MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Samsung today announced the UD590, a new 28-inch 4K monitor that will go on sale this April in the US market for $700 (Via Engadget). The UD590 model includes a 28-inch display with 3840 x 2160 resolution, 1 billion (10-bit) colors and 1 millisecond response time, making it suitable for gaming or watching high-action sports or movies. The UD590 ships with a picture-in-picture feature that...

A federal judge has granted class action status to a group of plaintiffs suing Apple over its antitrust collusion with publishers to increase the price of e-books, reports Reuters. The judge, Denise Cote, is the same judge who oversaw the antitrust case against Apple by the U.S. Department of Justice.Judge Cote has been accused by Apple of overstepping her judicial authority by giving a...

Apple today seeded build 13D28 of OS X 10.9.3 to developers, a little over one week after releasing the third OS X 10.9.3 beta, build 13D21 and three weeks after the first 10.9.3 beta. The beta is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store as well as through the Mac Dev Center. Apple is currently asking developers to focus on Graphics Drivers and Audio. As was...

Western Digital today announced the new My Passport Pro, the company's first thunderbolt-powered, dual-drive storage solution. With user-selectable RAID functionality, the drive is suitable for graphics professionals looking for high performance or consumers who need reliable mirroring. The aluminum enclosure accommodates two 2.5-inch drives, providing a total of 2 TB or 4 TB of storage...

Work at Apple's new sapphire production plant in Mesa, Arizona is progressing, with contractors working "around the clock and even on weekends", according to a new report by AppleInsider. It also says Apple may be expanding into another building already existing on the site.The site says Apple planned to have the facility up and running by February and it may be partially active as work...

Earlier this month, Transcend announced the launch of 128 GB RAM kits for the new Mac Pro, offering users willing to spend nearly $2500 the ability to go beyond Apple's maximum of 64 GB. Several new options for 128 GB RAM upgrades have launched since that time, offering consumer more choices in sourcing their RAM. Last week, MacMall began selling 32 GB modules from Axiom for $620, thus...

Connected Data today announced the Drobo Gen3, the next generation of its popular 4-bay storage array. The Gen3 is faster and cheaper than previous Drobo models. It also features enhanced support for Apple's Time Machine backups. This third generation Drobo is more affordable, three times faster than the previous release and includes new features such as USB 3.0, significantly faster rebuild ...

The latest expansion pack to BioShock Infinite has launched simultaneously on the Mac and PC. Burial at Sea - Episode 2 is the third and final add-on pack for BioShock Infinite and is included in the season pass for that game. It is available on the Mac for $15 on Steam and Aspyr's GameAgent.com store, and will be added to the Mac App Store later this week. BioShock Infinite ($30) is required...

Cathy Edwards, who works as a Director of Evaluation and Quality on Apple Maps, is planning to leave Apple in April, reports TechCrunch. Edwards initially co-founded and served as chief technical officer at app discovery platform Chomp, joining Apple after her company was acquired in 2012. Apple purchased Chomp in early 2012 to bolster its App Store search and discovery algorithms and incorpo...

Turkey's first Apple Store is nearing completion, as seen in new photos posted by Turkish Apple blog ElmaDergisi (via AppleToolbox). Taken on March 24 and 25, the images show the progress on the upcoming Istanbul location. Located in the heart of Istanbul's multi-use Zorlu Center, the store is said to feature a concept that includes a design with a cubic glass ceiling. As can be seen in the...

Amazon today notified customers they are eligible for a refund for books they purchased through the Kindle book store. The refunds were paid by publishers Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Penguin as part of a settlement agreement in ebook price-fixing lawsuits filed by State Attorney Generals and other class-action plaintiffs. Amazon issued the settlement refund in...

A new photo may indicate that Apple is nearing the grand opening of its long delayed retail store in Hanover, Germany, reports iFun.de [Google Translation]. The photo shows the building's partially constructed internals with an exposed Apple logo on the right side of its entrance, with a flag pole also positioned over the left door. Furthermore, the layout of the location in question is...

A supposed internal Apple video depicting the demolition of Hewlett Packard's former offices in preparation for Apple's Campus 2 project has surfaced on YouTube (via 9to5Mac). The video itself, which appears to be consistent with Apple's production quality, shows excavators tearing through multiple buildings. The footage was likely shot from late last year through earlier this year, as demolit...

Apple has filled a position of privacy counsel with a lawyer experienced in customer privacy, data protection, electronic surveillance, information security and more. Sabrina Ross, a former associate at both Ropes & Gray and Sidley Austin, joined Apple this month according to her LinkedIn page (via AppleInsider).Ross is a certified privacy professional, professing expertise in Internet and...

Back in January, Google began testing integration of its Google Now personal assistant service with its Chrome browser for the desktop. The feature, which allows users to receive notifications for such topics as weather, traffic, and events and can tap into device location, first appeared in the experimental Chrome Canary builds and gradually worked its way through Chrome's testing phases, and...

After waiting for several years for Apple to release a new professional tower, the company finally released the new Mac Pro last year. With dual-GPUs and an innovative cooling system, the diminutive machine has impressed professional users.FCP.co decided to test out Final Cut Pro X and their well-equipped 8-core Mac Pro to absurd limits. The site put 1600 connected clips into the GUI, and...

Aspyr has updated Civilization V with support for the new Mac Pro, offering OpenCL frameworks to improve performance on NVIDIA and ATI chipsets in OS X Mavericks, as well as 4K resolution. The company says most Civilization V players should see faster game and visual performance as a result. Click the image for a full-sized 4K screenshot Civilization V is available on the Mac from the Mac App...

Apple today seeded build 13D21 of OS X 10.9.3 to developers, one week after releasing the second OS X 10.9.3 beta, build 13D17 and two weeks after the first 10.9.3 beta. The beta is available through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store as well as through the Mac Dev Center. Apple is currently asking developers to focus on Graphics Drivers and Audio. As was discovered with the...