MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

MacRumors readers Daniel (photo above) and Matthew let us know that Apple had posted a new digital sign overnight at the location of their upcoming Grand Central Station store. The sign reads "Apple Store, Grand Central. Arriving Soon." There had been some reports suggesting an imminent launch, though construction workers have said there still is a lot to do that would push the opening into ...

Ron Johnson, the architect behind the Apple Retail Stores, has moved on to be CEO of JC Penney. But, he still remembers the lessons he learned while at Apple. Writing for the Harvard Business Review, Johnson reflects on what makes the Apple Store unique: People come to the Apple Store for the experience — and they're willing to pay a premium for that. There are lots of components to that...

Apple yesterday released Thunderbolt Software Update 1.1 for Snow Leopard, bringing a fix for intermittent black screen issues.This update addresses an issue that causes some users of the Apple Thunderbolt Display to experience intermittent black screens. It also includes stability improvements for Thunderbolt devices.The update weighs in at 53.23 MB and requires Mac OS X 10.6.8 and the...

Every third Thursday, the guys at Signal Snowboards make a custom (and a little off-the-wall) board to push the limits of snowboard design. This month, the guys built iShred, an aluminum-based board with a built-in iPad 2 and a light-up wi-fi beacon. The board turned out to be much more difficult to make than Signal had anticipated, but they got it done in the end -- though with the aluminum...

Algoriddim has released the latest version of its well-regarded DJing software djay for Mac. The software allows DJ's, both amateur and professional, to perform and record music sessions via a number of unique and easy-to-use features. Perhaps the largest new feature in version 4 is Harmonic Match. Djay analyzes the entire iTunes Library detecting musical key for each song, allowing the...

Back in September, Skype debuted a new Skype 5.4 for Mac Beta offering Facebook integration in the form of chat and news feed support. The company has now expanded that integration to include support for Facebook video calling.Initiating a Facebook-to-Facebook call from within Skype is quite easy; all you need to do is connect your Skype and Facebook accounts. Then, select a Facebook friend...

Apple has released an update to Final Cut Pro X, taking it to version 10.0.2. What’s new in version 10.0.2: - Fixes an issue in which a title may revert to the default font after restarting Final Cut Pro X - Resolves an issue that could cause files recorded with certain third-party mobile devices to play back incorrectly - Addresses a stability issue caused by changing the start time on a...

As noted by 9to5Mac, Apple has seeded a beta of OS X Lion 10.7.3 to developers. The beta, build number 11D16, asks developers to focus testing on iCloud document storage, Address Book, iCal and Mail. OS X 10.7.2 was released to the public in mid-October with iCloud support being its most notable...

The first thing many iTunes Match users will want to do upon purchasing the service is to upgrade all their matched music to the 256Kbps. Unfortunately, there is no push-button ability to do this, but it is possible with a few simple steps -- but make sure you've already turned iTunes Match on and it has finished running its initial match. From Macworld: Make a Smart Playlist Create a Smart...

Apple today released MacBook Pro Video Update 1.0 (Snow Leopard), a new update addressing issues with freezing and blank video on mid-2010 MacBook Pro models.This update addresses an issue where MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010) computers may intermittently freeze or stop displaying video.The update is a Snow Leopard version of the Lion update released three weeks ago. Additional information on the ...

With today's release of iTunes Match, some users with very large music libraries are discovering an annoying restriction. Those with non-iTunes Music Store libraries with more than 25,000 songs are unable to activate iTunes Match. There simply isn't an option to select only certain songs to upload to iCloud. Fortunately, Macworld has a quixotic but effective solution. iTunes has the ability ...

As noted by iFun.de [Google translation], Apple will be hosting a grand opening for its eighth German store this Thursday, November 17th. The new MTZ retail store is located in the Main-Taunus-Zentrum shopping mall in Sulzbach outside of Frankfurt, and is part of a significant expansion of the mall. Apple made a significant push to open approximately 30 stores during the third calendar...

According to a number of readers and our own observations, it seems iCloud is in the midst of a somewhat widespread service outage that has been going on since roughly 4PM Eastern Time. Users are unable to access mail and other services either via standalone applications on the Mac or iOS, or via the iCloud website. Apple's iCloud service status website doesn't indicate any issues, which may ...

Apple has released AirPort Base Station and Time Capsule Firmware Update 7.6. The update is recommended for all 802.11n Airport Express, 802.11n AirPort Extreme, and all Time Capsule models. This update for all 802.11n AirPort Express, 802.11n AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule models provides fixes for the following: - An issue with performance on overlapping wireless networks - An issue...

Apple today released Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.9, bringing RAW image support to Aperture and iPhoto for a number of new cameras.This update adds RAW image compatibility for the following cameras to Aperture 3 and iPhoto '11: - Canon PowerShot S100 - Nikon 1 J1 - Nikon 1 V1 - Nikon COOLPIX P7100 - Olympus PEN E-PL1s - Olympus PEN E-PL3 - Olympus PEN E-PM1 - Panasonic...

Nuance Communications, which provides the speech recognition technology included in Siri on the iPhone 4S, has announced the Mac App Store launch of Dragon Express, a new application that offers some of the same speech recognition and system control features found in the company's more expensive Dragon Dictate software.Dragon Express is an easy and fun speech recognition utility that introduces ...

Thomas Park has put together an interesting gallery of storefront photos from all 357 of Apple's retail stores around the world. While the photos are simply pulled from the individual retail store pages on Apple's site, the gallery format ordered by date of opening makes for easy browsing and examination of the evolution of Apple's store designs. Some of the stores have of course been renovated ...

Apple today released a pair of Java 6 updates for users of OS X Lion and Mac OS X Snow Leopard, patching vulnerabilities and increasing reliability and compatibility. - Java for OS X Lion Update 1 (62.53 MB)Java for Mac OS X 10.7 Update 1 delivers improved compatibility, security, and reliability by updating Java SE 6 to 1.6.0_29.- Java for Mac OS X 10.6 Update 6 (75.45 MB)Java for Mac OS X...