"Recovery partition" is misleading. This feature works even with a fresh hard disk. I assume it's some kind of netboot built into the EFI bios, but I'm just wondering how long it will be before someone hacks it to load other software, or even hijack it for malware.
"newly-released Mac starting with the Mac mini and MacBook Air."
The low-level "Internet Recovery" is custom firmware. And the malware could happen, but it would be like chopping off somebody's head, then re-growing the brainstem into a hijacked mind. Unlikely.
It's much, much easier to hijack an existing install, than to exploit the install, corrupt the hard drive, force a complete re-install of a custom OS built with a malware kernel from somebody else's servers.
This works great until 10 years down the road you pick up an old Mac at a thrift store and discover that the internet recovery for Lion has been ended and the newer OS's aren't supported by the hardware.
The time when I bought a computer with a CD or DVD drive was more than 10 years ago. During the last years I've mostly used X-Series Thinkpads.
Most Linux distributions have been installable via USB stick or Internet for a long time now and the only time when I was missing the drive so far were the scientific conferences where the proceedings were distributed on a CD.
Good to see that also mainstream operating systems don't require this antique method of data transfer anymore.
Does this mean you'd have to reload the entire 4GB file? Because given the quality of my home internet connection, that's about a 20 hour download. That's the reason I'm waiting for the USB drive. As an aside, I wonder if Apple has any plans to release a special Thunderbolt drive for Lion? I'd happily pay extra for that option.
I for one wish they had never been invented. The WORST consumer data storage medium ever was the CD/DVD. It had capacity, but was ridiculously fragile for a consumer product.
Surely you're not serious? The innovation that CDs and DVDs made possible is mind boggling. Digital music, video, gaming, none of these were possible with the existant storage densities and prices. They're clearly not the final solution to data storage but they bridged an important gap in bootstrapping widespread computer usage.
As stated elsewhere, its not a hard drive partition. The download software is built into the EFI firmware, so it'll work even with a completely blank hard drive.
DVD’s coffin? well, there never was a coffin, the DVD is long dead and rotted into nothingness a long time ago. but there never was a coffin, it just died by the wayside and nobody to bothered.
[+] [-] sp332|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sudont|14 years ago|reply
"newly-released Mac starting with the Mac mini and MacBook Air."
The low-level "Internet Recovery" is custom firmware. And the malware could happen, but it would be like chopping off somebody's head, then re-growing the brainstem into a hijacked mind. Unlikely.
It's much, much easier to hijack an existing install, than to exploit the install, corrupt the hard drive, force a complete re-install of a custom OS built with a malware kernel from somebody else's servers.
[+] [-] LordBodak|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] ddagradi|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] gst|14 years ago|reply
Most Linux distributions have been installable via USB stick or Internet for a long time now and the only time when I was missing the drive so far were the scientific conferences where the proceedings were distributed on a CD.
Good to see that also mainstream operating systems don't require this antique method of data transfer anymore.
[+] [-] daimyoyo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ams6110|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mentat|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zerohp|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] talmand|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quanticle|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] franze|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] talmand|14 years ago|reply