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TidBITS#1301/14-Dec-2015

Welcome to the final mega-issue of TidBITS for 2015! We’ll be on hiatus until 4 January 2016, but we’ll continue publishing new articles on our Web site in the meantime. Apple is prepping for vacation too, updating all of its major platforms last week with OS X 10.11.2 El Capitan, iOS 9.2, tvOS 9.1, and watchOS 2.1. The Apple TV App Store is seeing explosive growth, but the statistics indicate that developers may not be giving users what they want. Continuing in our effort to focus on practical Mac stories, Adam Engst penned helpful articles on dealing with inexplicable Apple error messages and sending a MacBook in to Apple for repair. Glenn Fleishman contributes an overview of natural-language math utilities, including Soulver, Spotlight, Google, and Wolfram Alpha. Finally, in the WinterFest 2015 sale, you can save big money on 10 top-tier writing tools and all our Take Control books! Notable software releases this week include ClamXav 2.8.8, OmniFocus 2.4, OmniOutliner 4.4.1, Pixelmator 3.4.1, PopChar X 7.3.1, SpamSieve 2.9.23, Airfoil 4.9.2, Safari 9.0.2, and Security Update 2015-008 (Mavericks) and 2015-006 (Yosemite).

Adam Engst No comments

watchOS 2.1 Fixes Bugs, Supports Eight More Languages

If you’ve been holding off on buying an Apple Watch because it didn’t support your preferred language, read on, since the just-released watchOS 2.1 adds system language and dictation support for eight more languages, and Siri support for Arabic. There are a variety of bug fixes and security updates for the rest of us.

Adam Engst 14 comments

How to Send a MacBook to Apple for Repair

If you’ve wondered about the best way to send a troubled MacBook in to Apple for repair, or if you’re curious about how to get a different Apple device repaired, read on. The process is relatively straightforward and can be remarkably quick.

TidBITS Staff No comments

ExtraBITS for 14 December 2015

In this week’s collection of ExtraBITS links, account data for 13 million MacKeeper users was accidentally published online, Apple revealed its favorite apps of 2015, the FBI continues to ramp up its war on encryption, and Josh Centers discussed his new living room setup with The Tech Night Owl. New this week — an extra helping of editorial commentary!