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.

os x mountain lion up to date
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.

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Top Rated Comments

ugahairydawgs Avatar
169 months ago
Typical of Apple post Jobs.

You must not have been around for the original iPhone launch.
Score: 41 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cooknwitha Avatar
169 months ago
To put it into perspective, with Leopard, you had to apply online and they would send you a DVD which took up to a week to arrive.

Yes, yes, I know it's different now, blah blah blah but you'll have ML in a couple of days max and within a week you won't give a toss about this perceived slight and betrayal you feel for Apple. Especially given that it's just an OS and after an hour or so of playing around with it you'll lose interest and it will be just as novel as you find Lion right now.

In the meantime, look at these cute dogs and realise life is good.

Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
blucable Avatar
169 months ago
So I have to wait a little longer to get my FREE upgrade to my shiny new MacBook Air.

Such is life, mustn't grumble.

The sense of entitlement of some you is sickening. You do realise people are going hungry in some places of the world?

A question,

What does hungry people have to do with the mac os mountain lion free upgrade program??

Another question,

Why are you blaming most of us for the hungry people in the world? In my case, I had to upgrade to a mac so that I can keep up with my job's files in a better way than Windows.

Another question,

If you are so worried about people being hungry, why don't you make the first step, sell your mac on eBay and use the money to feed hungry people?
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DrStern Avatar
169 months ago
Ok, so I'm disappointed too, but seriously, some of you need to get some perspective on life. It's nit like you're not going to get your free update, it's just delayed. If you don't want to wait, it's only $20, pay for it. Willing to bet Apple will reimburse you, and if they don't, you just bought a $1500+ computer, what's $20?

Chill out, will ya?
I may need many things, but one thing none of us need are deep philosophical lessons on life from you. This is a discussion board dedicated to Apple products, and a thread dedicated to the problems involved with Apple delivering the UpToDate OS upgrade. So naturally, those of us posting here are focused on that topic. If you want to wax philosophical that's your prerogative, but don't presume to deliver lessons on life to anyone here. I'm actually exercising considerable restraint in this response. I'd prefer not to have that tested further.

What's more, the anger isn't about the delay. Yeah, the delay is irritating, but in the bigger picture, it is meaningless. What my anger comes from is the process, and the principles involved, and the way Apple's methods seem to indicate a major shift in their attitudes toward their customers, and a more direct focus on prioritizing short term bottom line profits over long term customer satisfaction and loyalty.

All of the barriers being thrown up to block us from getting the upgrades we've been promised are designed to accomplish two things: To prioritize early sales deliveries over what amount to pre-paid sales deliveries, and to prevent individual theft of or inadvertent conveyance of benefits to customers who are not owed them. These measures have been taken with maximum dedication to these goals and with complete disregard for the experience of the established and heretofore loyal customer. They seem to represent a fundamental and disturbing shift in Apple's philosophy with a focus more directly on short term performance and almost no attention to the dedication to service and quality that got them where they are today.

I've called and written them to complain about this. Their service people have been very courteous. The strength of a customer-centric culture is not destroyed overnight. But make no mistake, this is a very disturbing development, and it rightfully makes a lot of people angry. Less the delay than the process that is producing the delay, and the agenda betrayed by that process.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheByrus Avatar
169 months ago
Every time my OS X mail client dings and it's not the download code, I die a little inside.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
yocko Avatar
169 months ago
freaks!

so they think that i am going to wait for three days to see if my code might or might not come in...

i suggest they will reimburse me the 20 bucks.

8.8 billion profit and they refuse to allocate trained IT staff to get this childplay trick right.

I am so ****ing sick of this company!
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)