MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Career site Glassdoor today released the results of its annual CEO approval rating survey, showing a four percentage-point drop for Apple CEO Tim Cook that resulted in a decline from the top spot in last year's survey to 18th in this year's version. Glassdoor's results are based on over 500,000 company surveys submitted by employees over the past year that ask whether they approve of how their...

Apple today released Security Update 2013-001 for Snow Leopard, Snow Leopard Server, Lion and Lion Server users, on the heels of the release of OS X 10.8.3.The company didn't specify what changes were made, other than saying it was recommended for all users and it improves the security of Mac OS X.Apple's website that details the contents of security updates has yet to be updated with the...

After a beta period that began in December, productivity and search app Alfred was today updated to version 2.0. Alfred, which is a Mac replacement for Spotlight, is now equipped with a new feature called Workflows. Workflows are designed to allow users to automate and execute multi-step tasks with a single keystroke, using a simple visual editor. The app offers support for launching...

One of the first analysts to to turn bearish on Apple last year, correctly predicting lower-than-expected revenues, has upgraded the stock to a Buy, giving it a 12-month target price of $540 against a closing yesterday of $428.35. BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk is cited in Business Insider as suggesting that Apple's earnings per share will be flat or slightly down this year but will climb in 2014. ...

Microsoft has issued updates for both Office for Mac 2008 and 2011 to fix a security issue in which opening a malicious HTML email could result in an attacker "[overwriting] the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code" and potentially gain access to information stored on the Mac. The update to Office for Mac 2011 additionally contains a range of bug fixes: Contacts that were ...

An upcoming manga comic book series from Japanese artist Mari Yamazaki will feature the life story of Steve Jobs, as told by Walter Isaacson in his best selling biography of the former Apple CEO. According to Pocket-lint, the officially licensed series will appear in a "female comic" magazine called Kiss, published by Kodansha, Japan's largest manga publisher. Yamazaki has been chosen to...

Evernote has upgraded its menulet item to enhance the workflow of its users who take notes frequently. Users can click the Evernote icon in their menubar from within any application and immediately begin typing a note, or can even drag files directly to the icon to upload them to the service.Use Quick Note to: - Create a text note instantly. Pop it open with CTRL-CMD-N, type your note....

Dropbox today released an update for its Mac client, offering a redesigned drop down interface and improved file sharing capabilities. With version 2.0 of Dropbox, users can share files with one another using a link from the Desktop menu. File sharing notifications are sent out in real time, to the desktop application and the iOS app. Introducing a shiny new feature: a new tray popup that...

One week after the previous seed, Apple today released a new build of OS X 10.8.3 to developers. The latest version, which arrives as build 12D78, represents the 13th developer seed since Apple began developer testing last November. As with previous builds, Apple is asking developers to focus their testing on AirPlay, AirPort, Game Center, Graphics Drivers, and Safari. We had previously...

The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro beat 18 Windows 8 laptops in a battery-life test conducted by Which?, the UK consumer test organization with a reputation for the most detailed testing in the industry. In the web-browsing test where most laptops performed best, the Acer Aspire M5-581T was the longest-lasting Windows 8 machine at 358 minutes, while the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro lasted 30...

As noted in our forums, Apple's latest OS X 10.8.3 beta seeded to developers as build 12D76 yesterday contains new drivers for NVIDIA's high-end Quadro K5000 graphics card. NVIDIA announced the Quadro K5000 for the Mac Pro last September, but has yet to actually release the product. The first developer build of OS X 10.8.3 seeded last November added AMD Radeon 7000-series drivers, so it...

Apple today seeded build 12D76 of OS X Mountain Lion to developers, marking the twelfth beta iteration of the newest version of Mountain Lion. 10.8.3 was first seeded to developers in November of 2012. Build 12D76 comes less than a week after build 12D74 and features no listed changes. Registered developers can download the update on Apple’s Developer Page. Update: We've heard that...

As reported by The Vancouver Sun, three men discharged bear repellant during a robbery of Apple's Oakridge Centre retail store in Vancouver while the store was full of customers last night. Photo: @CTVBCBRK Police say three men entered the store shortly before 7:00 PM last night while around 40 customers were in the store, discharging the spray and stealing "a small number of electronics...

As noted by Accelerate Your Mac and tonymacx86, German site PCGamesHardware.de reports [Google translation] that Hong Kong-based company Sapphire Technology is previewing its new Radeon HD 7950 Mac Edition graphics card at CeBIT this week. The high-end card arrives following Apple's introduction of Radeon HD 7000-series drivers in OS X 10.8.3 betas last November, although the update has yet to...

Steve Streza of Pocket (via MacStories) participated in App.net's hackathon over the weekend, producing Project Amy, which offers a way to integrate App.net private messages with Apple's Messages app for the Mac. Project Amy uses both App.net's private messaging API that was introduced in December and Apple's IMServicePlugin.framework to add App.net as an account in Messages. It shows up as an ...

Apple has pushed a new release of Java 6 that fixes a new vulnerability discovered just a few days ago. Somewhat confusingly, Apple delivers updates to Java 6, while Oracle delivers updates directly to Java 7 users.InformationWeek reports:"We detected a brand new Java zero-day vulnerability that was used to attack multiple customers," FireEye security researchers Darien Kindlund and Yichong...

Bloomberg briefly notes that hedge fund Greenlight Capital has unsurprisingly dropped its lawsuit against Apple over a company-backed proxy proposal that had bundled together several provisions including a move to limit Apple's ability to issue preferred stock to investors without explicit shareholder approval. Apple CEO had previously called the lawsuit a "silly sideshow" and reiterated that...

David Bowie's first new album in 10 years, The Next Day, is available for free streaming on iTunes, the artist announced on his Facebook page after an earlier teaser post where he told fans to "stay stuned for a surprise regarding iTunes." Due to be released on March 12, the streaming preview is exclusive to iTunes. Apple has occasionally offered such exclusive streaming preview in the past, ...