Apple OS X install hell: way worse than Windows :(

Almost a year after Apple’s disastrous “force consumers to download Lion, instead of installing from DVD”, apparently it still doesn’t work. It’s hard to recommend OS X to anyone after this experience.

UPDATE 2: Apple’s “download a file from the internet” code is so bad it’s causing the MacBook to overheat – 80 degrees celsius, very close to the “automatically reboot” temperature. This is *to download a file*. Apple’s misuse / misunderstanding of web technologies seems quite incredible.

(the process is called “storeagent”)

My last 24 hours:

1. Buy Lion
2. Download starts
3. …it’s a 4gb download, this takes a long time…
4. Download stops at 25% for no reason.
5. Resume button gives a wait cursor for 5 seconds, then goes back to “paused”
6. Repeat twice
7. Third time, the Resume button is disabled, and now Lion is stuck in “Waiting” and there’s no buttons you can press except “cancel”
8. …
9. Remains in “waiting” for many hours. Googling suggests this is a permanent crash in Apple’s App Store.
10. Cancel the download, re click the “buy app” link
11. Apple quits OS X, kills all apps, deletes all unsaved data, throws me out to the login screen
12. Login again, and Lion icon has appeared in the dock.
13. …but: Lion now refuses to even start downloading – it’s stuck on “Paused, 0 of 0 bytes”

UPDATE:

1. Try again (delete OS X Lion, re-purchase from App Store) and … finally the download starts. Waiting now to see if it will complete this time, instead of giving up partway like before…

I.e. Apple’s infrastructure is still blocking me from downloading the OS. How hard can it be to *download a file* ?

Next step: walk in to an apple store and ask them to give me a USB stick, since their webserver is FUBAR.