Adam Engst recently took a trip from upstate New York to Vancouver, British Columbia. As always, technology made the trip significantly easier than in the past, though he found that some bits (CarPlay in rental cars and North American T-Mobile connectivity) were vastly more helpful than others (an App Clip for buying gas and Apple Maps encouraging illegal U-turns).
Although there’s much to look forward to in macOS 13 Ventura, iOS 16, and iPadOS 16, there are also some features that had us scratching our heads, wondering what had gotten into the Cupertino drinking water.
Apple will be unveiling new technologies at WWDC 2022, and while some will undoubtedly be welcome, we have additional ideas that we hope will make their way into future versions of Apple’s operating systems.
iCloud Drive folder sharing has been around since macOS 10.15 Catalina, which makes it all the less acceptable that someone with whom the folder is shared can delete a file permanently and with only one possible—and unmentioned by Apple—option for recovery.
Do you feel like Apple’s “pro” Macs aren’t designed for your particular profession? You’re not alone. TidBITS publisher Adam Engst has been using Macs for over three decades, and he has some ideas for how Apple could better support professionals who don’t work with audio, video, or photos all day.
We live in a global, interconnected world, so the Russian invasion of Ukraine isn’t just news reports from far away. Between impacted Ukrainian Apple developers, efforts by other Apple-adjacent firms, and calls for Apple to block the App Store in Russia, we’re all in this together.
Apple’s Do Not Disturb feature has evolved into the ecosystem-wide Focus, which provides so many options and capabilities that it may be impossible to predict when notifications will work and when they won't. Adam Engst shows you how to use Focus and suggests that you stick to the basics.
Feeling overwhelmed by negativity? Adam Engst shares some 2021 wrap-up posts showing that even in a pandemic-ridden year, a lot of good stuff happened that didn’t make the headlines. He also looks at the solution to a macOS upgrade problem and explains how to bring back the menu command for creating an ad hoc Wi-Fi network.
A collection of well-known Apple developers, podcasters, and professors have signed on to the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking, a call to action among software developers and users alike to encourage capabilities that allow linking between information resources, both local and on the Web.
No matter how private a communication service may claim to be, it’s only as private as its weakest link, as two recent stories illustrate.
If you’re cynical about the role of digital advertising on today’s Internet, a Wired article that reviews Tim Hwang’s new book, “Subprime Attention Crisis,” is worth a read.
In an acknowledged departure from TidBITS’s usual focus on Apple and technology topics, publisher Adam Engst explains his personal and professional reasons for voting for Democratic candidate Joe Biden in the upcoming US presidential election.
Oddly, Apple has two seemingly independent dictation capabilities available for both iOS devices and Macs. The standard dictation feature is, unfortunately, pretty weak in comparison with the dictation feature that you get when you enable Voice Control. Adam Engst looks at the differences and suggests features that Apple could move over from Voice Control.
Apple has updated its style guide, both on the Web and in Apple Books, which triggers TidBITS publisher Adam Engst to discuss how TidBITS makes stylistic decisions in writing and editing. He also examines a few of the changes to the style guide that Apple has made recently.
If you’re entering into a book layout project and considering QuarkXPress, don’t. Author Charles Maurer shares just a few of the horror stories from his experience using QuarkXPress to lay out his most recent book.