MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

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, ...

Apple today seeded build 12D74 of OS X Mountain Lion to developers, marking the eleventh beta iteration of the newest version of Mountain Lion. 10.8.3 was first seeded to developers in November of 2012. Build 12D74 comes two weeks after build 12D68 and features no listed changes. Registered developers can download the update on Apple’s Developer Page. This post originally referred to...

The very different designs for Apple's and Google's planned headquarters buildings are a reflection of their corporate personalities, argues a professor of architecture at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. In an interview with Professor Brian Schermer by digital news site Quartz (via Business Insider), the workplace design expert comments on the two companies' respective plans for their ...

Apple's System Status page is showing multiple iCloud services with 'issues': Services listed as being affected are Photo Stream, Documents in the Cloud and Backup. The services have been having problems for nearly five hours already, and Apple has not yet provided a timeframe for a fix. (Thanks, Guillermo.) Update 8:28 AM: The issues are persisting some seven hours after Apple first...

South Carolina-based accessory maker Twelve South has released a new version of its BookBook case, this time for the 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display. The case matches those available for the iPad and iPhone, as well as existing ones for the 11" and 13" MacBook Air models. The 13" MacBook Pro with Retina fits into the existing case designed for the 13" MacBook Air.Designed exclusively for...

Critically acclaimed strategy game "XCOM: Enemy Unknown" is headed to the Mac in a few months, Feral Interactive announced today. The popular strategy game is coming in a special "Elite Edition", which includes previously released add-on content.The Mac release of "XCOM: Enemy Unknown" is the "Elite Edition", and contains all previously released add-on content and updates. "XCOM: Enemy Unknown ...

Realmac Software, the company behind popular gesture-based task list Clear, today announced that Clear for Mac will work with the Leap Motion controller. Leap Motion's controller is a touch-free device that allows users to control their computers via hand gestures in three dimensions. It works in conjunction with the Leap Motion software, and development units have been sent to 10,000...

The Apple fan behind the Every Apple TV ad YouTube channel has created a new channel and blog with the self-explanatory title Every Steve Jobs video, offering a total of around 150 clips of varying lengths. The site's creator told MacRumors that he wanted to get them online in time for Steve Jobs' birthday on February 24. I'm a long time Apple enthusiast and throughout the years have...

LEGO The Lord of the Rings, which was released for consoles and PCs late last year, has finally made its way to the Mac. The game, which is based on The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, incorporates events from all three of the movies. It features actual film dialogue along with RPG elements that are not present in other LEGO games, such as an expanding inventory and open world exploration. F...

Just a couple days after a clip of Jony Ive's appearance on BBC's Blue Peter was revealed, journalist Tom Davenport (via CNET) says he's found an insightful portion of the clip that was cut out. In the new segment, Ive talks about how product naming philosophy can affect the design process.If we’re thinking of lunchbox, we’d be really careful about not having the word ‘box’ already give...