MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Feral Interactive today released Sid Meier's Railroads! on the Mac. The game is the most recent release in the much beloved Railroad Tycoon series, the first of which was released in 1990. Railroads was originally released for the PC in 2006, but this is its first appearance on the Mac.Build a railroad empire and shape a nation!Lay track, route trains and watch the world come to life in this...

South Carolina-based Twelve South has released a new adjustable desktop stand designed to compliment Apple's sleek aluminum notebooks. The HiRise for MacBook stand elevates the notebook from a few inches to half a foot off the desk, while staying nearly invisible.TwelveSouth sells a riser for the iMac as well, also called the HiRise.Twelve South's HiRise for MacBook is the only...

Six weeks after the release of OS X 10.8.2, Apple is preparing to begin testing on the next maintenance update to OS X Mountain Lion. AppleInsider notes that Apple has sent out invitations to select users asking them to participate in the testing process. The first build of a new OS X version typically appears a few days after such invitations are sent out, suggesting that we may see the...

Popular iOS to-do app Clear is coming to the Mac complete with iCloud cross-platform syncing. Clear launched earlier this year to strong reviews of its minimalist interface. The app is designed to be extremely quick and easy to use, with lists automatically color coded in order of priority. The Mac app is expected to be released next week on November 8th. Realmac, the creator of Clear, plans to...

Earlier this year, Other World Computing (OWC) announced the launch of its 480 GB Mercury Aura Pro solid-state drive for the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro. Some questioned the cost-effectiveness of pursuing such an upgrade, however, given its $579.99 price tag compared to Apple's $500 charge to boost the standard 256 GB drive to a 512 GB drive, although aftermarket upgrade users can also keep their ...

In a new blog post today, Primate Labs summarizes the Geekbench 2 results for the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro hitting the company's database, unsurprisingly finding that the machines' performance is on par with that of the non-Retina models released in June. Benchmark scores for both stock models of the new 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro register within 0.5% of the scores seen for the...

Microsoft has updated Skype to version 6, adding Retina display support as well as the ability to sign into Skype using a Facebook account. This eliminates the need to sign up for a separate Skype account. Last year, Skype added the ability to make Facebook chat and video calls to its app.Microsoft and Facebook Account IntegrationSign up and sign-in is easier than ever. You can now sign into...

John Browett, Apple's retail vice president, has received the first vestment from his signing bonus of 100,000 restricted stock units (RSUs) according to a filing with the SEC. He was granted the first batch of 5,000 shares today with 2,159 shares being sold for tax withholding purposes.Unlike options, restricted stock units do not require the recipient to purchase stock at an exercise price in ...

Consistent with Apple's quest to make its new computers as thin as possible at the expense of expandability, the new 21.5" iMac contains no user-accessible RAM slots. Instead, it can be configured with 8GB or 16GB of RAM direct from the factory. This was first noticed by Cult of Mac.The 27" model, on the other hand, can be equipped with up to 32GB of RAM, and has four user-accessible RAM slots ...

At an event packed with several hardware announcements, Apple's iBooks Author application for Mac also got an update today adding new templates and the ability for authors to use their own fonts and add mathematical expressions and multi-touch widgets. Authors can also publish updates to their ebooks through iBooks Author. Users will be notified of available book updates through the iBooks iOS ...

The Korea Times reports that Apple has fired the head of its Korean unit, Dominique Oh, with sources indicating that the move was related to sluggish sales in the country."Apple terminated the contract with Oh last week," Apple spokesman Steve Park said by telephone, late Tuesday. "We acknowledge that there are many speculations surrounding Oh's contract termination. But we can't do more,...

Last week, we noted that Apple had expanded its iMac 1TB Seagate Hard Drive Replacement Program to include iMac models sold between October 2009 and July 2011. The program provides for free replacement of the defective Seagate drives or reimbursement for repairs already paid for out of pocket by machine owners. Apple has now begun emailing customers for whom it has contact information...

GOG.com -- short for Good Old Games -- has brought 50 older PC gaming titles to OS X, many on the modern Mac OS for the first time.The games include Sim City 2000 (for only $2.99), Syndicate ($5.99), Wing Commander ($5.99) and the Ultima series ($5.99).GOG.com is probably not a name familiar to many Mac users, but it's been around for years selling classic and out-of-date games on Windows. The...

After several months in public and then private alpha and beta testing, Tweetbot for Mac has been released for $20 [App Store].The app includes support for the Retina MacBook Pro, iCloud syncing with the iOS versions of Tweetbot, and more. There are also a number of excellent reviews out today to help users decide if the app is worth $20, including from The Verge, The Next Web, and MacStories....

MacHeist has launched their fourth application bundle, combining fifteen apps with a retail value of $539 (if certain sales targets are reached), for $29. MacHeist typically assembles these bundles with a wide variety of apps, including both games and productivity programs.This year's bundle includes:- Bejeweled 3- Scrivener- Courier- PDF Signer- Artboard- Jurassic Park- Sam and Max- S...

While Apple added dedicated Notes and Reminders web apps to iCloud.com last month, the web-based implementation of Reminders left out at least one important feature: shared reminders. OS X Mountain Lion users have been able to share reminders via the native Reminders app as of OS X 10.8.2, but Windows users and others needing to access iCloud via the service's website have been unable to set...

LaCie has announced a new addition to its Little Big Disk line with a pair of RAID'd SATA III solid state drives in either 512GB or 1TB total capacity. The company positions the drives towards "the creative pro on the go", supporting either RAID 1 for security, or RAID 0 for extra speed.Today, LaCie announced that the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt Series, design by Neil Poulton, now features SATA...

Last week, EA released the first gameplay video of the new SimCity. Today, the Maxis team is running a live webcast showing new gameplay and the first live demo of SimCity.The video will be available at origin.com/maxis-live after the event is completed as well.This virtual event will be packed full of announcements and will feature live software demos including the first live-streamed...