MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Earlier this year, we noted that users of Apple's current MacBook Pro attempting to install third-party 6.0 Gb/s SATA 3.0 solid-state drives had been experiencing performance issues apparently related to interference issues between cables inside the chassis. The issue was said to primarily affect 17-inch models of the MacBook Pro. While Other World Computing (OWC) had developed a cable...

Skype today announced the release of a new Skype 5.4 for Mac beta, offering integration with Facebook to allow users to chat with Facebook friends and view and interact with their Facebook news feeds right in the Skype application.Just like in our Windows client, you will now be able to IM and connect with your Facebook friends without leaving Skype. You will also be able to read and update...

We've received multiple contacts that individuals have started receiving ship notices for their Thunderbolt Displays this morning. Scott from New Zealand offers up the above ship notice and expects delivery by tomorrow morning. Forum readers have been organizing in this forum thread while waiting for deliveries. We'd previously reported that Apple had begun shipping demo units to stores...

Earlier this week, Apple released an EFI firmware update for the company's current MacBook Air models, addressing issues with Lion Recovery over the Internet and several Thunderbolt-related issues including compatibility with the forthcoming Apple Thunderbolt Display. Apple has now followed up that release with a pair of new firmware updates today bringing the same fixes to the current MacBook...

Microsoft today released a series of updates for users of its Office for Mac productivity suites, bringing security, performance, and stability improvements to Office 2011, 2008, and 2004, as well as a pair of ancillary updates. - Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 14.1.3 Update (112.0 MB): Improvements include security fixes and a number of improvements for PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and Outlook,...

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is coming to the Mac this winter, according to Feral Interactive, a publishing company dedicated to bringing game titles to the Mac: It’s just emerged from the Feral laboratories that the Mac has been wheeled into the operating theatre for an extreme gaming enhancement with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, the critically-acclaimed prequel to the legendary Deus Ex....

Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs is getting longer. As noticed by Setteb.it, the Steve Jobs hardcover now weighs in at 656 pages, up from 448 pages. Presumably at least some of this increased length is related to the inclusion of stories about Jobs' resignation from Apple, Inc. last month. We confirmed the page number change with publisher Simon & Schuster's publicity department, ...

Business Insider files this report under "gossip", but says that it has heard from a pair of second-hand sources that Apple bid up to $800 million for file storage and sharing service Dropbox, but Dropbox passed on the deal to remain independent. The company has since raised a new round of funding at a $4 billion valuation.Enterprise software-as-a-service company Citrix and Apple took a long...

As first tipped by The Loop late yesterday, Adobe today revealed in a broad press release on its video technologies that its video content creation tools have seen sales increase by 45% on the Mac side this year. Adobe cites switchers from Apple's much-maligned Final Cut Pro X as the primary driver for the growth.Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 Production Premium software has taken the industry by...

The Loop reports that Apple's iTunes U education portal has topped 600 million downloads since its official launch four years ago. The milestone reveals a significant acceleration in activity, with the service having passed 300 million downloads just a year ago.According to Apple, iTunes U has had more than 600 million downloads since it first launched in 2007. What’s even more impressive is ...

For users who need a bit more expansion for their Thunderbolt equipped Macs, Magma has introduced the ExpressBox 3T. The 3T is an expansion chassis with three PCIe slots for "outside-the-box" expansion. The 3T can be used to connect PCIe cards for video capture, audio processing, data storage or whatever other needs a user may have. It works with any Thunderbolt equipped Mac and daisy-chains ...

Traders who expect stocks to go down, also known as bears, seem to be moving out of positions in Apple. Bloomberg notes that prices of puts, or bearish bets on Apple shares, have dropped to a one-year low in the wake of Steve Jobs' resignation. Instead of increasing equity swings, Apple shares are almost unchanged since Aug. 24 when Jobs, who turned the company into the world’s biggest by...

Fortune Magazine's Adam Lashinsky is writing an unauthorized book about Apple titled Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive -- Company Really Works. The book is an expansion of an in-depth article Lashinsky wrote earlier this year. That article included a number of inside stories, including an oft-quoted tale of Steve Jobs colorfully asking his MobileMe team why the...

A few times a year, MacRumors partners with MacUpdate to promote their Mac application bundle deal. Their latest bundle delivers at least 11 Mac applications for $49.99 (a $467.82 value if all purchased separately) including: • Toast 11 Titanium ($99) - Burn CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray discs • Data Rescue 3 ($99) - Recover files and corrupt hard drives • FX Photo Studio Pro 2 ($39.99) -...

Apple introduced "Shake to Undo" in the iPhone and iPod Touch in iOS 3.0 when it enabled Cut/Copy/Paste functions. Now, a third-party developer has brought a similar "function" to sudden motion sensor-equipped Apple notebooks. OSXDaily first noticed the software, written by Nate Stedman. It presses Command-Z -- the standard undo keystroke -- when the sudden motion sensor detects movement....

Ron Wayne, Apple, Inc.'s sometimes forgotten third co-founder, has written an autobiography titled Adventures of an Apple Founder: Atari, Apple, Aerospace & Beyond. The book is available starting today from as a paperback from Amazon or via Apple's iBookstore. Wayne held 10% of Apple when it was founded, but sold it soon after for a few thousand dollars. From the book's description: There...

Sloppy typists should have an easier time reaching Apple's iTunes pages now, as the company this week acquired a batch of at least 16 domain names representing misspelled variants of the company's itunes.com domain. The newly-transfered domains include:irtunes.com, itiunes.com, itrunes.com, itubnes.com, itumnes.com, itunbes.com, ituneas.com, ituneds.com, itunesa.com, itunesl.com, itunres.com,...

In recognition of Eddy Cue's promotion to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, Apple has awarded Cue 100,000 restricted stock units with half vesting in 2013 and the other half in 2015, pending continued employment through the vesting dates. This stock is worth $37.4 million at current prices. A restricted stock unit, or RSU, is a form of compensation valued in terms of ...