MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Lion USB flash drives are available for customers who are unable to use Lion's built-in recovery tools, according to an internal AppleCare document obtained by 9to5Mac. The document notes that "the ability to use this USB drive depends on how the customer purchased Lion and what computer they are using." The document doesn't go into any further detail, but it could be that new Macs with the Inte...

Apple yesterday released a pair of QuickTime 7.7 updates for Mac OS X Leopard and Windows XP/Vista/7 users. According to an associated support document, the updates bring fixes for fourteen separate issues related to security.QuickTime 7.7 improves security and is recommended for all Mac OS X Leopard users. For information on the security content of this update, please visit this website: http...

The new Mac Minis launched last month showed significant performance gains in the benchmarks, easily outpacing the prior models. Teardowns showed how easy it would be to install a second hard drive. For $1400, owners can upgrade their Minis to 16GB of RAM. Now, Other World Computing has installed a couple of their OWC Mercury EXTREME 6G SSD drives in their 2011 Mac Mini and achieved some signif...

Jefferies analyst Peter Misek is gaining headlines today for a new report related by both International Business Times and Forbes, claiming that Apple is planning to harness the power of its forthcoming quad-core "A6" chip to begin merging iOS and OS X as soon as late next year. Misek claims that the merge will be completed by 2016 as 64-bit ARM processors become available to provide sufficient...

Steve Jobs has been on medical leave for more than six months and in that time Apple's stock price has risen more than 20 percent. Since he's been gone, according to the San Jose Mercury News, Steve Jobs has relaxed and focused on the big picture -- rather than micromanaging every tiny detail: "They tell me he calls in regularly. He talks to Tim, he talks to the top guys, he talks about the...

As noted by MacRumors reader pewra, Apple's new iCloud.com beta offers up some cute iCloud error messages: ...

Users can install a second hard drive in non-Server models of the new Mac Mini, according to MacRumors forum member Slyseekr. iFixit's teardown of the new Mac Mini released last month revealed enough room -- and an extra SATA port -- for a second hard drive to be installed, assuming one found the proper cable. Slyseekr found that cable for $49 shipped, disassembled his Mac Mini, and...

Thomas Brand was a Genius at an Apple Retail Store. Now he does other things, including writing Egg Freckles, a collection of opinions and analysis about technology. Today, Thomas has some advice and secrets for customers considering purchasing AppleCare for their Apple devices: Portable computers can still be sent out for flat rate mail-in repair. The cost of a flat rate repair outside of...

During the U.S. overnight hours, a number of readers noted that Apple's online store had been taken down for updating, and with Friday not being a typical day for new products and nothing rumored to be launching, the downtime was assumed to be for store maintenance. Such maintenance windows are not infrequent, and thus there was relatively little anticipation for the store's return beyond simply ...

Microsoft is "working hard" to enable Lion-specific features in Office, according to a post on the Office for Mac blog. Yes, we are working hard with Apple to enable versioning, auto save, and full-screen for Office for Mac 2011. I know your next question will be “when?”, and unfortunately I can’t answer that – but it’s likely measured in months not days – just to set expectations.Pat Fox, the ...

Apple's newest Retail Store is opening on Saturday in Glendale, California. The awkwardly named Apple Store, The Americana At Brand is located something like 500 feet from the Glendale Galleria, home of store R001. The Glendale Galleria location opened on May 19, 2001 and was the second Apple Retail Store to open, as Tysons Corner opened earlier that day on the East Coast. Gary Allen at...

With last week's release of upgraded Mac Mini's, Apple's baby Mac is actually a fairly beefy machine. Other World Computing is taking that a step further by offering a 16GB RAM upgrade -- twice what Apple offers: OWC 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit (2 x 2GB memory modules) - $37.99 OWC 8GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Kit (2 x 4GB memory modules) - $79.99 OWC 12GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Upgrade Kit (8GB ...

Old school Apple-fan Thomas Brand has used Apple's cloud services -- iTools, then .Mac, then MobileMe, and soon iCloud -- for nearly 10 years. He says the most important part of the service was the identity that came with having an @Mac.com email address -- a way to differentiate from the @hotmail.com and @yahoo.com email accounts of the world. Brand points out that even though there were free ...

The Apple Store is a pretty laid back place, with friendly staff who will help you pick out a computer -- or, if you'd prefer, leave you alone to write an entire book on the store's computers. But just how far can you push it before the staff get fed up? New York-based comedian Mark Malkoff decided to test the limits of the Apple Store's friendliness. ...

Apple's stock price today briefly touched $400/share during standard trading hours for the first time ever, before falling back slightly to close at $398.50 today. The 52-week, and thus all-time, high is currently $400.00 exactly. The most likely cause for the 'bounce' off the $400 ceiling are sell limit orders -- semi-permanent orders to sell a certain stock at a certain price. In this...

The New York Post reports that Apple and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) have signed a deal to bring a 23,000 square-foot Apple retail store to Manhattan's historic Grand Central Terminal. The initial ten-year deal will reportedly see Apple paying $800,000 per year in rent, and potential extensions after the ten-year period would see the annual rent increase to over $1 million.Tec...

Since Lion's release, we've been collecting tips on reverting changes found in Lion back to behavior found in Snow Leopard. Now some might argue its better to get used to the stock installation, but if that's not you, here are the tips we've seen. • Natural Scroll: This change seems to have generated the most outcry. In Lion, Apple has reversed the normal scrolling direction for trackpads ...

Speech recognition firm Nuance today announced the launch of Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5, bringing a number of new features including compatibility with the company's recently-released Dragon Remote Microphone app for iOS devices. Nuance is of course also apparently working closely with Apple on its "Assistant" function currently under development in iOS 5. Among the other key additions in...