Apple's OS X Mountain Lion Up-to-Date Program Experiencing Early Hiccups
With today's launch of OS X Mountain Lion, Apple's Up-to-Date program has officially gone live. The program allows any user who purchased a Mac on or after June 11 to receive a free upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion if their system came with OS X Lion preinstalled. Customers who purchased server models such as the Mac mini server and Mac Pro server configurations can also receive free upgrades to Apple's latest server tools released alongside Mountain Lion.

Apple is apparently experiencing some early difficulties with the program, however, with some users reporting that their Mac App Store redemption codes for OS X Mountain Lion are not working and others still waiting to receive their codes. Some users were able to obtain codes earlier this week when the program briefly went live prematurely, but the redemption difficulties appear to be affecting both early recipients and new applicants.
Apple support staff have acknowledged the difficulties and are advising customers that they may need to wait up to three days to receive replacement codes, although some replacement codes are reportedly already coming through without any action required by the users. Submitting the up-to-date program application a second time fails to generate new codes, as Apple's systems recognize that the machine serial numbers have already been used and thus refuse to complete the repeat applications.
Customers who purchased new Macs between June 11 and today have until August 24 to claim their redemption codes for OS X Mountain Lion, but many are undoubtedly anxious to install the new operating system as soon as possible. Users who purchase new Lion-equipped Macs starting tomorrow will have 30 days from the date of purchase in which to claim their free upgrades to Mountain Lion.
Popular Stories
Apple today introduced a new Apple Creator Studio bundle that offers access to six creative apps, as well as exclusive AI features and content, as part of a single subscription. In the U.S., pricing is set at $12.99 per month or $129 per year.
Here are the six apps included with an Apple Creator Studio subscription:Final Cut Pro on the Mac and iPad
Logic Pro on the Mac and iPad
Pixelmator...
2026 could be a bumper year for Apple's Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
...
In a statement shared with CNBC today, Apple confirmed that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri that is slated to launch later this year.
"After careful evaluation, we determined that Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we're excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users," the statement...
Apple today seeded the second beta of iOS 26.3, nearly a month after the first beta. So far, the update includes a couple of new features for iPhones.
iOS 15.3 through iOS 18.3 were all released in late January over the years, so it is thereby likely that iOS 26.3 will be released towards the end of this month as well. The update is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer.
Below,...
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
If you are not interested in subscribing to the new Apple Creator Studio bundle introduced today, you will officially start to miss out on some new features.
Apple said some "exciting new intelligent features and premium content" in Final Cut Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Keynote, Numbers, Pages, and Freeform will only be accessible with a Creator Studio subscription. In the U.S., a subscription...
Apple today released a firmware update for the AirPods Pro 3. The latest firmware has a version number of 8B34, up from the previous version 8B30.
Apple has a support document for AirPods firmware updates, and it indicates that the 8B34 update contains unspecified "bug fixes and other improvements."
No other AirPods models received firmware updates today.
How to install AirPods Pro...
Elon Musk today expressed concern about Apple and Google partnering on a more personalized version of Siri powered by Google's generative AI platform Gemini.
"This seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google, given that [they] also have Android and Chrome," wrote Musk, in a post on X.
Musk serves as CEO of xAI, the company behind Gemini competitor Grok.
It is unlikely...
iOS 26.3 will likely be released to the public later this month, but it appears that Apple is preparing to push out another software update in the interim.
Apple's software engineers have started testing iOS 26.2.1, according to the MacRumors visitor logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. The update will likely be released at some point this week or next week.
...