Skip to content
Thoughtful, detailed coverage of everything Apple for 33 years
and the TidBITS Content Network for Apple professionals
Glenn Fleishman

Glenn Fleishman

Glenn Fleishman writes about the past, present, and future. He’s been a technology journalist since the 1990s, contributing to TidBITS since 1993, and to publications like the Economist, Fast Company, the New York Times, Fortune, and many others (many of them long out of business). He’s also a printing historian, specializing in processes used between original artwork and typeset material and the final printed page, concluding flong. Glenn writes the Mac 911 column for Macworld, was the editor and publisher of The Magazine, and regularly appears on technology and nerd-culture podcasts.

Glenn Fleishman 2 comments

AirTag in the News: NYPD Recommends, Apple and Google Propose Industry Tracking Standard

In response to a surge of car thefts, the New York Police Department recommends the city’s car owners install an AirTag to help with stolen vehicle recovery. Meanwhile, Apple and Google have partnered on a new industry standard to provide consistent anti-tracking protection for devices that can track object locations persistently.

Glenn Fleishman 5 comments

PowerPhotos Enables Ventura Users to Migrate iPhoto and Aperture Libraries

With Apple dropping support for migrating iPhoto and Aperture libraries to Photos in macOS 13 Ventura, Fat Cat Software has thrown a lifeline to people who still have old photo libraries.

Glenn Fleishman 5 comments

Authory Provides Writers a Permanent Record of Their Articles

Authory preserves articles you write for any website, giving you a permanent copy that’s also searchable by others. It’s worth a look for anyone who wants a record of their personal or professional writing that’s independent of any given publication or platform.

Glenn Fleishman 30 comments

Mastodon: A New Hope for Social Networking

With centralized, ad-driven social networks in disarray and suffering from misinformation, harassment, and declining users, can the long-simmering Mastodon microblogging system offer a distributed future for conversation and community?

Glenn Fleishman 5 comments

Is Your Future Distributed? Welcome to the Fediverse!

A growing set of services let users on independently operated servers interlink with standard, open-source protocols for microblogging, photo sharing, and dozens of other purposes. Could the Fediverse be a solution to the ugliness of commercial service algorithms designed to drive outrage and titillation?

Glenn Fleishman 64 comments

Bring Yourself Recurring Joy with Apple’s New Lock Screen Photo Shuffle

Technology has a hard time delivering happiness. Apple has cracked the code with how it uses machine learning to populate the Lock Screen Photo Shuffle feature and Featured Photos widget with images you’ll like.

Glenn Fleishman 33 comments

An Apple a Day: iOS 16 Medications Feature Provides Alerts, Logging, and Peace of Mind

Apple quietly added a Medications section to the Health app in iOS 16 that lets you list all your medications, remind you when to take them, and log when you do.

Glenn Fleishman 29 comments

USB Simplifies Branding but Reintroduces Active Cables

The group that creates USB standards listened to feedback and has released a reduced set of logos that make it easier to figure out the capabilities of your ports, peripherals, and cables. But changes to USB4 also mean the return of active cables to provide maximum throughput for a new 80 Gbps data rate over distances beyond 0.8 meters.

Glenn Fleishman 77 comments

Tune Find My for Travel Tracking to Avoid Annoying AirTag and Apple Device Alerts

Apple’s AirTag and other Find My trackers—along with Find My-tracked Apple devices—may be too aggressive about telling you where they are—or aren’t. They can be useful for tracking luggage and other valuables while traveling, particularly with others, but you will likely need to tune your settings to reduce notifications.

Glenn Fleishman 6 comments

Apple Adds Lockdown Mode to Protect Activists and Government Targets

Apple announced it will add an enhanced security mode to this year’s planned operating system updates to deter government-level spyware.

Glenn Fleishman 29 comments

Apple Brings Mail Merge Back to Pages

Years after removing the feature in a major rewrite, Apple has returned mail merge to Pages so you can use data from Contacts or a spreadsheet to customize letters, envelopes, or cards.

Glenn Fleishman 59 comments

Why Passkeys Will Be Simpler and More Secure Than Passwords

Passkeys are a new way to log into websites and apps that replaces passwords. The industry-standard passkey technology is simpler and more secure than passwords (even with two-factor authentication), resists phishing, and is built to be compatible across browsers and platforms.

Glenn Fleishman 47 comments

Understand Cryptocurrency, but Don’t Invest in It

Cryptocurrency is volatile, expensive to trade, illiquid, and rife with scams and account hijacking. Yet it contains kernels of technology and principles that likely will dominate financial markets in the future.

Glenn Fleishman 5 comments

Audio Hijack 4 Brings Interface Improvements and Recording Upgrades

The latest version of Rogue Amoeba’s Mac app for grabbing, mixing, and manipulating audio from apps and sound inputs makes it easier to design and improve workflows. It also offers new and improved audio recording and processing features.

Glenn Fleishman 54 comments

Never Change Your Password

Many websites advise you to change your password routinely. That advice is nearly universally wrong: you should only update a password when there’s a weakness. Why does it persist?