MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Apple today seeded build 13C48 of OS X 10.9.2 to developers, marking the fourth beta iteration of 10.9.2. The release comes a week after the third OS X 10.9.2 beta, build 13C44, and a little over a month after the first OS X 10.9.2 beta. The update is available to registered developers through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store as well as through the Mac Dev Center. Apple ...

In an email to customers, hardware upgrade company Sonnet has announced yet another shipment delay for its Echo 15 and Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt docking stations. Unveiled in April 2013, the hardware is still in the pre-order stage. The latest delay is the result of a company decision to upgrade the device to support Thunderbolt 2.0. Following our last Echo 15 and Echo 15 Pro+ Thunderbolt Dock...

Last October, Apple angered a lot of iWork power users when it introduced new versions of Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.The new versions were rewritten from the ground up for improved usability and cross-platform compatibility across OS X, iOS and iWork in iCloud, but, as a result, some power user features didn't make it into the machine at release.Apple promised to restore the lost features...

Activist investor Carl Icahn revealed this morning that he has purchased an additional $500 million in Apple shares following Wall Street's disappointment with the company's earnings announcement yesterday.Apple's share price closed at $550 yesterday, before falling as low as $503 at open this morning.Just last week, Icahn announced that his share in Apple had passed $3 billion, then a day...

Industry-wide notebook shipments will continue to decline in 2014, claims NPD DisplaySearch. Revised estimates predict shipments from all vendors, including Apple, will reach 134 million units, down from an earlier estimate of 152 million unit. One factor contributing to this decline is the expected Q3 2014 launch of Intel's upcoming Broadwell CPU. Intel confirmed in its latest earnings...

Coppertino's Vox music player today received a new update, bringing a refreshed design that displays album art and hides playback controls until needed, along with new features such as gapless playback and improved searching across devices and file locations. The update also features improved multi-device support and bug fixes addressing previous issues with radio stations and general stability. ...

Apple's new Mac Pro is immaculately designed to waste as little space as possible, but for a multi-thousand dollar machine, many businesses and schools will look for a way to secure the machine so it isn't easily stolen.Some owners have built custom locking systems, while Apple uses an ethernet-based security cable at its Apple Retail Stores that doesn't actually lock the device, but it does...

In celebration of the Mac's 30th anniversary, Apple employees are being treated to a musical performance by popular band act OneRepublic at Apple's Cupertino campus. (Photo courtesy of @soulo1200s) Celebrating Mac's 30th with some of my closest friends in Cupertino with OneRepublic. Awesome.— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) January 25, 2014 Apple holds a bi-weekly "Beer Bash" for employees at its campus...

Popular Mac colocation service MacMiniColo.net has introduced a new Mac Pro colocation service with similar services to its existing offerings. After being the first company to offer Mac mini colocation, we've been at it for nine years. Starting today, we're happy to offer colocation of the new Mac Pro. For those who need extra power in the cloud, MacProColo is the way to go.MacMiniColo owner Bri...

As part of its publicity push ahead of its interview with Apple CEO Tim Cook tonight, ABC News has posted an excerpt of Cook's discussion with ABC News reporter David Muir.In the clip, Cook discusses the NSA's surveillance operations and says that the Government does not have any direct access to Apple's servers and that "they would have to cart us out in a box" for that to happen.DAVID MUIR:...

In honor of the Mac's 30th anniversary today, iFixit has partnered with Cult of Mac and The Vintage Mac Museum to tear down an original Macintosh 128K. Analysis of the well-known vintage hardware obviously reveals no surprises, but does highlight just how far technology has come in the past 30 years. Thirty years of progress yields some impressive changes to input peripherals. Keyboards and...

In celebration of the Mac's 30th anniversary, Apple today added a new "Happy Birthday, Mac" section to the App Store. The section, which features apps and games from both Apple and third-party developers, is intended to "capture the spirit" of what makes the Mac extraordinary.When the Macintosh debuted on January 24, 1984, it fundamentally changed what a computer was – and what it could do....

Jonathan Zufi, author of the coffee table book "Iconic: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation" and the man behind the Shrine of Apple site, has created a new website that includes photos of Macintosh computers and portables from Apple's early years. To celebrate Mac's 30th birthday, I've created this micro site for all the world to enjoy. In 2009, I started taking photos of every Apple...

Last year's hit game Tomb Raider, which was critically praised for successfully re-imagining iconic video game character Lara Croft for modern times, is finally available on Mac. The Mac version of the action adventure game, which was ported by Feral Interactive, arrives just under a year after it first launched on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. When a young Lara Croft is shipwrecked on an...

Apple today seeded build 13C44 of OS X 10.9.2 to developers, marking the third developer beta iteration of 10.9.2. The release comes a week after the second OS X 10.9.2 beta, build 13C39, and a month after the first OS X 10.9.2 beta. The update is available to registered developers through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store as well as through the Mac Dev Center. Apple...

Pixelmator has updated its image editing software to version 3.1, adding full support for the new Mac Pro, including 16-bit per channel images, full GPU support, and optimizations for the multi-core processors in the new machine. The app now uses both Mac Pro GPU's simultaneously for composition rendering and uses lots of background computing to speed up zoom and other tasks, with the...

Apple has released a minor update to its iTunes software, improving support for Arabic and Hebrew, adding the ability to see a Wish List while viewing the iTunes library, and "additional stability improvements". The last update to iTunes occurred back in early November, fixing issues with the equalizer and improving issues when switching views in large libraries. iTunes 11.1.4 This version ...

Activist investor Carl Icahn has just tweeted that his investment firm has acquired an additional $500 million in Apple stock over the past two weeks, pushing his stake to over $3 billion. Calling continued investment in Apple a "no brainer" at current prices, Icahn also continues to believe that Apple needs to significantly increase its stock buyback program. A more in-depth letter from Icahn on ...