MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

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,...

Any.DO today announced the launch of a Mac version of Any.Do, the company's popular task management app for iOS, allowing users to manage their tasks and to-dos on multiple platforms throughout the day. While the app quietly went live last week, today marks the official launch with a major Editor's Choice feature by Apple in the Mac App Store. With Any.do for Mac, life is as productive as you...

Mickey Drexler, who has served on Apple's Board of Directors since 1999, will retire at the end of his current term, according to a new shareholders filing. Drexler's term ends at the annual shareholder's meeting, on March 10, 2015. A replacement for Drexler has not yet been chosen.On January 16, 2015, Millard "Mickey" Drexler, 70, who has served on the Board since 1999, notified the Board of his ...

Apple today seeded a sixth beta of OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 to developers, just a week after seeding the fifth beta of OS X 10.10.2, and two months after seeding the first beta. The new beta, build 14C106a, is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Mac Dev Center. As with previous betas, Apple asks developers to focus testing on Wi-Fi, Mail,...

Rogue Amoeba today announced the launch of Audio Hijack 3 for Mac, which allows users to record audio from any source, including Skype, Safari, or hardware inputs like microphones. As described by the company, "if it can be heard on Mac OS X, Audio Hijack can record it." Audio Hijack 3 follows in the footsteps of Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack, which was first released in 2002, and Audio Hijack...

On a trip to Washington, D.C. last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook met with various senators to discuss a variety of topics, and Bloomberg points to the trip as a sign of the company's increased lobbying in recent years. Though Apple was previously known to have a very small presence in Washington under Steve Jobs, Cook has quietly stepped up those efforts since taking the reins as CEO in 2011.“The...

Popular free password management service LastPass today is launching a new Mac app to make it easier for Mac users to access their passwords on their laptop and desktop computers. The new LastPass Mac app offers a full-featured vault for storing login information, passwords, credit cards, and more, and it comes equipped with several other useful tools such as Quick Search and Security Check....

Apple has posted a new video on its official Chinese retail website showing renowned calligrapher Wang Dongling creating a mural for the company's upcoming West Lake store in Hangzhou. The video shows the artist using precise brush strokes to form characters around an Apple logo on a surface, which is then shown covering the West Lake retail location. Last week, Apple retail chief Angela...

Civilization designer Sid Meier along with 2K and Firaxis Games have announced a new game, Sid Meier's Starships, reports Gamespot. The interstellar strategy game was developed by a small team at Firaxis who worked closely with Meier on the game's design. Sid Meier's Starships builds upon the success of last year's Civilization: Earth Beyond, moving beyond the initial colonization of...

As we mentioned in last week's Buyer's Guide post, the deals in the month of January aren't great, but there are still a few discounts to be had on various products like the previous-generation iPads, the Retina iMac, the MacBook Air, and a few Retina MacBook Pro models. We've also got a handful of accessory deals for you this week, on iPhone cases, iPad keyboard cases, Thunderbolt docks, and...

Apple is planning a major retail increase in China in the coming weeks, retail chief Angela Ahrendts tells China's Xinhua News Agency. According to Ahrendts, Apple's aggressive strategy involves the opening of five new retail stores in the next five weeks. Apple is timing this expansion with the festive shopping of the February 19 Chinese New Year holiday. "We are opening five new stores before...

Apple today seeded a fifth beta of OS X Yosemite 10.10.2 to developers, just one week after seeding the fourth beta of OS X 10.10.2 and nearly two months after seeding the first beta. The new beta, build 14C99d, is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store and through the Mac Dev Center. As with previous betas, Apple asks developers to focus testing on Wi-Fi,...

Shares of personal camera maker GoPro fell 12 percent as trading volume doubled yesterday following the publication of a recently awarded Apple camera patent (via Bloomberg). Apple was granted US patent no. 8,934,045 yesterday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for a remote control camera system powered by a wrist-worn device. Originally filed by Kodak in 2012 and subsequently acquired ...

After a judge had rejected an earlier settlement deal, Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe today offered a higher settlement that may end an anti-poaching lawsuit filed on behalf of technology workers, reports Reuters. Citing a source close to the negotiations, The New York Times claims the companies are offering a combined payment of $415 million to settle the case. The suit asserts that the...

When the newest Mac mini first launched in October of 2014, Apple did not give the option for it to be configured with a 2TB drive, much to the disappointment of many Mac mini fans. As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple reversed its decision to only offer 1TB of storage space in December and quietly updated the Mac mini build-to-order options, adding an option for a 2TB Fusion Drive for an additional...