TidBITS 2019 Holiday Hiatus—See You in 2020!

This week marks our final email issue of TidBITS for 2019. We’ll continue to clear the decks and pay attention to industry happenings for the rest of the week, covering those that merit your attention, but after that, we’ll be descending into holiday hibernation through New Year’s Day. I sincerely hope you have the opportunity to spend this time as you wish, with the people you most enjoy. The next email issue of TidBITS will come out on 6 January 2020.

Tonya and I will be visiting family in Santa Fe for part of the break, and we’re also looking forward to getting to spend more time with Tristan, who is in the middle of his junior year at Cornell University, majoring in Computer Science with a focus on machine learning. Happily, he still turns to us for our writing, editing, business, and IT knowledge, even if we only understand the high-level overview of his studies.

At this time of year, we always take some time to reflect on what it is we’re doing and why. Our reader survey was particularly illuminating, and our takeaway has been to keep doing what we do, without changing things up much. It’s a vote of confidence in the approach we’ve developed over the years, so we’ll avoid change for change’s sake in 2020.

We are also grateful to the many people who make TidBITS possible:

• TidBITS members: To the nearly 4000 people who support us through the TidBITS membership program, thank you so much for your help—TidBITS would not be able to survive without you. It means a great deal to us that you value our efforts to create practical, useful information rather than chasing rumor and fomenting controversy.
• TidBITS sponsors: We’re always grateful for our long-term corporate sponsor, Smile, maker of the essential TextExpander and PDFpen utilities. Other companies that supported TidBITS in 2019 include Backblaze, our favorite Internet backup service; easyDNS, the Canadian Internet company we recommend for domain registration and email and Web hosting; and MacPaw, maker of useful Mac utilities and the company behind the Setapp subscription service.
• Staff and contributing editors: Tonya and I are also thankful for the highly capable and amiable assistance of Josh Centers, Agen Schmitz, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Michael Cohen, Glenn Fleishman, Jeff Porten, Rich Mogull, Jeff Carlson, and Lauri Reinhardt. You’re all delightful, and while we try to express our appreciation regularly, we wanted to thank you here in public as well.
• Guest authors: Funding from TidBITS members enabled us to commission numerous articles again this year, and big thanks to the authors who helped expand our coverage, including Victor Agreda, Nik Bhatt, Timothy Buck, Geoff Duncan, Dave Kitabjian, Scholle McFarland, Mike Matthews, Donald O’Shea, David Shayer, Curtis Wilcox, and Sharon Zardetto.
• Translators: Our gratitude also goes out to the industrious volunteers who translate TidBITS into Dutch and Japanese each week and distribute their translations to several thousand people who prefer reading in their native tongue. (Both teams could use some fresh blood, so if you’re looking for a new hobby and some new friends—see “New Dutch and Japanese Translators Wanted!,” 13 December 2019.)
• The TidBITS community: Our TidBITS Talk forum has become a great place to bring your Apple questions and contribute answers from your own experience and expertise. And while our SlackBITS chat group doesn’t see as much regular traffic, we enjoy having hundreds of TidBITS readers join us to watch and comment on live Apple events.
• Readers like you: Finally, even if you haven’t become a TidBITS member, left a comment, or participated in TidBITS Talk or SlackBITS, we very much appreciate the fact that you’ve found the time to read what we write. That’s what it all comes down to.

Thank you, one and all, and may all your holiday wishes come true. See you in 2020!