MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Apple recently announced that its Green Hills retail store in Nashville, Tennessee will be temporarily closed for renovations beginning February 11. Apple Store at The Mall at Green Hills in 2008 Apple Green Hills will likely remain closed until late 2018, so customers will have to venture a bit further south to Apple's nearby store at the CoolSprings Galleria shopping mall in Franklin,...

Apple and Malala Fund announced on Sunday that Apple will become the fund's first Laureate partner. Led by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, the fund champions the right of girls to a quality education and advocates equal opportunity around the world. With support from Apple, the Malala Fund said it expects to double the number of grants awarded by its Gulmakai Network and extend...

Apple today seeded the sixth beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 update to developers, just a few days after seeding the fifth beta and more than a month after releasing macOS High Sierra 10.13.2, the second major update to the macOS High Sierra operating system. The new macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 beta can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center or through the Software Update...

Office for Mac today received a major update, with Microsoft updating the software to version 16 and introducing new features for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. In Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Microsoft is introducing real-time collaborative editing, allowing multiple people to work on the same document at the same time. In Word and PowerPoint, flag icons will let you know what others...

Woodshed Art Auctions has announced it will be auctioning an opaque watercolor painting of Apple's classic logo by the late Andy Warhol next month. The painting is part of Warhol's "Ads" collection from 1985, one year after the original Macintosh launched. It features Apple's old rainbow logo, which the company used from 1977 to 1998, between Apple and Macintosh word marks. The painting...

Apple runs several shuttle buses to transport its employees from San Francisco down to Cupertino each day, and recently someone has been attacking those shuttle buses, leading to broken windows. An employee who spoke to Mashable said that several shuttles have suffered from broken windows, and on an internal email thread, there was speculation that it could be due to "rubber rounds" fired at...

Ten One Design's new Mountie+ is an update to its existing Mountie, a device that's designed to allow you to attach an iPad or iPhone to your laptop for use as a second display. The Mountie+, which I've been using for the last few weeks, was created for Apple's larger 10.5 and 12.9-inch iPad models. With the Mountie+, I can attach an iPad to the left side, right side, or top of my MacBook Pro...

Western Digital today announced the launch of two new products in its G-Technology G-SPEED Shuttle lineup, both of which are designed to be ultraportable RAID storage solutions aimed at meeting the needs of professional content creators who need both super fast transfer speeds and portability. The new 4-bay G-Technology G-SPEED Shuttle with Thunderbolt 3 supports transfer speeds of up to...

Apple Subsidiary FileMaker, which makes a popular database platform, today launched a new ad campaign that brings together former stars of hit television show "The Office." Kate Flannery (Meredith), Leslie David Baker (Stanley), and Paul Lieberstein (Toby) team up in a three minute spot called "Farm Time." The ad features a news report on a popular beet farm where the trio use FileMaker to run ...

Micro Center stores are currently offering the base model iMac Pro for $3,999, a significant $1,000 discount off Apple's regular price, and by far the lowest price we've ever seen for the powerful desktop workstation since it was released a month ago. Micro Center says the deal is available at its retail stores only and not online. The official Apple Authorized Reseller has 25 locations...

For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with Intrepid Bag Co to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win an Adventure Leather Satchel Bag designed for Apple's line of MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro machines. Available in 13 and 15-inch size options, the Adventure Leather Satchel is made from high-quality full grain tobacco-colored leather that will age into a unique patina, making each ...

Writer/director Rian Johnson did an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week, discussing his favorite tech essentials that he uses both casually and professionally, including for the creation of Star Wars: The Last Jedi. In regards to the scripting process of The Last Jedi, Johnson said that he wrote the entire film on an air-gapped MacBook Air. Star Wars: The Last Jedi official title ...

Microsoft is testing a new "Private Conversations" feature in Skype, which is being introduced through a partnership with Signal. Skype is using the Signal Protocol for the feature, allowing users to take advantage of strong end-to-end encryption for more secure communications. Private Conversations are available for one-on-one conversations on Skype, with users able to initiate a private ...

Satechi today announced the launch of a new 75W USB-C travel charger that's equipped with multiple ports to charge all of your devices with one simple power adapter. The 75W Multiport Travel Charger offers four charging ports, including a USB-C power delivery port, two USB 3.0 ports, and one Qualcomm Quick Charge 3.0 port. The USB-C port can provide up to 60W of power, making it suitable...

Apple today released a new update for Safari Technology Preview, the experimental browser Apple first introduced more than a year 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 47 includes bug fixes and feature improvements with an experimental implementation of ...

At CES on Tuesday, third-party accessory maker Matias announced an RGB-backlit wired aluminum keyboard for Mac. Inspired by Apple's own, now defunct wired keyboard, Matias' silver and space grey versions look almost identical, except for the addition of a "color dial" on the back and a dedicated key on the layout that allow users to incrementally shift the backlighting through the color spectrum. ...

Apple today confirmed that its iCloud services in mainland China will be operated by a Chinese company from next month (via People's Daily, China). The firm, called Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data (GCBD), is owned by the Guizhou provincial government in southern China, and will manage Apple's new $1 billion data center, which opened in the region last year. Apple said customers based in the...

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 update to developers, one week after seeding the third beta and more than a month after releasing macOS High Sierra 10.13.2, the second major update to the macOS High Sierra operating system. The new macOS High Sierra 10.13.3 beta can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center or through the Software Update...