MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Aperture 1.1.2 is now available via Apple's website. Aperture 1.1.2 addresses issues related to overall reliability and performance. This update is recommended for all Aperture users. Users will need to have both Mac OS 10.4.6 and Aperture 1.1.1 updates installed prior to installing the...

AppleInsider has found a recent patent filing, presumably by Apple in conjunction with some select 3rd party manufacturers, that describes a device that can "compress, enhance, encode, transmit, decompress and display digital video images in real time." The device depicts a modified 1G/2G iPod with a color display with a headset hooked up to the traditional headphone jack and a video camera...

Chris Stevens from CNet.co.uk revives a long-standing rumor that Apple may be eyeing a merger with Nintendo. A city analyst told Crave that agressive takeovers of Japanese companies can be difficult and expensive. Japanese companies use the keiretsu system of interlocking holdings and partnerships, which makes conventional takeovers exceptionally hard. If Apple was to acquire Nintendo, a...

Historically unreliable DigiTimes is claiming that their industry sources indicate Apple is once again securing large orders of NAND Flash memory. The most likely use of this stockpile would be for the upcoming Nano revision which should top-out at 8 GB. Apple made similar stockpile arrangements before the original Nano launch, and with rumors floating about a higher-capacity and redesigned...

According to the IndiaTimes, Apple is deciding against placing its previously reported foreign support center in India. At a meeting on May 29, Apple announced its decision to lay off all its [Indian support] employees. Apple officials told them that "the company is reevaluating its operations and has thought of pulling back its Indian operations". Apple is giving these employees a severance...

As noted by MacDailyNews, Apple has added a Mac@Work web page with Science, Small Business, Pro, and Education sections that link to the corresponding sections of Apple's site. It also has links for Seminars & Training, Trade Shows & Events, and a link to Apple's IT Pro page for "IT Managers and technology professionals." The new Mac@Work page does not add new information, but gives site...

Now available via Software Update: QuickTime 7.1.1 addresses an issue with 3rd party start-up items on Intel Macs. This release also fixes an issue exporting Keynote presentations to iDVD. Important Notice to QuickTime Pro Users Installation of QuickTime 7 will disable the QuickTime Pro functionality in prior versions of QuickTime, such as QuickTime 5 or QuickTime 6. If you proceed with this...

Parallels has released Release Cantidate 2 of its virtualization software, Parallels Desktop. Among the new features and improvements introduced in this version is a technology called Compressor, which shrinks a guest OS's hard disk image to up to 50% of its original size. The added features of Compressor brings added price, however. The final version will cost US $79, $30 more than the...

Engadget notes that "Apple Mac OS" is listed as a possible pop-up selection when attempting to download the latest drivers for your Dell computer. The Driver/Downloads page discrepancy, of course, has sparked a lot of speculation about a Mac OS X/Dell pairing. The additional website pick-list option, however, may have simply found its way onto Dell's support site for existing printer drivers ...

Now available via Software Update: iWeb Update 1.1.1 iWeb 1.1.1 resolves issues related to publishing sites to .Mac The update is also available for download from Apple's website....

According to this Intel workstation marketing pamphlet (pdf), Intel's new workstation platform will support Fully Buffered DIMM system memory technology (FBDIMM). FBDIMM technology allows for greater memory capacity and higher bandwidth due to the addition of an Advanced Memory Buffer (AMB) on each DIMM board. Throughput is theoretically increased 300% from previous-generation DDR2-400...

A recent Piper Jaffray report reported by Forbes.com claims that Apple may ship 8 million iPods this quarter, down from Wallstreet expectations of 8.6 million units. The analyst arrived at his new 8-million figure by looking at the typical percentage of iPods shipped in past June quarters and measuring the sequential and year-over-year growth rates. He then averaged the two estimates from his...

Spymac is claiming that the iPod Shuffle line will be discontinued once current inventory is depleted. Spymac has primarily turned away from rumors and its current reliability is unknown. Previous rumors and speculation had indicated that the 1 GB iPod Nano would replace the iPod Shuffle. Apple has since released the 1 GB iPod Nano and cut the original price of the...

Apple has seeded Mac OS X 10.4.7 to Apple developers earlier this week. The current build is reported to be 8J111 for PowerPC and 8J2111 for Intel Macs. Areas of testing are listed as Mail, Safari, Aperture, Syncing and iChat. Known issues include inaccurate Calculator results and Mail signatures note working...

System Management Control firmware updates are available for certain Intel-based Mac models. The SMC Firmware Update addresses intermittent boot issues. The SMC Firmware Update 1.0 is a System Management Control (SMC) firmware update for certain Intel-based computers, including iMac (Early 2006), Mac mini (Early 2006) and MacBook Pro (15-inch) computers. The updates can be found here: iMac...

Macworld UK reports claims by security researcher Tom Ferris that last Thursday's Security Update 2006-003 did not correct several "critical" security flaws in Safari, QuickTime, and iTunes that he reported to Apple in January 2006. The article says that Ferris considered publicly releasing the details of these flaws yesterday in his blog at security-protocols.com, but he has not done so as of...

TheRegister ties together some thoughts to speculate that the previously rumored Red iPod may be coming this Tuesday. This is based on this day being an otherwise big one for the Product Red charity which the red iPod is supposed to be a part of. Also, since the iPod and MacBook are rumored to be released together, the site concludes the MacBook could also be released that...

According to Rob Glaser, CEO of Real Networks, "about half the music on iPods is music obtained illegitimately." Glaser's comments were made in an interview with The Guardian where he goes on to discuss why he feels his company is trailing Apple and what Real's strategy is to improve its standing in the digital downloading market. The average number of songs sold for the iPod is 25, and there are ...