MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Plex this week announced changes to its media software that will move the service beyond its video roots. Following updates that added online movie trailers and a recommendation engine, the next version of Plex will bring several new music features that Plex Chief Product Officer Scott Olechowski says will challenge iTunes in the music department. As reported by Gigaom and PCMag, Plex users ...

Other World Computing (OWC) today announced a new software solution that allows users to combine the speed of a solid state drive with the increased storage space of a traditional hard drive. The new Transwarp technology was previewed for the first time this week at CES 2015. While SSD caching is not new, OWC's Transwarp solutions aims to make it easy for Mac owners to combine a removable...

Kensington's ubiquitous hold on security locks for computers and other devices has loosened somewhat as devices have grown smaller and more portable, and the space requirements for the company's traditional lock mechanism have led Apple to even omit Kensington security slots from many of its recent products such as the MacBook Air and Retina MacBook Pro. Kensington hopes, however, to...

Apple updated its investor relations page today to note that it will announce its earnings for the first fiscal quarter (fourth calendar quarter) of 2015 on Monday, January 27. The quarterly earnings statement will be released sometime 1:30 PM Pacific/4:30 PM Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. The earnings release will...

Belkin and Elgato today used CES as a platform to expand their home automation lineup of products. Belkin is showing off five new WeMo products at CES, while Elgato is presenting two products from its previously announced line of "Eve" connected home sensors. Belkin today announced an expansion to its WeMo line with the new WeMo Door and Window Sensor, the Keychain sensor, and an Alarm...

LaCie today unveiled two new products ahead of this week's Consumer Electronics Show, including the new LaCie Mirror, a hard drive encased entirely in Gorilla Glass, and the LaCie Rugged RAID Thunderbolt hard drive, the newest product in its Rugged collection. The LaCie Mirror is a 1TB hard drive that's designed to be fashionable as well as functional. Created by product designer Pauline...

Apple's spaceship-shaped campus under construction in Cupertino will include a spot for a historic barn, reports the San Jose Mercury News. First constructed in 1916, the Glendenning Barn is a historic Cupertino site left from a time when the city was still a sprawling orchard. During the teardown of the existing HP campus, Apple dismantled the redwood barn plank by plank and made careful...

San Francisco patent company RPX today announced it is purchasing more than 4,000 telecommunications patents from Rockstar, an Apple-led consortium that previously acquired the patents from bankrupt Nortel Networks. The sale will net Rockstar $900 million, a fraction of the $4.5 billion the conglomerate of technology companies paid for the entire patent portfolio in 2011, although many of the...

DockPhone, a newly released Mac app, fixes a problem many OS X Yosemite users have faced in the months since the release of the new operating system: the inconvenience of opening FaceTime or Contacts to make a phone call on a Mac. With DockPhone app, users can now search for contacts or directly enter a number within the app, bypassing the need of opening FaceTime altogether. Though it was one ...

The Christmas holiday is less than a week away, and while deals have tapered off a bit this week, there are still a few discounts to be had on the iMac, MacBook Air, Mac Pro, Retina MacBook Pro, and older iPads. There's also one last deal on the iPad Air 2 that drops the price quite a bit. We've also got discounts on some great potential gifts, including personalized iPhone cases from Casetify...

CalDigit today announced that the follow-up to its popular original Thunderbolt Station, the Thunderbolt Station 2, is now available for pre-order with an expected ship date of January 26, 2015. The new dock will retail for $199.99, but CalDigit is offering a limited pre-order price of $169.99 that runs all the way up to the day before release, January 25. The new station keeps the same...

ABC has updated its Watch ABC Apple TV app to allow all Apple TV users to watch full episodes of ABC shows a week after they air without having to verify their TV provider. Previously, users had to sign in via their TV provider to watch any full episodes. All Apple TV viewers can now access full episodes a week after they air. Like WATCH ABC for mobile devices and desktop, viewers can now watch ...

Algoriddim has long been known for its popular DJ app djay, which began life on the Mac before moving to the iPad, iPhone and most recently Android, with the various versions winning a number of awards and contributing to making djay the world's best-selling DJ app with over 15 million downloads. With djay having proven popular among both amateur and professional DJs, users have been asking...

Apple today seeded a new Safari 8.0.3 beta for developers running OS X Yosemite, along with a Safari 7.1.3 beta for Mavericks and a Safari 6.2.3 beta for Mountain Lion. Registered Mac developers can download the new Safari builds through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store or through the Mac Dev Center. In the release notes for the new betas, Apple asks developers to focus on...

After numerous failed attempts at predicting Apple's first foray into television sets, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has not yet given up hope that the company will deliver. During an interview at Business Insider's 2014 Ignition Conference earlier this month, Munster made yet another prediction on the rumored Apple technology, citing a two-year wait for Apple's own television set....

BBC One later this week is airing a documentary, Apple's Broken Promises, that profiles factory conditions for overseas workers who are producing components and assembling the company's iPhone 6. Richard Bilton and his team at current affairs program Panorama went undercover to examine Chinese factory life and mining conditions in Indonesia. Apple is the most valuable brand on the planet,...

With the December holidays approaching, retailers are beginning to offer significant discounts off of their products in an attempt to lure shoppers into stores. Walmart has kicked off an ongoing discount on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, and MacMall is selling a high-end Retina MacBook Pro for an ultra low price. We've also got deals on the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3, and discounts on several Apple...

Apple today seeded the third beta of OS X 10.10.2 Yosemite to developers, just over two weeks after seeing the second 10.10.2 beta and over a month after releasing OS X 10.10.1 to the public. The new beta, build 14C81f, is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Mac Dev Center. Like OS X 10.10.1, as a minor update, OS X 10.10.2 is likely to...