Earlier today during the “Back to Mac” event, Apple unveiled its upcoming Mac App Store, an applications store based on the store available to owners of iOS devices.
The Mac App Store will give Mac owners a chance to download Mac applications with one-click.
Additionally, the store will provide auto-updates and a license to use the software on all Macs you may own.
For developers, Apple takes 30 percent of revenue, similar to the cut the company takes for iOS apps.
To access the store you will need Mac OSX Snow Leopard or the upcoming Lion.
Developers can begin submitting applications next week and the Mac App Store will open in 90 days.
Result for: mac owners
Graham Cluley of the Sophos security firm has written about a hidden change in Mac OS X 10.6.4 that is not mentioned in its release notes. Specifically, Apple included an update to the malware protection built into Mac OS X to protect against a backdoor Trojan the Cupertino-based Mac-maker identifies as “HellRTS”.
Sophos has been tracking the same trojan since April as OSX/Pinhead-B. It is distributed by malicious sources as the iPhoto application. The malware can provide a attacker with full access to an infected Mac, allowing for the taking of screenshots, sending spam, reading the clipboard, accessing files and so on.
“Unfortunately, many Mac users seem oblivious to security threats which can run on their computers. And that isn’t helped when Apple issues an anti-malware security update like this by stealth, rather than informing the public what it has done,” Cluley wrote.
“You have to wonder whether their keeping quiet about an anti-malware security update like this was for marketing reasons. ‘Shh! Don’t tell folks that we have to protect against malware on Mac OS X!’”
Building on that point, Cluley recalled a recent twitter entry from a colleague telling of how he had overheard an Apple Store employee tell potential customers that it was impossible for Macs to be infected with viruses.
“There’s a lot less malicious software for Mac computers than Windows PCs, of course, but the fact that so many Mac owners don’t take security seriously enough, and haven’t bothered installing an anti-virus, might mean they are a soft target for hackers in the future,” Cluley writes.
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Result for: mac owners
Owners of new Apple iMacs, equipped with an ATI Radeon HD 4850 video card, are reporting problems with freeze ups during normal usage, forcing them to reboot the machine. The problem doesn’t appear to be caused by software running at the time of the freeze in Mac OS X, and some users have noted that the problem persists using Windows in a Boot Camp partition where drivers or Mac software wouldn’t be an issue.
Threads have popped up on Apple’s support forums about the issue and the company is aware of it. Some users report being told that a fix is expected to be rolled out with the Mac OS X 10.5.7 update while others have been offered replacement systems when a troubleshooting session has been unsuccessful.
This isn’t the first experience of this kind of problem for Apple systems. In March, some users of MacBook Pro machines reported graphics issues during use, related to the NVIDIA 9600M and 9400M GPUs. Back in 2007, when the aluminum iMac machines launched, another freeze issue surfaced. That time, it allowed some programs to continue running, whereas the latest issue freezes up the entire system.
