Mountain Lion Roars Only for Some: Redemption Code Errors Plague Release

by Holly Shoemaker

Apple released Mountain Lion, its latest version of OS X, on Wednesday, July 25, 2012. Developers first received a preview in February and the company officially unveiled it at its annual conference in June 2012.

After reporting disappointing numbers that failed to meet Q2 2012 expectations, Apple needed good news regarding its latest release. However, the release of Mountain Lion has resulted in some fed-up customers.

News for Customers

The update comes with more than 200 features. Those include: better integration with iCloud, desktop versions of Messages and Game Center and a new Notification Center. It runs on Macs using OS X Lion or Snow Leopard.

Consumers that purchased a Mac on or after June 11, 2012 from an authorized reseller or directly from Apple should have received redemption codes via email courtesy of Apple’s Up-to-Date Program. The redemption codes were emailed to eligible participants two days before the release of Mountain Lion.

While reports indicate that Mountain Lion garnered three percent of OS X share in the first 48 hours after the release, some Mac users have vented on Twitter regarding the codes, saying they have not received them, received out-of-date codes or have received wrong ones. Apple is handling the complaints manually and said it may take 72 hours to resolve. In the meantime, users still report code issues as Apple sent codes to automatically download Mountain Lion server tools instead of the operating system.

Consumers not eligible for the upgrade are having an easier time. They may purchase Mountain Lion for $19.99 from the Mac App Store. A reseller has indicated that the upgrade takes anywhere from 13 minutes to almost an hour to install.

Concluding Thoughts

The release of Mountain Lion should have deflected some concerns over Apple's Q2 2012 reporting results. While notifying customers of the redemption codes prior to the product launch seemed like a proactive move, that decision resulted in sending expired codes that consumers tried to use 48 hours too late. Worse yet, its manual fix resulted in continually sending codes for the wrong product.