MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

The 10% drop in Apple's share value following the company's earnings release earlier this week was not entirely the fault of Apple, Fortune suggests, but rather that of overheated analyst predictions. Fortune assessed the accuracy of the predictions made by 68 analysts, and found that revenue figures ranged from $51.7 billion to $65.69 billion against Apple's actual performance of $54.51...

Apple today began a new 'Get Stuff Done' promotional sale, offering discounts on several popular productivity apps. The sale, which will take place over three weeks, features three categories: Prioritize, Organize, and Utilize. This week’s category is Prioritize, and features list making apps like Clear and Things at a deep discount. Here’s a full list along with prices: -Clear: $6.99...

Origin, Electronic Art's digital distribution platform, is available for Macs as of today via an open alpha testing period. Origin for Mac was initially announced in August of last year, when EA noted that the Mac version of its upcoming SimCity game was expected to launch alongside the PC version. SimCity will no longer be released simultaneously on the Mac and the PC, but EA will presumably...

Apple today seeded build 12D58 of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 to developers, marking the seventh beta iteration of the newest version of Mountain Lion. 10.8.3 was first seeded to developers in November. Build 12D58 comes a week after build 12D54, and like the previous build, contains no known issues or features. Build 12D54 brought significant changes to WiFi, and asked developers to focus on ...

Today at the Hollywood Radio and Television Panel, Disney CEO and Apple board of directors member Bob Iger discussed his relationship with Steve Jobs, according to The Wrap. Jobs became Disney's largest shareholder after he sold Pixar to Disney for $7.4 billion, which also set the stage for Disney's acquisitions of Marvel and Lucasfilm later on. Iger recalled that the deal almost never...

The Ashton Kutcher-led jOBS film will be opening in theaters on April 19, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The biopic, directed by Joshua Michael Stern and written by Matthew Whitely, chronicles Jobs' ascension from college dropout to one of the most revered entrepreneurs of the 20th century. Part of the film was shot in the historic garage where Jobs first set up shop at his family's home ...

Just over a year after TwelveSouth released its PlugBug Mac and iDevice charger, it has gone international. The new PlugBug World is the same as the original, but includes five swappable prong adapters for use in the UK, Continental Europe, Australia, New Zealand, North America, Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Japan and a number of other countries.PlugBug World is an international version of the...

NZweek reports (via The Next Web) that government officials in Indonesia have revealed that Apple has submitted an application outlining plans to relaunch its online store in the country, to be followed by the opening of its first Indonesian retail store in Jakarta.Chatib Basri, BKPM chairman, said BKPM has given official permission to Apple relating to its plan to open online store in Indonesia. ...

Shipping estimates for new orders of 21.5-inch iMac models began slipping in Apple's online stores in many European countries such as the United Kingdom today, moving from 7-10 business days to 2-3 weeks. The changes have not yet propagated to stores for other regions. Estimates for the 21.5-inch models had remained steady at 7-10 business days since just after they became available for...

Bloomberg is reporting that Apple CEO Tim Cook has been ordered by U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to give a deposition in a lawsuit claiming that Apple and five other companies entered deals not to recruit each other's employees.Koh told lawyers yesterday that Apple founder Steve Jobs was copied on e-mails at issue in the case, and that she found it “hard to believe” that Cook, as Apple’s...

Black Pixel today released its first major in-house app, Kaleidoscope 2. The app that helps coders, writers and others to compare the differences in folders, images, text, and more. The app was released as a beta back in November.At the time, The Next Web spoke with former Apple employee Michael Jurewitz and the rest of the Black Pixel team about Kaleidoscope 2:Kaleidoscope 2 is a lovely...

Apple today seeded build 12D54 of OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.3 to developers, marking the sixth beta iteration of the newest version of Mountain Lion. 10.8.3 was first seeded to developers in November. Build 12D54 comes just eight days after build 12D50, and like the previous build, contains no known issues or features. Build 12D50 brought only minor changes, and asked developers to focus on...

Later this year, Other World Computing plans to release a 3.5" SSD drive meant for tower-style PCs like the Mac Pro. The drive, called the "Mercury Viper", will allow OWC to build an SSD with capacities as large as 2TB, as well as transfer rates over 600MB/s over a SATA 3 connection.Currently, OWC makes 2.5" SSD's that can be installed in a laptop or desktop via a bracket, but the extra space...

Former Apple employee Don Melton has been sharing a unique look behind the scenes of the Safari development team. Melton was the team leader on both the Safari and WebKit products that are now used by millions of users on iOS, the Mac, and Windows.Previously, Melton explained how the Safari name came about, and the tale of Safari's User Agent string and the strategies his team used to keep the...

Xerox today announced that Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri is leaving the company to take the position of Corporate Controller at Apple. The move will be effective February 28."Luca is a stellar finance executive whose contributions have brought great value to the transformation of Xerox into a services enterprise,” said Ursula Burns, Xerox chairman and chief executive officer. "He's...

Apple today pushed out a new EFI Firmware Update 2.6 for the mid–2012 MacBook Air, which comes with several bug fixes for the MacBook Airs that were released in June alongside the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro.This update fixes a color issue with HDMI displays connected to MacBook Air, resolves an issue with Windows which can prevent MacBook Air from booting properly, and also resolves an issue...

Twitter has updated its Tweetdeck client with a number of new features, including the ability to get Tweet embed code straight from the application, a new predictive typing feature, and "performance upgrades for displaying multiple high-velocity columns".Reports The Next Web:The update includes changes made to the Chrome version of the app before Christmas, and one of the most visual changes...

Mozilla today released version 18 of Firefox, adding Retina support for Apple's line of Retina MacBook Pros.Safari, Opera, and Google Chrome implemented Retina months ago, leaving Firefox as the last of the major browsers to receive a Retina update. Without Retina support, both website text and images on Firefox appeared fuzzy and hard to read. Firefox 18 also includes the following updates,...