MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Last month, Apple sued French tax activist group "Attac" for occupying its flagship Parisian store during a protest of what Attac called "wide-scale tax evasion." Today, Apple has asked the court in Paris to ban the group from its French stores and prevent any further stunts from happening. In response to the court filing, Attac today mobilized in front of the court in further protest,...

VideoLAN on Friday released VLC 3.0 "Vetinari", a major update to the popular media player that is rolling out across all platforms, including macOS, iOS, and tvOS. Version 3 includes a huge number of new features and improvements to the app, including automatic hardware decoding for 4K and 8K playback, support for 10-bit HDR, 360-degree video and 3D audio, and Chromecast streaming with...

Apple seeded the second beta of macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 to developers earlier this week, but it appears an updated version of the second beta was just released this afternoon. The original beta had a build number of 17E150f, while the new update available today from the Developer Center lists a build number of 17E150g. It's not clear why Apple has released an updated version of beta 2, but...

Plugable, a company that offers a range of hubs, docking stations, storage solutions, and other accessories for Mac and Windows machines this week launched a new external NVME SSD that offers 480GB and Thunderbolt 3 connectivity for incredibly fast transfer speeds. The Plugable TBT3-NVME480 SSD is designed for Thunderbolt machines like Apple's latest line of MacBook Pro models, and it offers...

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RWB/RSF) has urged journalists using iCloud in China to migrate away from Apple's cloud service this month, before control of their data is handed over to a Chinese company (via Hong Kong Free Press). Beginning February 28, Apple's iCloud services in mainland China will be operated by Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data (GCBD), which is owned by the Guizhou...

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced almost two years ago in March of 2016. Apple designed the Safari Technology Preview to test features that may be introduced into future release versions of Safari. Safari Technology Preview release 49 includes bug fixes and feature improvements for Service Workers, Fetch,...

In December, Apple announced its plans to open a new flagship retail location at the Federation Square shopping center in Melbourne, Australia in 2020. Since that announcement, many locals have come out against the store and the demolition of the existing Yarra building, arguing that the public space in Federation Square should stay that way and not be "given up" to a corporation. This week,...

Headup Games today announced that its Portal spin-off game "Bridge Constructor Portal" is now officially available for players to buy on the Mac App Store for $9.99 [Direct Link]. The game first launched on December 20 on the iOS App Store, Google Play Store, and Steam. The Mac App Store version of the game is priced to match the other $9.99 desktop version on Steam, coming in at $5 more than...

Gaming-focused chat platform Discord today announced a new integration with Spotify that will allow users to connect their Spotify accounts to Discord in order to showcase what they're listening to. Spotify Premium subscribers will be able to "Listen Along" to songs and full playlists together with fellow Premium members directly within their Discord server, which syncs up tracks so that each...

Apple will open a retail store in the Austrian capital of Vienna on Saturday, February 24 according to a new webpage for the store published recently on Apple's site. The new three-story Vienna Apple Store is located on Kärntner Straße, a famous shopping street in central Vienna, and for the last several months, Apple has been renovating the location. Kärntner Straße is near...

AppleCare+ for Mac, previously limited to the United States and Japan, is available to purchase in Australia and New Zealand starting today. AppleCare+ extends a Mac's in-warranty hardware coverage to up to three years from its original purchase date, and adds up to two incidents of accidental damage coverage, each subject to a service fee of AU$149 or NZ$169 for screen or external enclosure ...

Apple today began shipping the 18-core iMac Pro to customers in the United States, just over six weeks after it began accepting orders. The first orders are estimated for delivery starting Tuesday, February 6. MacRumors readers Anthony Berenato and Steve McKinnon both alerted us of the shipped status of their orders, while a few other Apple customers have echoed the same in the iMac Pro...

Vivaldi web browser for Mac, the spiritual successor to Opera 12, released version 1.14 on Wednesday, introducing an innovative new vertical reader mode, Markdown support, and other notable improvements. Vivaldi's Reader View works similar to reading modes in other browsers, allowing users to view content in a clutter-free reading environment where they can change the font, adjust line height, ...

If you've followed all of my Thunderbolt 3 dock reviews over the past year, you know that in general these docks carry a lot of the same features in slightly different combinations. But usually, there's at least one fairly important feature that's missing in each model, whether it be enough USB ports, an SD card reader, or enough power output to fully support a 15-inch MacBook Pro. Price tags...

Apple is deprecating a significant portion of essential network services included in macOS Server this year, as outlined in a published support statement titled "Prepare for changes to macOS Server". Apple's note reads: macOS Server is changing to focus more on management of computers, devices, and storage on your network. As a result, some changes are coming in how Server works. A number of...

Micro Center retail stores are once again offering the entry-level iMac Pro for $3,999, an impressive discount of $1,000 off of the regular $4,999 price tag for the newly released machine. The same deal was offered earlier in the month, and iMac Pro models available at Micro Center stores were snapped up quickly. Based on the online stock checking tool, most Micro Center locations have at...

Apple today released the first beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.134 update to public beta testers, two days after seeding the update to developers and a few days after releasing macOS High Sierra 10.13.3. Beta testers who have signed up for Apple's beta testing program will be able to download the new macOS High Sierra beta through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store. ...

Thunderbolt 3 docks continue to hit the market, and today we're taking a look a recent entrant from popular data storage company Promise Technology, the TD-300 Thunderbolt 3 Dock. I've tested quite a few Thunderbolt 3 docks over the past year, and the TD-300 ranks right up with the best I've seen due to standout features like five USB 3.0 ports and an SD 3.0 card reader. At $249, it's also...