If nothing else, today’s announcement of OS X Lion firmly made the Mac App Store an official “big fat deal.” To emphasize this, Apple will, as of today (7/20/11), remove a number of retail boxed software titles from its retail stores.
Apple has issued an End of Life notice for several software titles. The following titles will be discontinued in their boxed retail forms at all Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Retailers:
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard
- Mac OS X Snow Leopard Server
- iLife
- iWork
- Aperture
- Apple Remote Desktop
- Xsan
- GarageBand Jam Packs
- Mac Box Set
- *Retail boxed versions of Logic Express and Logic Studio will still be available in-stores
Personally, I can’t say I’m surprised – the Mac App Store is certainly being approached as the future of software distribution, and earlier, we reported that Amazon was already running out of boxed Snow Leopard install discs.
The aforementioned software titles will, from this point forward, only be available from the Apple online store. The only exclusions are “GarageBand Jam Packs” and “Mac Box Set,” which will no longer be available through any channels.
For those items that aren’t already on the Mac App Store soon, I’d imagine that you can expect them to land there any time now.
