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Adam Engst

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.

Adam Engst 12 comments

macOS Photo Screen Savers Still Don’t Properly Display Rotated or Edited Images

macOS has a long-standing bug that causes screen savers to fail to show edited or rotated images from Photos—only the original versions. Ventura still suffers from this problem, and although Adam Engst shares some workarounds, you’re not going to like them.

Adam Engst 34 comments

LastPass Publishes More Details about Its Data Breaches

LastPass was heavily criticized for communicating insufficient details after it lost customer vault data in a breach. A collection of new posts attempt to rectify that mistake—but it’s not enough for Adam Engst, who shares his experiences switching from LastPass to 1Password.

Adam Engst 7 comments

Reuters Uses AirTags to Track Donated Shoes Destined for Recycling

Ever wondered what happens to donated old running shoes? Reuters decided to verify the claims that they would be recycled into playgrounds by tracking them with AirTags. Spoiler—no playgrounds were built with the tracked shoes.

Adam Engst 47 comments

How a Thief with Your iPhone Passcode Can Ruin Your Digital Life

The Wall Street Journal reports on a spate of attacks in which iPhone thieves obtain your passcode and then change your Apple ID password, disable Find My, make purchases with Apple Pay, and more. Some attacks are as simple as the miscreants surreptitiously watching you enter your passcode; others involve violence. Read on to learn how to protect yourself.

Adam Engst 24 comments

Auditing Free Drive Space: Where Have All the Gigabytes Gone?

Curious about how Time Machine snapshots can supposedly prevent the space occupied by deleted files from being recovered right away, Adam Engst ran some tests and came away more confused than when he started.

Adam Engst 15 comments

Steve Jobs Archive Shares 1984 Photo of Jobs Spotting a Mac in the Wild

Executive Director Leslie Berlin has sent email to Steve Jobs Archive subscribers containing a 1984 photograph of Jobs, captivated by the sight of a Mac in the wild within a month of its launch.

Adam Engst 11 comments

Center Cam Solves Webcam Eye Contact Problem

Center Cam puts a tiny webcam on a thin gooseneck stalk such that you can position it right over another person’s video window, ensuring that watching them makes it seem that you’re looking them in the eye. If only it weren’t so sensitive to light.

Adam Engst 43 comments

Notifications Unexpectedly Silenced? Blame Focus

After some confusion about why people were being told that his notifications were silenced in Messages, Adam Engst found that the Driving Focus from his iPhone was being incorrectly set on his MacBook Air.

Adam Engst 14 comments

Microsoft Authorizes Parallels Desktop for Windows Virtualization on M-Series Macs

Microsoft has officially blessed Parallels Desktop as a way to run Windows 11 on Arm on Macs with Apple silicon. Can support for VMware Fusion be far behind?

Adam Engst 11 comments

Site-Specific Browser Examples from TidBITS Sponsor Coherence X

Do you like the idea of using a site-specific browser but have trouble coming up with use cases? We share real-world examples of how Coherence X users create and use site-specific browsers to increase their productivity.

macOS Big Sur 11.7.4 Adam Engst 4 comments

macOS Big Sur 11.7.4

Security patch for Big Sur. (Free, various sizes, macOS 11)

Safari 16.3.1 Adam Engst 21 comments

Safari 16.3.1

Patches a security vulnerability in Monterey and Big Sur. (Free, various sizes, macOS 11+)

Adam Engst 20 comments

iOS 16.3.1, iPadOS 16.3.1, macOS 13.2.1 Ventura, watchOS 9.3.1, tvOS 16.3.2, and HomePod Software 16.3.2 Fix Bugs and Security Vulnerabilities

Responding to a nasty WebKit vulnerability that is being actively exploited in the wild, Apple has released updates to all its current operating systems. We recommend updating soon.

Adam Engst 16 comments

Mastodon Clients Could Do So Much More

Current releases of Mastodon clients look and work essentially like apps for Twitter, with a chronological timeline of posts. Can Mastodon’s open architecture let clients advance beyond the Twitter paradigm?

Adam Engst 14 comments

Apple in 2022: The Six Colors Report Card

Jason Snell of Six Colors has released his eighth annual Apple report card, featuring ratings and quotes from a select group of Apple commentators, including many from TidBITS.