Apple’s USB thumb drive version of OS X Lion is now available for purchase  via their online store. The drive costs $69 (compared to the $29.99 version available in the App Store) and ships in 1-3 business days. The USB versions of OS X Lion will be available in physical Apple Stores soon as well. [9to5Mac]

That default Lion wallpaper, do you recognize it? It’s the Andromeda Galaxy as captured by astrophotographer Robert Gendler, with some curious Apple photoshopping. Apple’s version of the image looks like someone went in trying to clean up zits and ended up erasing some freckles. Oh, and there’s an entire galaxy (M110) missing. Boing Boing created a .gif demonstrating what changed. What did M110 ever do to Apple? As one Gizmodo reader pointed out, it shares its name with the Samsung Galaxy S phone (also known as the SHW-M110S).

When upgrading Mac OS X 10.6.6 to Mac OS X 10.7 (Mac OS X Lion), you may want to consider making a bootable Mac Lion install DVD disk or USB boot disk before upgrading your systems just in case you need to refresh your computer in the future. Lion Diskmaker makes this possible without having to use the Mac Lion redeem code in the App Store.

Skype has announced version 5.3 with Apple Mac OS X Lion support. Skype added a number of fixes and improvements to the user interface. Skype 5.3 features support for HD video calls as well. Skype 5.3 for Mac OS X is also compatible with past versions of OS X going all the way back to Leopard. To use the HD video feature, you will need to use the Mac’s built-in HD webcam or choose cameras from the Skype Shop such as the Logitech C910. To make clear HD video calls on your Mac, Skype recommends an upload/download speed of 1.5Mbps. [Skype Blog]

Apple’s new Mac OS X Lion has already reached the 1 million download mark, within its first day. Apple reports that this is the fastest-selling OS in the company’s history. [Apple]

Since Apple released OS X Lion to the general public yesterday, it’s already gotten more than 7,000 five-star ratings in the App Store. In contrast to this positive response, Adobe has released a list of issues with Adobe products on machines running Lion. One such issue is that Apple may have disabled Flash hardware acceleration. In some cases Adobe offers suggestions of how to change Lion settings to better work with Adobe devotees’ expectations of product performance, but in other cases Adobe simply recommends that users do not update to OS X Lion. Many of the issues are small but obnoxiously annoying for anyone who uses the affected feature frequently, such as droplets not working in Photoshop CS3-CS5.

Today is a big day for Apple, with the release of OS X Lion (App Store link after the jump), updates to Mac computers and hardware and a few stories about the Apple retail stores. Click through for more!

From rampant rumors of the future iPhones and iPads to a Swype hack and calling in the Secret Service, Apple has been dealing with a lot of unusual news this week. See a quick rundown of all the stories after the jump.