Adam Engst
Adam C. Engst is the publisher of TidBITS. He has written numerous books, including the best-selling Internet Starter Kit series, and many magazine articles thanks to Contributing Editor positions at MacUser, MacWEEK, and now Macworld. His innovations include the creation of the first advertising program to support an Internet publication in 1992, the first flat-rate accounts for graphical Internet access in 1993, and the Take Control electronic book series now owned and operated by alt concepts. His awards include the MDJ Power 25 ranking as the most influential person in the Macintosh industry outside of Apple every year since 2000, inclusion on the MacTech 25 list of influential people in the Macintosh technical community, and being named one of MacDirectory's top ten visionaries. And yes, he has been turned into an action figure.
Apple’s iCloud Private Relay traffic anonymization service is down for some users, causing various connectivity problems in Safari and other apps. If you’re experiencing problems, turn off iCloud Private Relay temporarily.
After failing to reestablish Internet connectivity for his solar panel inverters following a spate of power outages, Adam Engst finally figured out the problem with the help of a support tech who made him break it down into its constituent parts. Read on to learn from his mistakes.
We may soon get better sharing of Apple Maps location links with Windows users thanks to the beta of Maps on the Web.
Mail will crash if you open its Previous Recipients window and then edit a contact in Contacts. This bug has existed since macOS 12 Monterey and continues to plague the betas of macOS 15 Sequoia.
By now, you’ve heard of the CrowdStrike update bug that wreaked havoc on Windows-based PCs around the world. It didn’t affect Macs, and it’s unlikely that something similar could. What about iPhones and iPads? Will the industry learn from this debacle or continue with business as usual?
As part of a new digital exhibit, the Steve Jobs Archive has released a video of Jobs addressing designers at an industry conference in Aspen. Although it’s interesting to look back at the time, it’s also fascinating to see how accurate his predictions were.
Online backup service Backblaze will soon increase the fee it charges to restore data by shipping you a USB hard drive from $189 to $279. However, the change is largely moot since the company refunds the full amount when you return the drive.
Apple has opened the public beta program for its forthcoming 2024 operating systems. Remember, these aren’t meant for everyday use. Only install them on devices that you can dedicate to testing!
Apple has updated a support document with helpful advice about how to identify and report social engineering attacks such as phishing messages, phony support calls, and more. Share it widely!
Apple’s upcoming operating systems have good historical hardware support, but devils dance in the details. Two MacBook Airs, three iPads, and three Apple Watches fall by the wayside this year. Older devices that are generally compatible won’t be able to take advantage of all the new features. Read on to find out what your devices will support.
If you like TidBITS and Apple tech podcasts, take note: Adam Engst is now a regular contributor to Allison Sheridan’s Chit Chat Across the Pond podcast. For the inaugural episode, they talk about how to avoid missing calendar and reminder notifications and a slew of related topics.
The Unofficial Apple Weblog, an early player in the Apple blogosphere that has been defunct for a decade, has been revived as an AI-powered site that rewrites content from other sites. iLounge suffered the same fate. Avoid both sites from now on.
Curious about what the Internet was like 30 years ago, in 1994? Fast Company has published an article looking at 15 websites from that year, but for a much more comprehensive (and amusing) view, check out the “Internet Explorer’s Kit for Macintosh” book by Adam Engst and Bill Dickson, now available online.
Despite the seemingly universal outrage about tech companies scraping the open Web to train their models, Adam Engst finds himself largely unperturbed.
In his continuing search for apps that don’t let you forget something because you missed a single notification, Adam Engst looks at Due, which provides persistent notifications for reminders on all your Apple devices.