MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Apple today released MacBook Pro Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.0 for the 2015 MacBook Pro, which fixes a storage firmware issue that could cause data corruption in rare cases. Apple recommends that all customers who have a mid-2015 MacBook Pro download and install the update. It can be acquired from the Mac App Store on affected machines or directly from Apple's support site. The...

During today's third quarter earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook highlighted App Store sales, noting that the iOS and Mac App Stores saw their best quarter ever, with a 24 percent growth in revenue. The number of transacting customers also grew by 19 percent. The services category, which includes the App Store, iTunes, Apple Pay, AppleCare, and other licensing/service fees, generated a record $5 ...

Apple is planning to open a new retail location in New South Wales, Australia on Saturday, July 25 at 10:00 a.m. local time, according to the company's list of retail stores. The store is located at the Westfield Miranda shopping centre in Miranda, a suburb of Sydney. It is not clear where the Apple Store will be located within the mall, but the development spans four stories and has more than ...

For our latest video review, we went hands-on with the Juiceboxx, a MacBook accessory that originated on Kickstarter. Many of us MacBook owners have suffered from a frayed MacBook charger cord, which is a condition that the Juiceboxx aims to prevent. The Juiceboxx is a small plastic cover that wraps around the bottom of a MacBook charger, with a portion that extends out over the spot where the ...

It's the middle of summer and we're in between holidays, so deals this week are not super impressive, unless you're looking for an older MacBook Air or Retina MacBook Pro. There are some acceptable discounts on the iPad Air 2, but not as good as we've seen in the past, and there are also a few models of the iMac available at reasonable prices. This week, we've teamed up with GameAgent to offer ...

Apple's fourth retail store in Hong Kong, located on Canton Road in the upscale shopping area of Tsim Sha Tsui, will have its grand opening on Thursday, July 30 at 9:00 AM local time, according to a new store listing on Apple's website. The store, at 100 Canton Road in southern Kowloon, will be open Monday through Sunday between 10:00 AM and 10:00 PM. The new Canton Road location will be one ...

Apple today released a new firmware update for late-2012 Mac mini models to fix a problem that could prevent a USB keyboard from being recognized after the Mac wakes from sleep.This update is recommended for Mac mini (late 2012) models. This update addresses an issue that may prevent a USB keyboard from being recognized after the system wakes from sleep.Apple recommends all late-2012 Mac mini...

Outside of a one-month hiatus in January 2015, Apple has offered a wide range of songs through its weekly "Free on iTunes" program since April 2004, but for the last two weeks, the company has released no free tracks. The last free iTunes release was on June 30, 2015, as tracked by MacRumors forum volunteers, coinciding with the launch of Apple Music in over 100 countries. Apple has since...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Think Tank Photo to give away an Urban Approach 15 Mirrorless Backpack that's designed to hold an iPad, a laptop, camera gear, and tons more. Think Tank Photo is actually a site that specializes in photography gear, so this is a giveaway oriented at those of you who need to lug around a camera, a MacBook, and all the relevant accessories. Think...

Heading towards the middle of the month and following the Fourth of July, deals are mediocre, so if you're in search of an iPad or a Mac, you might want to hold off for better sales. That said, there are a few select deals that are worth checking out this week, including a sale on the new 2015 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro and MacBook Air and some discounts on older MacBook Air and Retina MacBook...

Apple today released an OS X El Capitan Beta Supplemental Update, with the release notes indicating it "fixes an issue that may cause some 32-bit apps to quit unexpectedly." The update is appearing for users on both the third developer beta, which was seeded on Wednesday, and the public beta released yesterday. With the start of public beta testing, a wider audience now has access to OS X ...

Trackbuster is a new service that's designed to remove invisible tracking codes from incoming emails, preventing companies and marketers from tracking information like the time an email was opened, IP address of the recipient, which links were clicked, and more. Many of the popular email marketing tools on the market include tools for tracking various metrics of emails that are sent out,...

As construction continues on what will be Apple's fourth retail store in Hong Kong, located in the upscale shopping area of Canton Road, new pictures of the store's facade with an Apple logo shared by iMag on Facebook officially confirm that the Cupertino-based company will soon be opening up shop in the area. The store has been planned since at least August 2013 and under renovation for the past ...

Professional image editing app Affinity Photo, created by the same team that's behind the award-winning Affinity Designer app, is today launching in the Mac App Store. Affinity Photo is designed to allow photographers to enhance, edit, and retouch images and is the culmination of five years of work. The app includes a huge range of photo editing tools for everything from minor manipulations to ...

We've been waiting for the fourth-generation Apple TV for at least two years now, and we've been teased with vague comments, leaks from the supply chain, and analyst predictions for several years running. We thought we’d get a look at it this year at the Worldwide Developers Conference, but Apple was still not ready to show it off. Until we get a whole new model with, hopefully, a brand new...

Even though most developers work their hardest to ensure that the programs you download onto your Mac run smoothly, sometimes, things go wrong. One issue that may arise is an app using an exorbitant amount of energy or memory, causing your Mac to overheat or suffer severe battery drain. Sometimes, simply closing an app doesn't do the trick. For example, if a program includes a helper tool,...

Since its debut in April, the new 12-inch Retina MacBook hasn't seen that much in the way of functional, protective travel cases showing up either online or in brick-and-mortar stores. Fortunately, San Francisco-based accessory manufacturer Waterfield has released not just a single travel sleeve for Apple's newest MacBook, but an entire line of bags and cases for early adopters of the device. ...

Happy almost Fourth of July! With the holiday approaching, retailers are offering celebratory holiday sales, discounting a wide range of products. Sales are available at big box stores like Best Buy and at smaller websites, so if you've been waiting to pull the trigger on an Apple product or accessory, make sure to see if it's on sale this week. There's a new feature in the Buyer's Guide,...