Welcome to the final mega-issue of TidBITS for 2015! We’ll be on hiatus until 4 January 2016, but we’ll continue publishing new articles on our Web site in the meantime. Apple is prepping for vacation too, updating all of its major platforms last week with OS X 10.11.2 El Capitan, iOS 9.2, tvOS 9.1, and watchOS 2.1. The Apple TV App Store is seeing explosive growth, but the statistics indicate that developers may not be giving users what they want. Continuing in our effort to focus on practical Mac stories, Adam Engst penned helpful articles on dealing with inexplicable Apple error messages and sending a MacBook in to Apple for repair. Glenn Fleishman contributes an overview of natural-language math utilities, including Soulver, Spotlight, Google, and Wolfram Alpha. Finally, in the WinterFest 2015 sale, you can save big money on 10 top-tier writing tools and all our Take Control books! Notable software releases this week include ClamXav 2.8.8, OmniFocus 2.4, OmniOutliner 4.4.1, Pixelmator 3.4.1, PopChar X 7.3.1, SpamSieve 2.9.23, Airfoil 4.9.2, Safari 9.0.2, and Security Update 2015-008 (Mavericks) and 2015-006 (Yosemite).
In keeping with our tradition, we are taking the last few weeks of the year off, so look for the next email issue of TidBITS on 4 January 2016. Thanks for another great year, and here’s to the next one!
The OS X 10.11.2 update to El Capitan offers no new features, but it includes a handful of reliability improvements for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Handoff, AirDrop, Mail, Photos, and more, along with a slew of security fixes.
Apple has updated iOS to 9.2, with improvements to iBooks, Apple Music, and Apple News, as well as the addition of the Mail Drop attachment feature to Mail and support for the new Lightning to SD Card Camera Reader.
The new Apple TV finally supports the Remote app and Siri music search, but introduces a few peculiar bugs.
If you’ve been holding off on buying an Apple Watch because it didn’t support your preferred language, read on, since the just-released watchOS 2.1 adds system language and dictation support for eight more languages, and Siri support for Arabic. There are a variety of bug fixes and security updates for the rest of us.
Several small software companies have banded together to offer apps for writing and thinking at 20–25 percent off for WinterFest 2015, and we’ve included our Take Control books in the sale.
The Apple TV’s App Store is seeing explosive growth, but statistics from appFigures indicate that developers may not be giving users what they want.
If you’ve been seeing inexplicable error messages on your Mac or iPhone, there’s not a lot you can do, but rest assured that you’re not alone and you’ve done nothing wrong.
Converting units, finding currency prices, and generally doing math can require research, study, and recalling long-forgotten formulae. Or you can just type in queries and get results.
If you’ve wondered about the best way to send a troubled MacBook in to Apple for repair, or if you’re curious about how to get a different Apple device repaired, read on. The process is relatively straightforward and can be remarkably quick.
Notable software releases this week include ClamXav 2.8.8, OmniFocus 2.4, OmniOutliner 4.4.1, Pixelmator 3.4.1, PopChar X 7.3.1, SpamSieve 2.9.23, Airfoil 4.9.2, Safari 9.0.2, and Security Update 2015-008 (Mavericks) and 2015-006 (Yosemite).
In this week’s collection of ExtraBITS links, account data for 13 million MacKeeper users was accidentally published online, Apple revealed its favorite apps of 2015, the FBI continues to ramp up its war on encryption, and Josh Centers discussed his new living room setup with The Tech Night Owl. New this week — an extra helping of editorial commentary!