MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Popular free messaging and VOIP app Viber is ">expanding from the iPhone to the desktop with the release of Viber Desktop for PC and Mac. The new desktop app allows users to initiate both video chats and voice calls, much like competing app Skype. Messages sync instantly across all platforms, and the app includes functionality that lets users begin a call on a smartphone and pick it up on a...

EA has announced in a blog post that its Maxis studio will release The Sims 4 for the Mac and PC in 2014.The company released no other details about the game, but said more information would be forthcoming.Today we are revealing to our top fans the fact that The Sims™ 4 is coming to PC and Mac in 2014.The Sims franchise is fueled by the passion and creativity of its millions of fans around ...

The Vox Music Player was originally created as a universal media player in 2007. Its simple design and its support for a wide range of file types led to a surge in popularity, but development stalled and it largely fell out of the public eye. Coppertino, an independent development studio that focuses on Mac and iOS software, has since adopted and redesigned the media player. Vox 1.0 retains...

German auction house Breker (via ComputerWorld) is set to put a working Apple 1 on auction later this month and it may fetch between $240,000 and $400,000. There are an estimated six working Apple 1 computers in existence. The Apple 1 is signed by Steve Wozniak and was originally owned by Computer Data Systems' Fred Hatfield. The computer is also bundled with the original manual and a...

German Apple website ifun.de has posted a collection of images from the beautiful new Apple Store Kurfürstendamm in Berlin, Germany. The store is located in a century-old theater building in one of the city's major shopping districts. The building measures some 48,000 square feet, though it's unclear how much of that space Apple is occupying.Apple first posted job listings for the...

Developer Flying Meat has released an update to its popular Photoshop alternative Acorn, bringing it to version 4.0 and adding an improved user interface, speed upgrades, non-destructive filters, multiple layer selection and more. The developer claims that the new version of Acorn is "a lot faster than its predecessors" in a variety of ways, including applying filters and selections and...

Apple today issued build 12E40 of OS X Mountain Lion to developers, a week after build 12E36 was released. Build 12E40 marks the fifth beta iteration of OS X 10.8.4. Apple continues to ask developers to focus on Wi-Fi, Graphics Drivers, and Safari. The update is available through the software update tool in the Mac App Store and Apple's Developer Page...

With Apple's stock price at its lowest levels since 2011, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov -- one of the main investors behind the Digital Sky Technologies investment group -- has purchased $100 million of Apple stock, reports Bloomberg.“I believe in the future of this company even after Steve Jobs,” Usmanov, 59, said in an interview at Bloomberg’s Moscow offices, referring to...

More than a year and a half after it showed off its first concept for a Thunderbolt docking station, Belkin today officially began ">shipping its Thunderbolt Express Dock. The $299.99 dock offers users a single-cable connection for a docking station supporting a FireWire 800 port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, three USB 3.0 ports, audio in/out, and Thunderbolt passthrough.Designed to be an easy and...

Consumer Reports today released the results of its annual computer tech support survey, which revealed that Apple bested its own scores from last year while also topping every other brand-name computer manufacturer.The company scored far higher than the other big companies for the elements that make for successful online and phone support: ease of contacting staff, clarity of advice, technical...

Adobe is offering customers a 20% spring discount on some of its editing software (via AppleInsider), dropping the price of Lightroom 4, Photoshop Elements 11 and Premiere Elements 11 by $30. Lightroom 4, originally priced at $149, is designed for photographers, offering up an array of powerful image adjustment tools. Though Adobe recently launched a beta version of Lightroom 5, the updated...

Two brothers, Patrick and Daniel Klug, recently released their first game called 'Game Dev Tycoon'. In it, players start a small game development company in the 1980's and attempt to build it up to a development powerhouse over the next 30 years.In a bit of an experiment, the Klugs released a cracked version of their game and uploaded it themselves to a torrent site. However, in the pirated...

For developers and prospective WWDC attendees who did not manage to secure a ticket during the two minutes they were on sale, there is an alternate event happening in San Francisco right near the Moscone Center. AltWWDC is a free and open event that is designed to allow developers to meet and mingle. It features five days of talks from a range of well known developers like Daniel Jalkut of Red ...

The public release of the Leap Motion controller has been delayed until July because the company feels it needs a longer beta test, reports TechCrunch. Best Buy has sent notifications to customers who preordered the device, and Leap today said the device will ship July 22th.Leap Motion's controller is a touch-free device that allows users to control their computers via hand gestures in three...

Firaxis and 2K Games' critically acclaimed strategy title XCOM: Enemy Unknown has officially launched for the Mac today. Originally announced in February, XCOM: Enemy Unknown for Mac comes packaged as part of a special Elite Edition, which includes additional add-on content like the Slingshot Pack, the Elite Soldier Pack, the Second Wave update and the game's soundtrack. XCOM: Enemy...

Twitter has updated its OS X client, nearly two years since the last update. The new client gains support for the Retina display and fourteen more languages, as well as a new way to post photos.- Photos: It’s easier than ever to share photos. Simply click the camera icon in the lower-left corner of the Tweet compose box, and choose a photo to share. If you prefer, you can still drag and drop...

Last week, we noted that workers had begun removing barricades and scaffolding surrounding Apple's first store in Berlin, Germany amid rumors that the store would open during the first weekend of May. In an unusually early reveal, Apple has already confirmed the opening with a new page for the store listing the public opening as taking place at 5:00 PM on Friday, May 3. The new page also...

During today's Q2 2013 quarterly earnings call, Apple revealed that iCloud now has more than 300 million users, a 20% increase from the 250 million that it reported during its Q1 earnings call in January. A year ago, iCloud had just over 100M users. Apple's iCloud originally launched in late 2011, as a replacement for the company's MobileMe service. iCloud, which is designed to allow users...