Kasper Jade and Prince McLeanSeveral catalog resellers including MacMall are feverishly attempting to recapture copies of Apple's new Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" operating system after the computer maker expressed extreme displeasure at learning that the next-generation operating system began shipping to some customers a full week in advance.
"I received Tiger from MacMall on Monday. I installed and had a great time playing with it," said one early adopter. "At 1PM Tuesday I get a call from a MacMall customer service rep asking me to send Tiger back. They gave me a return label by email and the whole works."
Some customers have reported receiving free copies of Apple software, such as iWork, if they went through the trouble of actually returning Tiger.
One source with ties to the catalog resellers said Apple, miffed over the premature shipments, was "invalidating" copies of the OS that shipped early. The company had previously threatened some of its resellers with fines or the loss of their reseller license if they released copies of the operating system early.
MacMall will reportedly re-ship new copies of Tiger to customers on Friday.
At issue appears to be Apple's readiness to support the new operating system via its online stores and call centers, which hadn't planned to field questions on Tiger until Friday evening.
However, a source close to Apple's retail operations told AppleInsider that the company stores have been told by management not to turn away customers seeking technical support, as it's evident that copies of Tiger are now in the hands of paying customers.
Apple's retail stores began receiving copies of Tiger on Monday in preparation for a national launch event to take place this Friday evening.
Also on Tuesday, online retailer Amazon.com inadvertently leaked the specs of Apple's forthcoming Power Mac G5 revisions, which will come pre-loaded with copies of Tiger.
"Amazon.com shouldn't have done that," an Apple online store representative commented on the Amazon leak. "The Apple Store will be up and running tomorrow morning with the new Power Macs."
Amazon has since removed the description of the three new Power Mac models, which range in speeds from dual 2.0GHz to dual 2.7GHz.
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31 Comments
Sweet deal.
Not only do you get Tiger early, you also get something free in return if you send it back. Nothing saying you have to delete your install.....
Then with the new boxes being sent out you have an unopened copy you can sell as unused!
Glorious day!
"One source with ties to the catalog resellers said Apple, miffed over the premature shipments, was 'invalidating' copies of the OS that shipped early."
What BS. There is no possible way for Apple to do this, since there are no serial numbers. There is no way for them to differentiate between different copies.
How exactly is Apple "invalidating" these copies of OS X? We never heard of them doing that with the pirated versions (beta and non). And you can instll OS X without any kind of Internet connection needed.
That part of the story just doesn't sound true to me.
Besides, why would Apple want to, if they've already decided to give the early users tech support because (of course) it's not the buyer's fault?
(PS, what's with Apple admitting that Amazon's leaked info is true? They usually keep even the tiniest thing under wraps, no matter HOW many people actually get wind of it )
If these are true reports, can you say OVERREACTION?
I'm a big Apple fan, but please get OVER YOURSELF (if so).
I got my call at Monday afternoon. Needless to say, they gave me the whole "Apple will not honor your copy of Tiger."
I have an account with them and when I told them that I was not sending my copy back they told me that they would cancel my account. My answer was "Yeah, right...you are going to cancel a $5k/month account...go ahead." You should have heard the back peddleling. They offered iLife or iWork for free and I told them that I already have them. I aked if they would throw Final Cut Pro suite for free and the guy almost hung up on me.