MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

At this year's Consumer Electronics Show, Seagate-owned hardware company LaCie debuted its newest design-focused hard drive, the $280 USB 3.0 LaCie Mirror Portable Hard Drive, which has recently become available for purchase. MacRumors met up with LaCie at CES, and we managed to get our hands on one of the company's new hard drives to share with our readers. LaCie has a history of producing "...

Indie studio Camouflaj today announced its hit episodic stealth game République is being ported to PC and Mac and will be available to download on February 26 via Steam, GOG, and the Humble Store. The team says the new edition of the game has been "rebuilt from the ground up" to access the power of the Unity 5 gaming engine. They also tout that the Remastered edition is the first commercial...

Parallels today announced an update to Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac, the company's software for running non-Apple operating systems safely on a Mac. The new update brings "experimental support" for Windows 10 and Office Preview for Windows 10 - including the expected Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs - into Apple's OS X Yosemite ecosystem. With the update available as a download within...

During today's Goldman Sachs conference, Apple CEO Tim Cook announced that Apple is planning its "boldest, biggest, most ambitious project," yet in the form of a 1,300 acre solar farm in Monterey County, California. The solar farm, which puts out enough power for almost 60,000 California homes, will provide enough renewable energy for Apple's new campus, every other office it has in...

Deals continue to be a bit hard to find as we head into February, but there are still some discounts to be had on the Retina MacBook Pro, older now-discontinued higher-capacity versions of the iPad Air, some current iPad mini 2 tablets, and the MacBook Air. We've also got deals on several apps and bunch of Apple accessories ranging from Mophie battery packs to the Jawbone UP fitness tracker....

Apple yesterday posted a new support document and sent an email to its security mailing list noting that it is now requiring all OS X users to upgrade to the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player plug-in for Safari to address potential security vulnerabilities. The company is blocking all older versions Adobe Flash Player prior to 16.0.0.305, and users with an out-of-date version of the...

Earlier this week, gesture recognition technology company eyeSight introduced ControlAir, an app that uses a Mac's camera to read finger-based movements, allowing users to control various media applications without needing to physically interact with their computers. The app, which is free to download, works with many popular Mac-based entertainment apps like iTunes, Spotify, Rdio, Netflix,...

Tapbots, the company behind the popular Tweetbot Twitter client, today tweeted a tantalizing preview image of Tweetbot 2 for Mac, which has received a Yosemite-style redesign. Based on the photo, Tweetbot 2 adopts many stylistic elements from Yosemite, allowing it to blend in well with the updated operating system. It features a flatter look with redesigned icons, plus a translucent navigation ...

Universal Pictures will release the long-anticipated Steve Jobs movie on October 9, according to CNBC. The upcoming biopic, based on Walter Isaacson's official biography of the late Apple co-founder, is directed by Danny Boyle and stars Michael Fassbender as Steve Jobs and Seth Rogen as Steve Wozniak. Universal took over the film in November. The filming of the movie began last month in the...

Apple today filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission, hoping to sell $5 billion worth of new debt according to reports. Managed by Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, the offer's monetary specifics haven't yet been revealed by Apple, but the company says the money will be used to cover "general corporate purposes, including repurchases of our common stock and payment of...

Apple today announced on its Chinese retail website that it will be opening its brand new store in Tianjin, China this Saturday, February 7. The store will be located within the Nankai District and follows Apple's other recently opened locations in Zhengzhou, Hangzhou, and Chongqing. Last month, Apple retail chief Angela Ahrendts noted that Apple would be opening five new retail stores...

Apple today released a new version of its holiday ad "The Song" to coincide with the Chinese New Year holiday, using new actresses and showing a variety of Apple products throughout the video. Like the original version, the Chinese version of "The Song" centers around a girl who comes across a vintage record sung by her grandmother as she secretly learns the notes and vocals to put together ...

After opening Friday morning, shares of Apple stock briefly grazed the $120 per share mark, setting a new record high for the company in the market (via AppleInsider). AAPL is currently trading around the $119 mark as of writing, giving the iPhone maker a nearly $700 billion market cap. Apple announced its earnings for the first fiscal quarter of 2015 on Tuesday, reporting $74.6 billion...

Preparing to open its doors around 10 AM local time in Jiefangbei Square in Chongqing, China tomorrow, Apple has allowed a few members of the Chinese press inside the new store before the grand opening (via MacX). Bearing a strong resemblance to the Pudong store in Shangai and the Fifth Avenue store in New York, the majority of the new Chongqing location resides under street level, with a...

Apple's annual "Back to School" promotion has returned to Australia and New Zealand, as spotted by 9to5Mac. The sale offers an Apple gift card worth between $25 to $100 to university students, students accepted to a university, parents buying for a university student and faculty that purchase a qualifying Mac, iPad or iPhone. The list of qualifying products includes the MacBook Pro, MacBook...

Apple has posted a video on its Chinese retail website showing off an art collaboration between international photographer Navid Baraty and artist Yangyang Pan to design a mural for the company's upcoming Jiefangbei store in Chongqing. The video shows Baraty discussing his work in taking photos of Chongqing, while Pan shares her role in painting the mural that covers the location. Last week, ...

Apple today added a new "Free on iTunes" section in the iTunes Store, featuring free downloads of songs and full length TV episodes. The section replaces Apple's "iTunes Single of the Week", which previously offered free songs from popular and indie music artists. Currently, Apple is offering full-length TV episodes from shows including Fox's Backstrom, Syfy's 12 Monkey's, Disney Channel's KC...

Following a lengthy lawsuit that pitted Sirius XM Radio against members of classic rock band The Turtles in a fight over royalties for music recordings made before 1972, new class action lawsuits have been filed against Apple, Sony, Google, and Rdio over their streaming music services (via The Recorder). As noted by Law360, Beats Music has also been hit with a suit. According to the suits,...