MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

During today's financial results conference call for the third calendar and fourth fiscal quarter of 2013, Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer indicated Apple will continue to offer iWork, iLife, and OS X for free for the foreseeable future. When OS X Mavericks was released last Tuesday, Apple announced that for the first time ever, OS X system updates would be available to customers at no charge. At...

During its financial results conference call for the third calendar and fourth fiscal quarter of 2013, Apple shared new numbers about its retail stores, announcing a total of $4.5 billion in revenue which is up 6% from the year-ago quarter. According to Apple, iPhone sales are up 36% per store per week, and the company opened 8 new stores in the quarter, bringing the total number of Apple Retail...

The MacRumors Folding@home team has accumulated over one billion points for the distributed computing medical research project. The MacRumors team, currently ranked #55 out of over two hundred thousand Folding@home teams, reached the milestone point total on October 27. Folding@home participants receive work units as computation assignments. Completed work units are assigned points based on...

Apple is reportedly planning to open its first retail location in Rio de Janiero, Brazil early next year, according to 9to5Mac. The specific target date for the opening would reportedly be between February and March 2014, which contrasts with an earlier report from August stating that Apple would be opening its first Brazllian retail store this December. An early 2014 opening would still have the ...

Apple has a released a new firmware update -- iMac SMC Firmware Update 1.1 -- for the new iMacs released in September.Simultaneously, Apple also released a supplemental update for OS X 10.8.5.iMac SMC Firmware Update 1.1This update is recommended for iMac (late 2013) with flash-only storage. This update improves the Power Nap feature in Mavericks on your flash based iMac by allowing it to...

Upstart automobile manufacturer Tesla Motors has announced the hiring of Doug Field, former vice president of Mac Hardware Engineering, to lead its development of new vehicles. Field has been at Apple for more than 5 years and led the development of recent models of the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac -- all of which have seen significant redesigns in past years. "Doug has demonstrated the ...

Unibox, a Messages-style email client that entered public beta back in September, is now available for download from the Mac App Store. Aiming to revolutionize the email experience, Unibox is designed to make email more personal through an organizational system that groups emails by contacts. The app's interface is divided into two panes, with the left side displaying contacts and the right...

Software maker Adobe has announced on its blog (via ZDNet) that its Flash Player software is now sandboxed for the version of Safari found in OS X Mavericks, preventing malware targeting Flash from accessing sensitive data and system resources beyond Apple's browser. As described by Apple, sandboxing "provides a last line of defense against the theft, corruption, or deletion of user data" if a...

Apple today updated its professional-grade audio software Logic Pro X to version 10.0.4, adding support for project files generated by the new version of GarageBand released yesterday. Logic Pro X, launched in July, represented the first major update to the software since 2009. Logic Pro X introduced "Drummer" a customizable virtual session player that automatically plays along to recorded...

Apple's latest retail store, a two-story location in the new IAPM mall in Shanghai, will open on Saturday October 26. The gigantic six-story mall occupies 1.3 million square feet and includes an IMAX theater, a high-end grocery store, late night hours -- the Apple Store will be open until 11 PM daily -- and a number of international retailers including Prada, Dolce & Gabbana and many more. ...

Some users with legacy versions of iLife and iWork that were not purchased through the Mac App Store are having difficulties upgrading to the new versions released earlier today, according to Macworld.Users who own iWork '09 or iLife '11 are supposed to receive the latest versions of both those app suites for free through the Mac App Store, but some are having difficulties.Some users...

Image editing software Pixelmator was today updated to version 3.0, adding several new enhancements including OS X Mavericks support, new liquify tools, non-destructive Layer Styles, and a new image editing engine. Pixelmator has been designed to take advantage of OS X Mavericks features like App Nap and Compressed Memory, making it more responsive and power efficient. The app’s new image...

Earlier today, Apple released OS X Mavericks, new versions of iLife and iWork; iOS 7.0.3; updated Trailers, Podcasts, and Find My iPhone apps; and new versions of Aperture and Safari.The company has since followed that up with a number of new software updates to some of its more minor apps, as well as small compatibility updates for more prominent apps. It also released the Mavericks version of ...

Apple has added a new iMovie Theater channel to the Apple TV, designed to work in conjunction with the iMovie Theater feature that was added to both the iOS and Mac versions of iMovie in today’s update. iMovie Theater is a cross device feature designed to allow users to watch shared clips, movies, and trailers on all Apple devices, including the Apple TV. Projects that are created within iMovie...

During today’s iPad-centric event, Apple announced that more than 20 iOS and Mac apps would receive updates over the course of the day. Aperture, Apple's photo editing and management software, has just been updated to version 3.5 adding new features and bug fixes. The update includes support for iCloud Photo sharing, allowing users to post content to shared streams and add videos to photo...

A number of news sites have been able to go hands-on with Apple's newly announced 13- and 15-inch MacBook Pros with Retina Display, both of which come with Intel's newest processors, offering increased battery life with improved performance. Image courtesy of The Verge TechCrunch says that the slightly slimmer 13-inch model is a "big change" compared to the older model and will likely be much ...

After the announcement and subsequent release of Apple's new Retina MacBook Pros with updated processors and faster storage, the company has apparently discontinued the 15-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro which leaves only the 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro alongside the current line of Retina MacBook Pros. The 13-inch non-Retina MacBook Pro being sold is of the exact same model and specification...

Last month, Apple began offering a "last compatible" version feature in its iOS App Store, giving developers the option of offering users running pre-iOS 7 operating systems on their iOS devices the ability to download older versions of their apps compatible with those devices and operating systems. With today's launch of OS X Mavericks, Apple has notified Mac developers that a similar feature ...