Mac

Stay up-to-date on the latest Mac news, and tutorials. Get expert tips and tricks to optimize your Mac’s performance and learn about the latest Apple products and software updates. Discover the best Mac apps and accessories to enhance your user experience.

Yahoo dropping support for native syncing of Mail and Contacts on older Mac and iOS hardware

If you set up a Yahoo account on your Mac, iPhone, iPod touch or iPad in order to sync data with Yahoo Contacts and access Yahoo Mail through Apple's stock Mail app, you should read this.

According to the Internet firm, Mail and Contacts syncing on older Mac and iOS devices will no longer be supported after June 15. In addition, a number of Yahoo properties will close in the coming weeks, including Yahoo Maps.

Tweetbot 2 for Mac arrives with OS X Yosemite design and other new features

Better late than never! Developer Tapbots has at last unleashed a major update to its popular Twitter client for OS X. Tweetbot 2 for Mac is now available as a free update for existing Tweetbot users. For new users, the application is now available at a discounted price of $12.99, down from its regular asking price of $19.99.

Aside from a fresh coat of paint and a dark translucent appearance on Yosemite systems, Tweetbot 2 for Mac sports an improved timeline search feature, optional verified badges, a three-pane layout that brings order to your lists, an iOS-style interface in the tweet detail view, the ability to see a user's recent photos and more.

Review: HazeOver dims background apps on Mac to reduce distraction

There never seems to be a shortage of apps that promote focusing on a single task, especially writing apps. And then you have hardware like the iPad, which forces you to focus on a single app at a time.

With the Mac, focusing has never been that easy, because multitasking is at its core.

HazeOver is a new Mac App Store utility that seeks to change the way we work on the Mac. By dimming background apps, it aims to help users focus on one app at a time by reducing distractions from surrounding apps. You can still have other apps open, they’ll just be dimmed in such a way that they’re less noticeable.

Does the idea work? Check out our video walkthrough for all of the details.

Wunderlist gets acquired by Microsoft

6Wunderkinder GmbH, the makers of Wunderlist, the popular to-do, list and tasks application for the Mac, iOS, Apple Watch and other platforms, confirmed today it's being acquired by software giant Microsoft.

With more than thirteen million users across platforms and more than one billion to-dos created in Wunderlist, the app should seamlessly fit in Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's mobile first, cloud first vision.

But don't fret, mobile Wunderlist apps aren't going anywhere, at least for the time being. “As Wunderlist becomes a part of the Microsoft family, we’ll introduce a host of new features, keep adding partner integrations, and progress further in delivering Wunderlist to billions of people,” Christian Reber, 6Wunderkinder founder and CEO said Tuesday.

Review: Magnet window manager for OS X

The ability to snap windows side-by-side has been one of my most missed features since switching from Microsoft Windows years ago. Fortunately, there have been quite a few apps over the years that have provided window snapping on the Mac.

One such app, HyperDock, has been my go-to app of sorts for managing windows on OS X. Another app, BetterSnapTool, is also popular among Mac users for window management.

But today, Sebastien made me aware of yet another window management tool. I have to admit that I was skeptical at first, because I've I didn't see how anything could be much better than HyperDoc for my needs, but I stand corrected.

Magnet ($1.99) is a really good Mac App Store release that focuses solely on window management, and does a very good job. It has several key features that have made me seriously contemplate switching over to it full time. Watch our video review to see what I mean.

Unsurprisingly, iPhone Messages bug crashes iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, WhatsApp, Twitter and Snapchat

An odd software bug which causes the iPhone's Messages application to crash and sends the handset into a respring after a certain text is received affects the iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch, too. In addition, the text bug apparently affects third-party social and messaging apps that deal with text, including WhatsApp, Twitter and Snapchat, The Guardian newspaper learned today.

That's hardly surprising. The issue can be traced back to a specific series of Unicode characters, suggesting a bug in the text engine framework called CoreText that exists in iOS and OS X.

That would explain why third-party apps that deal with messages, like Twitter and Snapchat, were affected as they tap into Apple's CoreText engine to manage strings of text and layouts.

Latest MacBook Pro supports 5K displays with up to 5,120-by-2,880 pixels at 60Hz

If you purchased Apple's new fifteen-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display and Force Touch trackpad, congratulate yourself as you're the proud owner of Apple's very first notebook capable of driving external displays in glorious 5K resolution.

The new 15-inch MacBook Pro also support single-stream 4K screens at a 4,096-by-2,160 display resolution at 60Hz, another first for Apple.

How to fix a “referencing media on the camera” error in Final Cut Pro X

Every now and then, you may run into an issue with Final Cut Pro X where a file doesn't successfully import. Due to this, the media that you're working with in your project is still referencing the location where the file originally was (i.e. SD Card, Camera HDD, etc.).

When this happens, and you try to share/export a project, you'll receive an error message that says "This item cannot be shared while it is still referencing media on the camera."

To fix this problem, you'll need to reimport your footage from the original source using the File menu. It's fairly straightforward, but it's not exactly obvious as to what you should do when you first encounter this issue. Inside, we'll show you the error message and the quick fix in our brief video tutorial.

Apple launches 15″ MacBook Pro with Force touch, refreshes 27-inch iMac while bringing down price

Apple on Tuesday launched a new 15-inch MacBook Pro model with Force Touch trackpad, Intel's faster fourth-generation Haswell chip and other features

In addition, the Cupertino firm has refreshed its 27-inch iMac with 5K Retina screen while making the system more affordable than before.

The new baseline iMac configuration has a slower 3.3GHz chip (previously 3.5GHz) and the traditional 1TB hard drive instead of the Fusion drive. More importantly, it now starts out at just $1,999, a much appreciated discount from the previous asking price of $2,499. In addition, the top-end iMac configuration is now available at a lower price of $2,299.

‘Rising Tide’ expansion for Civilization: Beyond Earth announced, arriving in fall

Developer Aspyr Media, in partnership with 2K and Firaxis Games, today announced that a new expansion to Sid Meier’s Civilization: Beyond Earth, titled 'Rising Tide', will be arriving on Mac, Windows and Linux later this year.

The expansion pack is currently in development for Mac and Linux operating systems and is scheduled for release in autumn 2015.

Rising Tide will enhance Beyond Earth experience with a variety of new gameplay capabilities, adding more choices and diplomatic options and providing “near limitless” ways to create a new future for humanity on an alien planet.