Want Mac OS X Lion Early? Here’s How

Apple just released the first developer preview of their new operating system “Lion.” If you are a paid Mac Developer you can download the release directly from Apple’s App Store.

Be sure to check out Apple’s new Lion page for an in depth overview of all the new features including: Launchpad, Air Drop, mission control, mail 5, auto save, resume, etc.

Since we are official developers we have access to Lion before it comes out to the general public this Summer. Please post your feedback and bug reports at: https://leimobile.com/post-your-thoughts-of-mac-os-x-lion/


Here is Apple’s Official Press Release:

Apple Releases Developer Preview of Mac OS X Lion

CUPERTINO, California—February 24, 2011—Apple® today released a developer preview of Mac OS® X Lion, which takes some of the best ideas from iPad™ and brings them back to the Mac® for the eighth major release of the world’s most advanced operating system. Lion features Mission Control, an innovative new view of everything running on your Mac; Launchpad, a new home for all your Mac apps; full screen apps that use the entire Mac display; and new Multi-Touch™ gestures. Lion also includes the Mac App Store?, the best place to discover, install and automatically update Mac apps. The Lion preview is available to Mac Developer Program members through the Mac App Store today, and the final version of Lion will ship to customers this summer.

“The iPad has inspired a new generation of innovative features in Lion,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “Developers are going to love Mission Control and Launchpad, and can now start adding great new Lion features like full screen, gestures, Versions and Auto Save to their own apps.”

Mission Control is a powerful, entirely new feature that unifies Exposé®, Dashboard, Spaces®, and full screen apps to give you a bird’s eye view of every app and window running on your Mac. With a simple swipe, your desktop zooms out to display your open windows grouped by app, thumbnails of your full screen apps as well as your Dashboard, and allows you to instantly navigate anywhere with a click.

Launchpad makes it easier than ever to find and launch any app. With a single click, Launchpad displays all your Mac apps in a stunning full screen layout where you can launch, re-order or organize apps into folders. You can also arrange apps into multiple pages and swipe between them.

Lion brings the full screen experience that iPad users love to the Mac. With one click, your application window goes full screen, taking advantage of your Mac’s brilliant display. You can swipe from one full screen window to another and even back to your Desktop or Dashboard.

New Multi-Touch gestures and fluid animations give you a natural and intuitive way to interact with your Mac. New gestures include pinching your fingers to zoom in on a web page or image, swiping left or right to turn a page or switch between full screen apps and swiping up to enter Mission Control.

Lion also includes the Mac App Store, where you can find great new apps, buy them with your iTunes® account, and download and install them in just one step. Apps purchased from the Mac App Store are installed directly into Launchpad.

Additional features in Lion include:

  • a new version of Mail, with an elegant, widescreen layout inspired by the iPad; Conversations, which automatically groups related messages into one easy to read timeline; more powerful search; and support for Microsoft Exchange 2010;
  • AirDrop, a remarkably simple way to copy files wirelessly from one Mac to another with no setup;
  • Versions, which automatically saves successive versions of your document as you create it, and gives you an easy way to browse, edit and even revert to previous versions;
  • Resume, which conveniently brings your apps back exactly how you left them when you restart your Mac or quit and relaunch an app;
  • Auto Save, which automatically saves your documents as you work;
  • the all new FileVault, that provides high performance full disk encryption for local and external drives, and the ability to wipe data from your Mac instantaneously; and
  • Mac OS X Lion Server, which makes setting up a server easier than ever and adds support for managing Mac OS X Lion, iPhone®, iPad and iPod touch® devices.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices

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Comments

      • David says

        Thanks. It seems to be going pretty slowly so I’ll just let it run overnight. What will I have to do when it’s finished downloading?

        • says

          Personally, I advise you to create a dedicated partition for the developer preview as you will apparently *not* be able to upgrade to the retail release from this particular developer preview and you will thus be *stuck*.
          It’s as simple as following the instructions, it’s fairly self-explanatory; Nothing too in depth, so don’t worry.
          But remember: New partition!

          • says

            Open up Disk Utility and follow a guide on creating a new partition, you can have as many partitions as you like providing you have the storage capacity for them: You will need at least 8gb of space.

          • David says

            When the official release comes out I’m planned on wiping and doing a clean install like I always do for a brand new OS. Would that make a difference when the final version comes out as for upgrading? Also, with Lion installed will I keep all of my data or will it wipe everything that I had with Snow Leopard? Thanks for all your help.

          • says

            You won’t lose any information currently on your machine if you install it on your current partition, but you will be at somewhat of a software roadblock when the retail release goes gold and is available for public consumption, but if you are planning on reinstalling the entire OS, this should not be a problem.
            Though do keep in mind that I am unsure of where you stand with Time Machine backups right now. Should your machine’s HDD/SSD fail then you *may* not be able to restore your Time Machine backup as you won’t have a Lion installation disc and you will be stuck with Snow Leopard installation media and possibly unable to restore your backup. Though I cannot yet confirm this without trying it. I shall let you know when I know. But remember: Backup your drive via Time Machine before doing this if you have valuable data or find an alternative means of backing up beforehand.

          • Nourez says

            If I were to add a new partition between my 10.6 and Win7 partition, would I have to use a bootloader such rEFIt or can the default Mac bootloader read a 3 partition setup?

            Also, how long does it usually take to receive the email from Apple after leimobile adds you to their account?

          • says

            You should be able to read the partitions using the default OS X bootloader; Simply hold the option key when booting and it should allow you to select the partition or device you wish to boot from.

            The email should be instant, though there has been an overwhelming response, the invites are being dispatched as fast as possible, so sit tight and you should have an invite within the next hour or so if not within the next few minutes.

          • David says

            Thanks. You’re a lifesaver. I don’t use Time Machine to save my data, I use old fashioned flash drives. 😀 So I’ll install this over Snow Leopard, and then when Lion goes public I’ll Disk Utility wipe the disk. Perfect.

          • Nourez says

            Thanks for the help. Got a 750 GB HDD so the triple boot seems like my best option.

            Also, I got an email about 5 hours ago from Mike saying that I should receive my code from Apple “soon”. I get that they’re backed up actually adding our emails to their Dev Account but shouldn’t receiving the code from Apple be near-instantanious?

        • says

          You are very welcome! Enjoy your preview of Lion and make sure that you log any bugs you may encounter in the appropriate locations so that Apple can be alerted to this and fix this as soon as possible, though I’ve yet to encounter any myself. I and the Apple community thank you for your participation.

        • says

          Drop Mike a line on info@leimobile.com if you don’t have your code within the next hour and ask him if the invite has been sent to your address. The invite will arrive at the email address to which your PayPal receipt arrived and from there you sign in using your Apple ID.

          • Nourez says

            He actually just emailed me. Said he’d resend it in a bit. Was hoping to install it tonight but it’s all good.

            I’ve got a funky name, which is in my email, so I’m sorta used to this haha.

  1. says

    just donated.

    Will I be able to just simply update my current snow leopard and retain all my files and applications to Lion?

    • says

      Sources are saying ‘no’. Create a dedicated partition for the developer preview or you will most likely be unable to upgrade to the retail release of Lion.

  2. Jeff Potter says

    Quick turnaround, got the invite and joined up. On to the App Store!
    Thank you! for the opportunity.

  3. CJ Sculti says

    Would it be possible for me to install this onto a 500gb external hard drive so it could boot from that?

    • says

      It would indeed be possible, but if it isn’t USB 3.0 or FireWire 800 then expect this to be extremely slow as USB 2.0 isn’t quite up to it.
      It’ll run fine, but don’t expect to be running intense applications or playing World Of Warcraft.

    • says

      You will get an invite to the email address that your PayPal receipt went to and from there, you click the link, fill out the enrolment application and sign in using your Apple ID.

    • says

      To my knowledge, you cannot restart your download. The redemption key is good for one download and one download, at least that is the case as far as I am aware.

        • Jose Nunez says

          Same thing happen to me,
          “Mac OS X Lion Developer Preview” is shown within the purchase pane but when I try to download or install I get an error :”Your purchase can’t be completed” How did you solve it?

        • originalmagneto says

          Hi, I started DLoading the dev preview of Lion and it got corrupted (“error…bla bla bla”). I tryied the posted fix but what it did was to put the downloading icon on the dock without anything downloading (it was always in “Pauses” state). So I decided to Cancel Download thinking that I might be able to re-download it in AppStore. Guess what? The AppStore shows the “Mac OS X Lion Dev. Preview” icon in purchased tab but no option to re-download, only the “Installed” button which cannot be pushed…Im desperate here :((( please help

    • says

      I don’t see why not, though try requesting another redemption code via the Mac Developer Centre where you originally got your code from that you entered on the App Store, you may be able to get another one.
      If not, you may need to use another Apple ID and ask for another invite to the development team.

  4. Todd says

    It will not show the button again, I will need to create a new id in order to get a new redemption code. So if you can please send me a new invite. And thank you for the opportunity to try out Lion.

    • says

      Unsure on that question for the time being, but I would imagine that each team (If there are indeed several at this point in time) will remain active for one year as that is how much the Apple development subscription costs. Though if there arises another opportunity, donations will most likely be taken again. When the year nears it’s end, I would imagine that the current team will be asked to make another $10 donation so that they can maintain the development team subscription(s) for everybody.

    • Nourez says

      I’ve been waiting for an email from apple for the past 5 hours. I got the one from leimobile a while back, but I’m beginning to worry that something screwed up with apple. 🙁

    • says

      Upon receipt of donation, you receive a PayPal receipt, shortly after that you will receive an email from Apple stating that you have been invited.

    • Nourez says

      Ok just sent the invite. You will get an email from Apple soon.

      Thanks for the donation!

      Mike

      Sent from my iPhone

      Got that at around 5 Eastern. Figured that I’d have gotten the email from apple by now though.

  5. Todd says

    If you can send me another invite I will try from my wife’s computer. I really want to try Lion to see what it can do.

  6. Jose Nunez says

    App did not download, it is shown in the purchased section in appstore but when I try to install it says”there is a problem with your purchase” anyone got that too?

  7. Jeff says

    Its been at least 5 hours, and I have not received an invite code or any acknowledgement email. :((

  8. says

    Well I donated and realize it will take a while, but what’s the big rush? When I get it I’ll have plenty of time to get used to it before it’s even out officially, as long as they get it to me in the next 24 hours I’m not complaining! <3

  9. Jeff S says

    So I received my invite, and registered, and it seems that when I log into the dev center, lion is available to be selected. When I try to download it, it says the following:

    You do not have access to this resource based on your membership.

    Am I supposed to search for it through the App Store? Searching for Lion, OSX, Developer Preview, shows up nothing.

        • says

          You’re welcome! Enjoy and don’t forget to report any bugs you encounter to the relevant places; The Apple community thanks you for your participation.

        • Jeff S says

          Quick question.. when new developer previews come out, will we be able to update? Also, does the update download as an ISO, or just a DMG file that asks where I want to install?

          • says

            You most likely be able to update when further development releases become available, but you will not be able to update to the retail release. Please create a new partition using Disk Utility and install the Lion preview to the dedicated partition.

            The preview downloads as an application which lets you install it on whatever storage medium you choose.

          • Jeff S says

            Were you able to run apps like Office and the like on the preview, or are you using it as your main partition?

          • says

            I’ve got it on a secondary partition and thus far I’ve installed Pro Tools 9 HD, iWork, Microsoft Office 2011 and a variety of business applications like OmniFocus and FileMaker Pro Advanced. All seems to be going flawlessly thus far.

  10. bobjones323 says

    Does anyone know how to partition the mac HD to install this on another partition while keeping the original intact…?

  11. Don W says

    This is very cool of you guys. I am just starting to get into Mac development and this is just great. I just donated and can’t wait!

    • says

      People are making a saving, they’re getting a preview of the next OS, finding bugs and reporting them. Where there is a market for it, it will be taken advantage of. Everybody wins. I don’t see the problem.