As we return from the Thanksgiving break, we implore you to consider becoming a paid TidBITS member. In addition to receiving exclusive benefits and saving hundreds on Mac software, your support would help us fund great articles like those in this issue. To start, Adam Engst explains the hidden trick for changing the font in Yosemite’s Messages app, and Josh Centers shows how you can prevent the next version of Twitter in iOS from spying on your apps. Also this week, Michael Cohen looks at PDFpen 2 and its innovative way of enabling upgrade pricing on iOS, Jeff Carlson tells you how to remove the Slo-Mo effect from iPhone videos, Julio Ojeda-Zapata reviews Ergotron’s budget-minded standing desk solutions, and you can enter to win a copy of BeLight Software’s Printworks in DealBITS. Finally, we’ve been listening to the Apple community’s Yosemite complaints, and while we can’t solve every problem, we have rounded up fixes for five common annoyances. Notable software releases this week include Firefox 34.0, Boom 2.0, Airfoil 4.8.11, Downcast 1.1.5, Lightroom 5.7, Carbon Copy Cloner 4.0.3, and PopChar X 7.0.
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If you want to create a holiday card, flyer, or brochure, check out this week’s DealBITS drawing for a chance to win a copy of BeLight Software’s Printworks print design software.
If you’re unhappy with the thin Helvetica text in Messages in Yosemite, particularly for your white-on-blue bubbles, read on for the trick to bringing back at least some of the configurability that Messages previously enjoyed.
Twitter’s recent announcement that it will scan and analyze your installed iOS apps may explain the mystery of why the company has turned against third-party developers. Josh Centers explains how to keep your app information from Twitter’s prying eyes.
Slick as it is — and it is slick — Smile’s new PDFpen 2 for iOS offers something that the App Store doesn’t ordinarily provide: a paid upgrade path.
If you accidentally recorded a video in Slo-Mo mode on an iPhone or iPad Air 2, you can’t easily save a real-time version. Jeff Carlson shares a couple of workarounds using either the free Slow Fast Slow app or iMovie for iOS.
Complaints are inevitable with any new release of OS X, and Yosemite has garnered its fair share. Here are a few solutions and workarounds for problems we’ve experienced or seen reported.
If you want to stand while working on your Mac, Ergotron provides clamp-to-a-desk workstations marketed directly to the Apple crowd. However, these setups have some stability issues.
Notable software releases this week include Firefox 34.0, Boom 2.0, Airfoil 4.8.11, Downcast 1.1.5, Lightroom 5.7, Carbon Copy Cloner 4.0.3, and PopChar X 7.0.
The bad news in this installment of ExtraBITS is that Apple has forced the removal of a key feature of Transmit iOS, despite not following its own App Store rules in another situation. The good news is that the company is offering free programming tutorials for kids in its stores this week.