OS X Lion Installation USB Drive Now Available
Today Apple released OS X Lion as a standalone installation USB drive. It's available online for $69. This marks the first time Apple has released Lion as a full offline installation of 10.7 that is not tied to any Mac App Store account. Earlier this month, Apple put out a free Lion Recovery Assistant tool, allowing Mac users to create an official USB Recovery drive, however it still requires internet access and a hefty download for each install.
Although we haven't actually laid hands on the drive itself, Apple has posted this:When you install OS X Lion using the USB thumb drive, you will not be able to reinstall OS X Lion from Lion Recovery. You will need to use the USB thumb drive to reinstall OS X Lion.
This remark leads us to believe that the layout and contents of the USB will be much like the OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard Retail DVD. We will be updating iBoot which to allow a simple DVD or USB swap similar to the original iBoot + MultiBeast method. This guide will be available in the coming days. Stay tuned!
-tonymacx86 & MacMan
