mac app store

Degrees adds the current weather to your Mac's menu bar

I know not all Mac users take advantage of the OS X Dashboard widgets; some even claim that it's time Apple does away with it altogether. But I use it quite often to track packages, and view current weather conditions through the stock Weather widget.

Getting to the Dashboard isn't always convenient, so adding a menu bar icon to detail the current temp and weather conditions seemed like a good idea when I came across Degrees in the Mac App Store.

The free app doesn't offer much in way of features, but it doesn't need to. … Read more

Address 'Update Failed' when installing OS X 10.8.3

Apple has just released the OS X 10.8.3 update for Mountain Lion users, and while the update has gone smoothly for most people, as with any update there are a few who have run into a couple of hurdles when installing.

The most prominent issue so far is a small number of users have run into an issue where the update appears to install but then gives a message that simply states "Update Failed" with an option to restart the system. Upon doing so, the system reports it is still running OS X 10.8.2; … Read more

The easiest way to create and share a link to an iOS, Mac app

Launching iTunes, the App Store app, or the Mac App Store just to find an app, copy its direct link, and then send it to someone is a process we all accept. Sure, it doesn't take up too much time, but if you're sharing apps on a regular basis, the entire process adds up. But there's a quicker, easier way to share an App Store link with your fellow iOS and Mac users.

During the Super Bowl, the AppStore.com URL shortener made its official debut when the "Star Trek: Into Darkness" commercial used AppStore.com/StarTrekApp … Read more

Apple's App Store, iTunes back online after outages

Apple users unable to access the App Store or iTunes yesterday should find those sites alive and well today.

The App Store, iTunes, iCloud, and the Mac App Store were inaccessible to many people throughout yesterday, according to 9to5Mac.

Following a series of user complaints via Twitter, Apple eventually acknowledged the problem on its system status page, which indicated outages at various times for its online stores, Mail and Contacts via iCloud, and the Calendar app across different devices.

The status showed the iCloud outage ending at 1:40 p.m. PT. But some people continued to bump into issues … Read more

Make use of the Mac App Store debug menu

The Mac App Store in OS X is Apple's central location for software distribution and updates, and also replaces Software Update as the service for managing OS patches and upgrades. This makes the App Store one of the more commonly used programs in OS X.

While Apple's built-in options in the store should be enough for most people, if needed there are several useful options in the store's hidden Debug menu.

The Debug menu for the App Store is primarily meant to help developers detect and manage problems with the store by providing various logging options and … Read more

Fix corrupt Mac App Store downloads

Apple's Mac App Store, which was introduced in OS X 10.6.6, has become Apple's central location for distributing new software as well as managing updates to the OS and purchased applications. Though in most situations the Mac App Store works fine to download and run a specified installer, there are times when errors occur and even persist regardless of how many times you retry the download.

MacFixIt reader Silverio recently wrote in with such a problem:

I've been experiencing problems to install updates for iMovie through Apple Store. The error message says that the product … Read more

How to apply OS X software updates from the command line

Apple's Software Update is a convenient and easy way to keep your Mac up-to-date with the latest security fixes and feature enhancements. To make the service user-friendly, it's been available as a simple graphic-based tool in the Apple menu, but in recent versions of OS X Apple has integrated this service with its Mac App Store. Though it's convenient for most people, if you do not wish to open the Mac App Store for managing updates, there's a way you can avoid it.

Unfortunately there is no known way to revert the Software Update service from … Read more

Possible hosting error hinders Apple's Software Update

Following yesterday's release of iTunes 10.7 and updates to iMovie, a number of people have been unable to install the updates. Upon selecting Software Update from the Apple menu, the Mac App Store will launch and begin the update process, but will give a warning that an error has occurred. Sometimes the warning says, "A server with the specified hostname cannot be found," and at other times it's "The operation couldn't be completed (NSURLErrorDomain error -1100).

This error is likely from a misconfiguration on Apple's part in how it has hosted its … Read more

Kindle for Mac App Store gets performance boost

Amazon has updated its OS X app with some new features readers should find useful.

First up, Amazon's new 1.10.3 version of Kindle comes with support for more OS X gestures, including panning and swiping. The app now supports Amazon's Kindle Format 8 books, which deliver some improved formatting options. Heavy readers will be happy to discover that the app also supports larger libraries and will work much better with books that have bunches of notes and highlights.

Amazon's Kindle app is the company's Trojan horse into the world of iOS and OS X. … Read more

Apple keeps Mountain Lion up-to-date in the Mac App store

Starting with OS X Lion, Apple's Mac App Store became the primary means for distributing OS X, but the version of OS X in the store would sometimes lag behind the latest release. With Mountain Lion, the App Store is now being used to distribute system updates in addition to the full OS installer, and along with this development Apple appears to be updating the full OS download version concurrently with the release of the latest patch.

This means that if for some reason you are looking for an older release of OS X than the most current version, … Read more