Are you annoyed by your Apple Watch reminding you to breathe? Josh Centers explains how you can easily adjust or eliminate those notifications. Some worrisome iMessage vulnerabilities were exploited in 2020, but Glenn Fleishman explains how Apple has implemented a protective barrier to thwart them. If you’ve wished you could bring your classic stereo system into the modern music streaming world, Dave Kitabjian joins us to teach you how to add AirPlay input to your stereo with an old Apple TV. Finally, for those who teach or present online, Glenn shows how to give effective presentations and app demos remotely with Zoom. Notable Mac app releases this week include Carbon Copy Cloner 5.1.25, BusyCal 3.12.3, Pixelmator Pro 2.0.5, Zoom 5.5.1, PopChar X 9.1, Mailplane 4.3.1, Gemini 2.8.2, and Homebrew 3.0.
If you wear an Apple Watch, do you notice the Breathe notifications popping up when you want them the least? Thankfully, they’re easy to make less intrusive or turn off entirely.
Apple has quietly revised some core elements of its message-handling system in iOS, iPadOS, and macOS to make it far less likely that a maliciously formatted text or attachment would succeed in bypassing other protections.
Ever wish you could hear what’s playing on your iPhone through your stereo system? Here’s a step-by-step guide to add AirPlay support to your stereo for less than $20 and about an hour of your time.
Master the techniques necessary to present slide decks, images, and demonstrations in Zoom by sidestepping limitations in presentation software and learning how to configure some of Zoom’s more fiddly settings.
Watchlist
Brings a smattering of bug fixes and improvements to the drive-cloning and backup utility. ($39.99 new, free update, 19.4 MB, macOS 10.10+)
Adds support for using natural language input in the Go To Date window. ($49.99 new, free update, 31.9 MB, macOS 10.11+)
Maintenance release improves launch speed by around 20% and increases the maximum intensity of the Sharpen adjustment. ($39.99 new, free update, 225 MB, macOS 10.14.4+)
Enables meeting hosts to play a video file as shared content and adds a blurred background option. (Free, 24.1 MB, macOS 10.9+)
Maintenance update for the character discovery and font exploration utility. (€29.99 new, free update, 5.1 MB, macOS 10.10+)
Adds support for the new Google Calendar offline mode. ($29.95 new, free update, 78.2 MB, macOS 10.12+)
Introduces a new Duplicates Monitor feature that notifies you immediately when a new duplicate file appears. ($19.95 new, free update, 47.8 MB, macOS 10.10+)
Command-line package manager adds support for M1-based Macs. (Free, macOS 10.14+)
