Apple has released a range of firmware updates that enable the Lion Internet Recovery OS restore feature across most of its 2010-vintage Macs, enabling easy reinstallation of the operating system in the event of a software or hardware failure.

Lion Internet Recovery, a feature which builds on the NetBoot technology in OS X Server, was introduced along with the 2011 MacBook Air and Mac Mini refreshes, and then extended to the rest of Apple's shipping Macs in the following months. Today's updates, which enable support for the 2010 iMac, the late 2010 MacBook Air, and the 15" and 17" 2010 MacBook Pro, follow updates from late January that enabled support for the 13" 2010 MacBook Pro, the 2010 Mac Mini, and the 2010 MacBook. The only model left out is the Mac Pro, none of which (even the currently shipping model) support the feature. Some (but not all) of the firmware updates also fix other minor issues.

The updates can be downloaded using the links provided above, or via Software Update - all updates require a Mac running OS X 10.7.2 or later. The possibility exists that Apple could choose to enable support for even older Macs - models going all the way back to 2007 are capable of running Lion - but until we actually see updates I would say that such a thing is pretty unlikely.