MacRumors' Mac Blog: Mac Apps, News and Rumors

Music streaming service Deezer released a desktop macOS app on Wednesday that offers high-definition lossless audio playback in the popular FLAC format. The app not only eliminates the hassle and additional step of opening up a new browser but desktop users with Premium+ account, who download the new app before January 2018, will be able to hear all their music in high-definition audio by...

Feral Interactive released DiRT Rally for macOS today, bringing the acclaimed rally simulation game to Mac for the first time. Developed and published by Codemasters for Windows and consoles, DiRT Rally has been praised for its realistic handling and pure focus on rally driving. DiRT Rally is the most authentic rally game ever made, with a highly sophisticated handling model that perfectly...

Marco Arment, a developer best known for co-founding Tumblr and creating apps Instapaper and Overcast, believes the 2012 to 2015 era 15-inch MacBook Pro is "the best laptop that has ever existed." 2015 15-inch MacBook Pro "Introduced in 2012, less than a year after Steve Jobs died, I see it as the peak of Jobs' vision for the Mac," said Arment in a blog post this week. The 2012 model was...

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 44 includes bug fixes and feature improvements for Image Bitmap, Web API, CSS,...

The United States International Trade Commission today announced that it has launched an investigation into allegations that Apple infringed on patents owned by Aqua Connect. Back in October, Aqua Connect and its subsidiary Strategic Technology partners filed complaints against Apple with the United States International Trade Commission and the District Court for the Central District of...

Apogee and IK Multimedia this week separately announced availability of new and improved versions of their digital USB microphones, the MiC Plus and iRig Mic HD 2 respectively, for Mac, iPad, and iPhone. Apogee's MiC Plus While plug-and-play microphones with analog-to-digital conversion aren't always as good as professional XLR microphones, the sound these deliver is considered similar to a...

Mozilla on Tuesday officially announced Firefox 57, the new "Quantum" version of its flagship desktop web browser for Mac, Linux, and Windows. Aside from a redesigned interface and a slew of new UI features, Mozilla says Quantum offers speeds twice as fast as Firefox 52 and a new engine that uses 30 percent less memory than Google Chrome. The performance advantages are said to be down to...

Apple today seeded the third beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 update to developers, one week after seeding the second beta and two weeks after releasing the macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 update. The new macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 beta can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center or through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store with the proper profile installed....

Apple recently announced that its retail location within the Chadstone Shopping Center in Melbourne, Australia will be getting a grand reopening on November 24 at 9:00 a.m. local time. The newly relocated Apple Chadstone location will be triple the size of the previous store, and mark the first Australian store to gain Apple's modern retail layout. Apple Chadstone first opened nearly ten...

Apple has confirmed that its annual extended holiday return policy begins today in the United States and several other countries around the world. Apple's website says most products and accessories purchased in store (or received if ordered online) between November 15, 2017 and December 25, 2017 will be eligible for return until January 8, 2018 in the United States, Canada, Australia, United ...

Apple today announced that its retail stores in Burlingame, California, near San Mateo, and Burlington, Massachusetts, near Boston, will celebrate grand reopenings on Saturday, November 18 at 10:00 a.m. local time. A render of Apple's new store in Burlingame, California via Storeteller Both locations have been closed for several months while undergoing renovations, as part of Apple's efforts...

Google this week revealed some upcoming enhancements to its Chrome browser that aim to protect users from encountering unwanted content on the web, such as when a site unexpectedly redirects them to another page when they click on a video play button. Google says that incidents of users being redirected by websites to unintended destinations are mentioned in 1 of every 5 Chrome feedback...

Apple today shared its latest report on diversity and inclusion, detailing its hiring practices over the course of the last year. According to Apple, from July 2016 to July 2017, half of all new hires were from "historically underrepresented groups in tech," including women, black, Hispanic, Native American, Native Hawaiian, and Other Pacific Islander. 25% of new hires in 2016/2017 were...

Twitterrific for Mac received a new update on Tuesday, adding a host of new features and improvements including the ability to quickly search for a user, restoration of Searches and Lists between launches, improved syncing of the reading position, and a unique experimental feature – Twitter poll detection. According to the developer's notes, Twitterrific now attempts to automatically detect...

Apple this afternoon released the second beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.13.2 update to public beta testers for testing purposes, one week after releasing the first public beta and more than a month after releasing the High Sierra operating system. The second public beta of macOS High Sierra is identical to the second developer beta provided to developers earlier this week. Beta...

Earlier this year, the team behind the popular Pixelmator photo editing app for iOS and Mac announced plans to unveil a new pro-level Mac app, Pixelmator Pro. At the time the app was announced in September, the Pixelmator team had not provided a release date, but today announced that the new software will be coming on November 29. Pixelmator Pro features a reimagined editing workflow with ...

Apple today announced it will be opening a new store at Domain Northside in Austin, Texas on Saturday, November 11 at 10:00 a.m. local time. Apple's current store at The Domain shopping center in Austin, Texas Apple's nearby store at The Domain should permanently close after business hours on Friday, over 10 years after it originally opened in March 2007. Most employees will presumably...

Apple has updated its vintage and obsolete products list with three additional products: the Time Capsule (4th generation), AirPort Extreme (5th generation), and the Mac Pro (Mid 2010). The Mac Pro and two wireless routers listed above are now classified by the company as vintage in the United States and Turkey, and obsolete in the rest of the world. Apple defines vintage products as those...