MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Earlier this week, research firm Gartner reported that Apple broke into the top 5 PC manufacturers in both the United Kingdom and broader Western Europe markets for the first time in the survey's history in the first quarter of 2011. Apple's year-over-year shipment growth of 10-15% in those markets bucked the trend that saw all of the other top manufacturers see a decline in shipments, a...

Just days after Apple's MobileMe service experienced an email outage for some customers, MacRumors readers are once again reporting difficulties with the service, this time reporting problems accessing the various web applications available through me.com. Apple's system status page confirms the issue:Some MobileMe members are unable to access most of the web applications via me.com....

Virtualization software firm Parallels today announced the debut of Parallels Transporter, a new Mac OS X application to help users transition from Windows-based machines to Mac OS X.The Parallels Transporter app is designed for Mac users who may not need to run Windows on their Mac at all; it is a simple way to bring everything you need from your PC together on your Mac without wasting your...

With Apple's online stores around the world going down for maintenance earlier today and a flood of MacRumors readers reporting the event, observers were of course curious about what changes were being made, despite the fact that no new product releases were expected. When the stores went live again, it was not immediately apparent that there had been any changes, suggesting that the downtime...

Apple today issued a pair of software updates, expanding the list of cameras for which the RAW image format is supported in iPhoto and Aperture and updating the user interface functionality for Apple's professional applications. - Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.7 is recommended for all users of Aperture 3 and iPhoto '11 and provides RAW image compatibility for the following...

Flexibits has released their new calendar app for the Mac called Fantastical. This natural language calendar assistant allows you to create events by typing in your plans:Using an advanced natural language engine, Fantastical is extremely expressive, allowing users enter event text in their own style. For example, enter a sentence such as "Lunch with John at 123 Main Street on Tuesday" and...

Some MobileMe users are having difficulties accessing their MobileMe mail today. Macgasm noticed it first, and some of the staff at MacRumors have been having sporadic difficulties connecting via both IMAP and the MobileMe member page at me.com. Apple's MobileMe system status page states the obvious:Some MobileMe members may be unable to access MobileMe Mail. Normal service will be restored...

With the 3rd developer release of Mac OS X Lion being released a few days ago, there have been a few videos showing off some of the new features. The boot/login screen of Lion has been updated, offering a cross-fade upon login. To recap, here's a brief overview of Mac OS X Lion (including features found in previous developer releases) This shows how Apple's "Reading List"...

While the occasional 2011 refurbished MacBook Pros have been trickling into the online Apple Store over the past couple of weeks, a couple of readers have noticed that there's been a notable increase in availability of 2011 models over the past couple of days. Apple is presently listing the following refurbished 2011 MacBook Pros: Refurbished MacBook Pro 2.3GHz dual-core Intel i5...

Apple's new in-browser Reading List that was hidden in previous builds of Lion is now up and running. Reading List appears as a special shelf in the browser that is called upon with the special icon: Sites can be added to your Reading List for later reading: And recalled by clicking on them. Click on images for larger...

Apple's new store in red, Microsoft's store on lower level shadowed in yellow Last November, Microsoft opened a new 5,000 square-foot retail store in the Bellevue Square mall in the state of Washington near its corporate headquarters, moving in just a few doors down from Apple's slightly smaller store in the mall. As reported by ifoAppleStore, however, Apple has apparently decided to use its...

Apple yesterday released iPhoto 9.1.3, a minor update addressing an issue with merged events transferred to iOS devices.This update fixes a problem that could cause some events merged in iPhoto to be split back into multiple events on iOS devices after being synced. This update is recommended for all users of iPhoto '11.The update weighs in at 106.29 MB and requires Mac OS X 10.6.6. The...

Be Inc. founder and former Apple employee Jean-Louis Gasse weighs in with his take on the recent announcement by Intel on the 3-D transistor technology as well as rumors that Apple might switch to ARM. Gasse spells out Intel's complete absence in the mobile market and how the 3-D transistor technology is supposed to address that, though he isn't particularly optimistic just based on the...

Earlier today, security researcher Gordon Maddern of Pure Hacking reported on a security vulnerability he accidentally discovered in Skype's software for Mac OS X, a vulnerability that he said he disclosed to the company a month ago and had yet to be patched. I notified them on the security vulnerabilitity and I was given the standard: "Thank you for showing an interest in skype security, we ...

An Arstechnica article from February outlines some of the challenges Intel has with the emerging strength of ARM processors. While Ars points out that ARM simply can't beat Intel from a performance perspective -- at least any time soon -- they also point out that they don't have to become dominant in the marketplace. If it turns out that the ARM ecosystem can get within a factor of two of...

HardMac reports that the new iMac released earlier this week brings support for 450 Mbit/sec Wi-Fi connectivity, adding a third antenna to support the higher speed using multiple-input/multiple-output (MIMO) standards when connected to a compatible network access point. The iMac joins the latest MacBook Pro in offering the improved connection speeds. It seems that Apple seeks to standardize this...

Expanding on its line of aftermarket solid state drives (SSDs) for the new MacBook Air, Other World Computing today announced that it has added a new 480 GB option to the mix, up from the previous maximum of 360 GB. Other World Computing today announced its OWC Mercury Aura Pro Express Solid State Drive is now shipping in an industry largest 480GB capacity for all 2010 Apple MacBook Air models....

Other World Computing reports that the iMac EFI Update 1.6 released yesterday for Apple's new iMacs brings an unadvertised improvement in SATA performance for the internal hard drive bays. While iMac EFI Update 1.6 is described as including "fixes that improve performance and stability for Thunderbolt," it would also seem that an unadvertised benefit is that it also unlocks the full 6Gb/s, SATA...