I think the reason we haven't heard many complaints about the doing away of physical media is exactly this. As long as power users can make their own offline media, there's nothing to complain about.

Installing an operating system needs an essential component, which is a bootable USB drive. You can plug it into any system with a compatible BIOS/UEFI and boot from it. It's a common practice ever ...

Apple only sells OS X Mountain Lion as a digital download in the Mac App Store. The installer weighs in at a hefty 4.05GB, but the good news is that you can install your copy of Mountain Lion on all ...

A bootable Mac OS X thumb drive comes in handy when you need to troubleshoot OS issues for yourself, your family, or your friends. It’s also extremely useful for keeping your basic setup consistent ...

PSA: for MOST use cases there is now a much easier solution. If your primary goal is just to download updates faster/not use up your limited data budget, and you have multiple Macs (otherwise why do ...

[Editor’s note: This article is part of our series of articles on installing and upgrading to Lion (OS X 10.7). We also have a complete guide to installing and upgrading to Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8).] ...

Apple has released Mac OS X Lion in the Mac App Store for $30. Separately, Apple will also begin offering Lion on a USB thumb drive in Apple stores come August. Right now, you can grab Lion from the ...

It's easy to make boot disks on old Macs for older hardware, but as the years have gone on, it's gotten a little more difficult. Here's how to make classic Mac OS 9 and early Mac OS X boot media on ...

Making a bootable macOS Big Sur USB drive is a quick and clean way to install a fresh copy of macOS on your Mac. This hands-on tutorial is valid for both the public and developer beta versions of ...