MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

As revealed in a regulatory filing yesterday, Apple senior vice president for hardware engineering Bob Mansfield on Monday exercised a set of stock options he has held for a number of years, immediately selling off the stock for a gain of nearly $12.5 million. Under the stock option program, Mansfield was eligible to purchase 30,000 of Apple stock at a price of $36.54 per share and immediately...

Intuit has begun offering its entry-level financial management software Quicken Essentials for Mac on the Mac App Store. This is the standard edition of Essentials that has been on sale for quite a while, not a new version -- something Intuit is quick to point out in the description for the software. It's merely a new distribution point. Quicken Essentials for Mac, a basic starter edition,...

Back in late December, Apple was fined $1.2 million by Italian regulators over allegations that the company promoted its AppleCare extended warranty program to customers without adequately disclosing that many of the program's benefits were already included in the standard two-year warranty required by Italian law. As noted by @setteBIT, Apple has now added to its Italian online store a...

Apple has pushed out Build 11D50 of OS X 10.7.3 to registered developers. Apple continues to report no known issues in the seed notes, and asks developers to focus their testing on Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight and Safari. The previous builds had appeared to be close to a final release, but Apple is clearly still making some final tweaks to the update. The release description has...

As noted in our forums, Apple today pushed out a new firmware update specifically targeting users of the company's Mid-2010 13-inch MacBook Pro model. The new MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 2.5 brings compatibility with Lion Internet Recovery, allowing users of OS X Lion to reinstall the operating system from scratch on a brand-new hard drive without the need for physical recovery media.About ...

Virgin America has named one of its fleet after Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, emblazoning a popular Jobs quote "Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish" on the side of this Airbus A320. Steve mentioned the phrase in his 2005 commencement address at Stanford University, noting that it was originally used in The Whole Earth Catalog in the 1970's: On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an ...

Apple is planning to open a new store-within-a-store concept at the legendary Harrods department store on Brompton Road in London, according to 9to5Mac. Harrods boasts more than 1 million square feet of selling space across 330 departments -- plenty of room for an Apple Store of sorts. The store-in-store concept will feature wooden tables and signage but won't have the signature feature of...

One week after the previous developer seed, Apple late yesterday pushed out Build 11D46 of OS X 10.7.3 to registered developers. Apple continues to report no known issues in the seed notes, and asks developers to focus their testing on iCloud Document Storage, Address Book, iCal, Mail, Spotlight and Safari. The file size has once again grown slightly, with the delta version of the new build ...

Das Keyboard, a popular keyboard manufacturer that specializes in "clicky" mechanical keyboards like the Apple Extended Keyboard or the IBM Model M, has announced a Macintosh-edition of its Model S Professional keyboard. Das's keyboards are a favorite of many computer users, including MacRumors chief Arnold Kim. The Model S Professional for Mac is the same keyboard as the Model S that Das...

In a preliminary ruling (PDF) today, the ITC ruled that Motorola's smartphones do not violate the Apple patents at issue, though the decision still needs to be approved by the full six-member ITC panel. On this date, the ALJ issued an initial determination on violation of Section 337 and recommended determination on remedy and bond in the above-referenced investigation. It is held that no...

At CES, Bullettrain announced their new eXpress keyboard platform that offers a single enclosure for the Magic Trackpad and Apple Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard. The enclosure mimics the layout of an Apple laptop, placing the trackpad below the keyboard. This gives it a bit more of a familiar feel for those transitioning between a notebook and a desktop setup. Both the keyboard and Magic...

Adobe today announced the release of a free public beta of Photoshop Lightroom 4, the company's digital photo management and post-production software. The software is the primary competitor to Apple's Aperture and a popular option for photographers.New Features in Lightroom 4 Beta - Highlight and shadow recovery brings out all the detail that your camera captures in dark shadows and bright...

Last month, Apple launched its first major international expansion of iTunes Match, expanding on the November U.S. debut by bringing the feature to Brazil in mid-December and then sixteen additional countries just a few days later. Apple is clearly continuing to press forward in its efforts to expand iTunes Match to new countries, as the Dutch collecting society Buma/Stemra today announced [Goo...

Television production company Bunim/Murray, the company which pioneered reality television with MTV's the Real World, has dropped Final Cut Pro in favor of an editing system from Avid, according to a press release from Avid. Avid today announced that renowned television production company, Bunim/Murray Productions, has selected Avid Media Composer® 6 and Avid Symphony® 6 editing software...

In 2011, less than 12 hours after passes went on sale, Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference had already sold out. To help would-be attendees get a chance to purchase tickets, developers Anthony Herron and Aaron Wardle created WWDC Alerts, a website that lets users sign up to be sent a text message when WWDC tickets for 2012 finally go on sale. For 2012, Moscone Center's event calendar...

Deal-a-day site Woot.com occasionally offers Apple products for sale, generally refurbished iPod Nano or Touch models. But this year, on Christmas Eve, the site is offering Apple's current entry-level iMac for nearly 13 percent off Apple's prices -- and tax free for most states, unlike Apple's online store. The model in question, MC309LL/A, is $1,199 on Apple's online store in a stock...

As David Pogue points out, O'Reilly Press is offering a number of its Missing Manual books for 50% off through January 3rd, with no DRM and lifetime access downloads and updates. Those looking for last minute Christmas gifts for slightly less tech-savvy relatives may want to check it out. Among the titles on sale: - iPhone: The Missing Manual by David Pogue for $9.99 - iPod: The Missing Manual...

Australian developer Firemint, acquired by Electronic Arts earlier this year, has moved its highly-acclaimed iOS game Real Racing 2 to the Mac, launching the title in the Mac App Store. Among the notable features of the Mac version is the ability for owners of iOS versions of the game to control the Mac version using the touch and tilt capabilities of their mobile devices.- Test your racing...