It’s unclear why, but the Mac App Store is running a lot slower in OS X Lion for some users, including myself. By slow I mean you’ll encounter nearly constant beachballs as you click from app to app, with the absolute worst offender being the main category sections.

I’m assuming there is an underlying bug or issue with the App Store backend, so a true fix will probably come from Apple to resolve this, but in the meantime I’ve found a couple troubleshooting tips that help to varying extents: deleting caches, and changing a security setting.

Delete Mac App Store Caches

I’ve had some success with deleting the caches, but over time things slow down again. Try this first because it’s the safest method.

• Quit the Mac App Store
• From the Mac desktop, hit Command+Shift+G and enter:

~/Library/Caches/com.apple.appstore/

• Delete everything in this folder
• Relaunch the Mac App Store

Turn Off Certificate Revocation List in Keychain Access

Warning: this is more of a workaround than a fix, and it creates a potential security risk by disabling the systems revocation list, use at your own risk and read all steps before proceeding:

• Quit the Mac App Store
• Launch Keychain Access (use Spotlight or look in Applications > Utilities)
• From the Keychain Access menu, select “Preferences” and then click on the “Certificates” tab
• Change “Certificate Revocation List (CRL)” to “Off”
• Quit Keychain Access
• Relaunch the Mac App Store

Things should be a lot faster now, but because of the security risk it’s recommended to then go back and change the setting after you have relaunched the Mac App Store. There are mixed reports on if the fix actually sticks around with this method, but for security reasons it is highly recommended:

• Keep the Mac App Store is still open
• Open Keychain Access again, get back to the “Certificates” tab
• Set “Certificate Revocation List (CRL)” back to “Best Attempt”
• Quit Keychain Access

This second tip comes from MacStories, which I came across when reading @Viticci’s review of the new Core i5 MacBook Air. He also complained of the slowness of the App Store within Lion, and he’s not in the USA which shows this isn’t just a local server issue either.
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While clarifying the instructions on how to re-download Mac OS X Lion from the App Store I discovered a neat little trick; you can cancel downloads.

Hold down the Option key from the “Purchases” menu in the Mac App Store, this causes the “Pause” button to turn into “Cancel”

If you click that “Cancel” button you will get a warning dialog box asking to confirm that is what you wanted to do, and reminding you that can re-download the app again for free at any time.

The ability to re-download purchases from the Mac App Store is part of the personal use license for OS X Lion and other apps offered through the App Store as well, as long as you are downloading them on your personally authorized Macs using the same Apple ID.

Need to redownload Mac OS X Lion from the Mac App Store? If you plan on making an install drive but you already upgraded to Lion, you’ll need to redownload the Installer so that you can extract the DMG file. This is the sure fire way to do it, in short, hold the Option key for everything:

• Open the Mac App Store
• Hold the Option key and click on “Purchases”
• Option-click on “OS X Lion” from the purchased app list
• “Installed’ should now say “Install” which allows you to re-download OS X Lion, otherwise you can Option-click again on the “Install” button to start re-downloading OS X Lion, shown in the screenshot above

Some users have trouble with that method, and instead they can try holding Option while launching the App Store in addition to when clicking on the greyed out installer next to OS X Lion, allowing you to download again. Option-clicking on OS X Lion from Purchases and then the “Install” button from the OS X Lion App Store page hasn’t failed us, but there do seem to be conflicting reports.

If you already bought Lion, you should not be charged twice for any additional downloads of Lion. If you’re already running OS X Lion and you do this, you’ll get a pop-up warning that says “A newer version of this app is already installed on this computer” but you can click again and download anyway.
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Outside of watching the little progress bar on the downloading apps icon in LaunchPad or the Dock, there isn’t much of an outward display of how downloads are progressing from the App Store. Instead, more specific information is contained within the Mac App Store app itself, and here’s how to see it:

From the Mac App Store… click on the “Purchases” tab and find the app(s) you are downloading. This will show you the download progress and time remaining until completion.

This is the same in Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.6. Somewhat disappointingly, it doesn’t show you the actual download speed but you can always obtain that information elsewhere manually.

What About Download Speeds? You can check the download speed through the Mac App Store, this is done by clicking on the progress bar. Thanks for the tip Henry!

Despite the fact that today is (was) the speculative launch day, OS X Lion has yet to appear. Nevermind that though, the good news is that Apple is rapidly accepting Lion-ready apps to the Mac App Store, indicating that a launch will be very soon.

If you’ve been following along here, we pointed out earlier in the week that Apple had just recently began accepting Lion apps to be reviewed for the Mac App Store, which cast some doubt on a launch this week. Additionally, we cited AppleInsider who suggested that Lion was pushed back to the “week of July 21st” due to some last minute security issues, and separately, we’d also been hearing that Lion would be launched next week, but the reliability of those sources has yet to be determined (no offense people) so just take that info with a grain of salt. Here’s what we said, which also touches on what “Lion-ready” means for OS X apps:

Independently, we have heard chatter of a July 19th or July 22 launch for Lion, but like all other claims on a specific launch date, they appear to be mostly speculative. The only certainty is that Apple appears to maintain a fluid timeline for the Lion release, but putting the launch off a week or two would give Apple plenty of time to approve Lion-compatible apps for the Mac App Store. Among other things, Lion compatibility means 64-bit architecture and also generally includes support for Lion-specific features like Versions and Full Screen apps.

As you can see in the screenshot above from the app WordCrasher, some of the Lion-ready apps on the Mac App Store specifically point out support for fullscreen mode, Resume, and Versions.

For it’s part, Apple has thus far announced simply that Lion will be released in July on the Mac App Store, but has yet to provide a specific day when 10.7 would be widely available.

Update: In addition to WordCrasher, BusyCal, Cruz, Pilot eLog, Harmony Worship, ShortCuts, SwordSoft Layout, and many more have also been added to the App Store with Lion support.

Did you get an iTunes gift card or three? My cousin just did too, but they didn’t want to buy music with the balance, they wanted iPhone apps, so naturally as the family Apple guy I get a text asking what to do. Here’s the thing to remember with iTunes gift cards: they can be redeemed for anything available on the iTunes Store, iOS App Store, or Mac App Store. This is why they make great gifts, someone can buy music, movies, TV shows, games, iPhone apps, iPad apps, Mac apps, whatever, all with an iTunes gift card, you just need to add it to your Apple ID. Here’s all three ways to do this:

Redeem an iTunes Gift Card through iTunes

This is the same whether you are on a Mac or PC, and in all versions of iTunes:

• Launch iTunes and click on ‘iTunes Store’ in the left hand sidebar
• Click on the “Redeem” button on the right hand side of the iTunes Store screen
• Enter the coupon code that is on the bottom of the gift card, it’s a randomized 16 character hexadecimal string looking something like this: XRXP RYPM YCQL 3K3K
• Click on “Redeem” and you will be asked for your Apple ID login and password, this is so you can add the gift card balance to your iTunes account

If you have another gift card to redeem, click on “Redeem Another” otherwise click on “Done” and you are free to browse the iTunes Store.
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Lion has been released! The wait is over, you can download OS X Lion from the Mac App Store

Update: Mac OS X Lion GM has been released, signifying a public release is due in the very near future. Stay tuned!

Update 2: The Lion release date is imminent.

Update 3: The WSJ’s AllThingsD appears to confirm Lion release date will be next week, alongside new MacBook Airs possibly on Thursday or Friday.

Update 4: Apple has confirmed that OS X Lion release date is July 20

Some of the biggest Mac OS X related news from WWDC 2011:

• Mac OS X 10.7 Lion will be publicly released in July – this fits in line with Apple’s expected ‘summer 2011′ release announcement
• Mac OS X Lion will be be available exclusively as a download from the Mac App Store – this is perhaps the most controversial Mac OS X announcement, since many users were hoping for DVD’s and USB keys as well
• Lion will cost $29.99 – “aggressively priced” as predicted, pretty cheap for an all new operating system

The keynote for Lion covered most of the features already known to beta testers through the Developer Previews, however Mac OS X Lion is said to include over 250 new enhancements and features. Based on my albeit brief exposure to Lion and the features that Apple has talked about, it’s well worth the $30 price tag and I will be upgrading without hesitation.

We’ll keep you posted as more useful news comes in.

Update: Mac OS X Lion Server will be $49.99 and available in July as a separate download/upgrade from the Mac App Store.

One of our readers sent in this screenshot with a funny looking error code they got when trying to redeem a promo code on the App Store. It’s a sloppy error, spilling over the allocated space and dumping some object name or something onto the user.

The error seen is “MZFreeProductCode.ClientCannotRedeemIosApp_explanation” and the assumption is that this is a bug on the App Store that is preventing you from redeeming an app promo code. That is partially true, and partially not, and I was able to replicate the error message myself consistently, but the bug may not be what you think it is.

The Error is… Wrong App Store!
The real bug here is not that the promo code isn’t working, it’s a bug in how the error message is displayed by the App Store. Let’s review the error message again, and see what stands out at us, ClientCannotRedeemIosApp_explanation – see that? Ios, it’s not using the capitalization that we’re used to, iOS, but the problem is that you are trying to redeem an iOS promo code on the Mac App Store.

The Problem & the Cause
This problem seems to occur most often with the app promo code giveaways that have become popular on blogs and twitter feeds. A feed will dump a series of promo codes with no clear indication on what the app is. Users see a promo code and just throw it into their nearest app store, often without much direction from the initial giveaway – this is especially true with twitter giveaways. Is it an iOS app code? A Mac app code? Who knows! This is the cause of the problem.

The Solution: Use the Proper App Store
This is a very simple fix, just launch iTunes and be sure to use the iOS App Store rather than the Mac App Store. I’m assuming this goes both directions, and that a similarly funky error message will be displayed if you attempt to redeem a Mac app code through the iOS App Store.

We got an email about this a while ago and I figured it was a one-off problem, but the fact that we’re still seeing error reports and getting emails about this suggests this is a broader troubleshooting thing and should be clarified and explained. Finally, from Apple’s side with the App Stores, they should just replace the error message with one that is more appropriate for the situation like “This is an iOS App Promo Code”, it would reduce some confusion.

You can pause any active download from the Mac App Store by right-clicking on the apps icon in the Dock and selecting “Pause” from the menu. Resuming the download is just a matter of right-clicking again and selecting Unpause.

This is a useful tip if you want to quickly preserve bandwidth for another task, or if you started a download on something like a tethered data connection and you want to save your precious data plan and finish the download later.

This tip should be familiar to anyone who has paused an iPhone or iOS download by tapping and holding on an apps icon. The idea of pausing and unpausing app store downloads is clearly borrowed from the iOS world and for good reason, it’s useful!

If you’re trying to access the Mac App Store and you are getting the “Cannot Connect to App Store” error, there’s a couple simple fixes you should try. First, make sure you’re connected to the internet (duh), then:

1. Relaunch Mac App Store – Try this first, this is usually enough to resolve the connection problem
2. Logout & Login – You can logout of the Mac App Store by selecting “Log Out” from the ‘Store’ menu. Re-enter your credentials and log back in, and you should connect as usual

If you’re still having problems connecting to the Mac App Store the store itself might actually be down, this happens from time to time when Apple is updating things. If you suspect this is to be the case, try connecting again in about an hour.