.

One self-proclaimed “iNerd” reached out to me on Twitter saying:

I’ve always trusted the guys @9to5Mac with rumors. WTF. It’s like they killed Santa. In front of my kids. With a goddamn hammer.

Another guy tweeted:

I didn’t have any sick days left, so I quit my job for this. Damn it, Steve.

Whatever the reason OS X Lion isn’t out yet, it is clear that the Mac community is tired of waiting. Riots are forming in IRC channels. People are burning cars in front of Apple Stores.

Please, Apple. Stop our suffering.