MacBook Air Leopard disk only works with MacBook Air

I'm not even that new to Mac, and although I suspected there was some sort of issue, having had problems installing from random discs given to me by Tech Support at work, but I didn't really have it clear in my head that it was as simple as model-specific discs - I think the fact you can buy off the shelf OS X for use on any machine kind of threw me.. so FWIW cheers for the tip :) D.

All you have to do is hook up the other drive you want it installed on through usb to the air, install it, then put it back in the other computer.

I did this with my ibook and imac when tiger came out.

Honestly, being new to the Mac world and only having a Pismo laptop, I had no idea about that being true. Thanks! I'm glad it came up since I've never seen it mentioned at all previously. :)

well it isnt news at all, but I managed to use installdisks for the iMac G5 and also a bad tiger disk to install a fully working 10.4 on an iBook G3.

There where problems with the 10.4 dvd I had (well it wasn't strictly a legal disc. The repair center left it in my iMac when they had to change the harddisk. THeir loss, my win) so I couldn't install 10.4 properly on an iBook G3 I had laying around here. So then I did this:

First boot with the tiger dvd and make it check the hardware, then somewhere in the process (where you can enter options) I swapped them for the iMac install disc. Entered the options I wanted and it worked.

There is a script running on boot of the installation which checks the hardware. Bypassing that script allows the software to install properly. Some programs from apple (like Final Cut studio or iWorks) run similar scripts to see if the software would work on the machine it is going to be installed on (in other words, does the machine have the minimum requirements)

Not to be a hater, but the guys here at TUAW really aren't as well-versed in technology (or technology journalism) as their cousins over at Engadget. This isn't the first cringe-worthy post I've come across, by far, and it hurts your credibility.

don't you wish you could just delete the internets sometime?

My friend with a mid 07 MacBook couldn't even get the SR MacBook restore disc to install Leopard. Guess it was the jump in gpu that did it?

I'm convinced that the current generation of MacBook Pro's CAN be enabled for multi-touch. If someone could just grab the driver from the Air and modify it for the different MachineIDs, wouldn't that work?

Of course, maybe Apple will give us this new feature in 10.5.2 WITHOUT charging us $1.99 (or $20!) for it...

It's somehow weird... I just think I remember Steve Jobs making fun about the many versions of Windows Vista in front of the one and only OS X Leopard version.

Perhaps I only dreamed it.

Perhaps I didn't.

Yes, this is how it's been done for a while, but let me be the first to post that it's really annoying, because the CDs aren't marked in any distinguishing way. I have a MacBook and a Mac Pro and I have to be careful to keep the discs marked.