MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

The iTunes Store is giving away the Red Hot Chili Peppers' latest album for free, in a manner of speaking. iTunes is serving up a stream of the entire album for free, and accepting pre-orders for the disc, which will be released on August 30 [iTunes]. We can't remember Apple offering up an entire album via streaming before. It's likely that RHCP's record label is paying a hefty price to...

Apple today quietly updated its Apple Remote Desktop Admin software to version 3.5.1, addressing a single issue related to completion of reporting tasks.Improvements - Fixes an issue that could prevent reporting tasks from completing.Apple Remote Desktop 3.5 was released last month alongside the debut of OS X Lion. The client software appeared as a 3.5.1 version, but the admin software...

Techspansion, Tyler Loch's now-defunct company that created VisualHub, has released a small update to the software to allow it to run properly -- for the moment -- under OS X Lion. VisualHub was a very popular OS X application to convert video files to any number of formats, including optimizing video for iTunes, WMV, or Flash. In 2008, Tyler closed the company and stopped selling or...

Apple Australia managing director Tony King has agreed to speak with Australian Member of Parliament (MP) Ed Husic about technology prices that are significantly higher in Australia than the rest of the world. Technology prices in general are much higher in Australia, even when accounting for exchange rates. The Australian Dollar is much stronger than it was two years ago, and now is trading...

IGN reports that Rockstar Games has announced the launch of three titles from its Grand Theft Auto franchise via the Mac App Store. While the titles have been available for Mac for some time, the shift to the Mac App Store marks yet another win for Apple in its efforts to drive app sales to the digital marketplace. Rockstar is using a staggered release schedule, with Grand Theft Auto 3 [Mac ...

Evernote, the notetaking and archiving service, announced today it had acquired image editing and sharing app Skitch for an undisclosed sum. Skitch is currently available on the Mac App Store for $19.99, but Evernote CEO Phil Libin said it will soon be offered for free as a "fundamental part of Evernote going forward." He also announced versions of Skitch for iPhone and iPad to be released...

Back in June, Aspyr announced that it would be bringing Duke Nukem Forever to the Mac. While the game has received generally poor reviews, there has still been a fair amount of interest in the title given that the game has been repeatedly promised over the past 15 years. Duke Nukem Forever finally launched today for the Mac and is available via GameAgent and Steam for $39.99, but is also...

Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer participated on a conference call hosted by investment firm Gleacher and Company earlier this week. During the call, a participant asked Oppenheimer about Google's $12.5 billion proposed acquisition of Motorola Mobility: $12.5 billion is a lot of money.The Motorola acquisition is by far the largest by Google and many times larger than the biggest deal Apple has ever...

TheRealDeal reports that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has "quietly" released higher quality renderings of what Apple's Grand Central Terminal is expected to look like. Lower quality versions of these images had been previously posted to the Wall Street Journal. The New York Times, however, commented about how tight lipped everyone involved had been about them. After some...

During its teardown of the 2011 Mac Mini's released last month, iFixit discovered plenty of room inside to install a second hard drive. One of our readers discovered the proper process to install a second hard drive in his Mini, but now it's even easier. iFixit has released the Mac Mini Dual Hard Drive Kit for $69.95 that includes all the necessary components to install a second hard drive...

Chinese authorities have discovered another 22 unauthorized Apple resellers in the city of Kunming, according to Reuters. The world's most famous fake Apple Store is also located in Kunming. The 22 stores were ordered to stop using Apple's logo by China's Administration for Industry and Commerce. The market watchdog agency said it would set up a complaint hotline and boost monitoring, the...

Apple has begun shipping Lion USB Recovery Media to some customers, reports 9to5Mac.com. However, we don't think these aren't the $69 thumb drives that Apple plans to put on sale at some point this month. These are likely the keys available free to certain users via AppleCare. We spoke to an Apple representative on Apple's sales line at 800-MY-APPLE. He told us that the $69 Lion USB...

Following on earlier releases for Mac OS X Snow Leopard and Windows, Apple today released Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Leopard. The update ensures that users running Mac OS X Leopard will be able to transfer their data to a new Mac running OS X Lion using the included Migration Assistant software.About Migration Assistant Update for Mac OS X Leopard This update addresses an issue ...

Last week, we reported that registration information on the domain name applepico.com had been updated to reveal Apple as the owner of the domain. The domain name had previously been listed under brand management firm MarkMonitor and its domain registration arm DNStination, Inc., both known to have handled domain registrations for Apple and many other major companies. Fusible now reports that ...

The Apple Store Liverpool ONE has emptied its front-of-house of all products ahead of possible rioting in Liverpool, UK as the country faces its fourth night of unrest. Update: We have unconfirmed reports that Apple Store Meadowhall in Sheffield and Apple Store Cabot Circus in Bristol have been cleared of stock as well. Update: Rioters have attempted to break into the Arndale shopping...

Apple today released a pair of updates for its Logic audio workstation software packages, fixing a number of bugs and delivering improved compatibility with the Apogee Duet 2 audio interface device. Logic Pro 9.1.5 (192.55 MB) and Logic Express 9.1.5 (138.84 MB) each require Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later.This update improves overall stability and addresses some minor issues including the following: ...

UK mobile carrier Orange seems to be working with Apple to provide "free" iTunes movie rentals each Thursday in an ongoing promotion called Orange Film To Go. • All Orange customers be they on Orange Home Broadband, pay as you go, pay monthly, mobile broadband or business get a weekly film download every Thursday at no cost* • Customers can download a film and watch on a PC, laptop or an ...

Users looking to install the free Xcode 4.1 developer tools for OS X Lion released last month have been running into an issue that has caused difficulties with the installation process. During the installation process, users are prompted to quit iTunes if it is running, but the alert does not disappear even after iTunes has been quit and the installation remains stalled. In Apple's support...