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#1543: Apple Fitness+ launches with iOS 14.3, iPadOS 14.3, watchOS 7.2, and tvOS 14.3; macOS 11.1 Big Sur; AirPods Max; Xebec Tri-Screen; RIP John Baxter

You can’t accuse Apple of sitting still. In a surprise announcement last week, the company unveiled the AirPods Max, over-ear headphones with Active Noise Cancellation and a hefty price tag. This week, Apple pushed out updates to macOS 11.1 Big Sur, iOS 14.3, iPadOS 14.3, watchOS 7.2, and tvOS 14.3. Apart from macOS, the marquee feature in these updates is support for the Apple Fitness+ service, which also debuted this week. Changing gears, Julio Ojeda-Zapata reviews the Xebec Tri-Screen, which turns a laptop into a triple-screen workstation. Lastly, in sad news, Geoff Duncan marks the passing of John W. Baxter, a longtime friend of TidBITS. We’ve finally caught up with our backlog of notable Mac app releases this week with OmniFocus 3.11, Tinderbox 8.9, Default Folder X 5.5.3, Fission 2.7, Mactracker 7.10, Bookends 13.4.8, Pixelmator Pro 2.0.1, SpamSieve 2.9.41, Path Finder 10.0, and Security Update 2020-001 (Catalina) and 2020-007 (Mojave).

Watchlist

Tinderbox 8.9 Agen Schmitz No comments

Tinderbox 8.9

Adds support for macOS 11 Big Sur and brings additional improvements and bug fixes to the note-taking assistant. ($249 new, free update, 41.2 MB, macOS 10.10+)

Mactracker 7.10 Agen Schmitz No comments

Mactracker 7.10

Adds detailed information about all recent hardware and operating system releases, including macOS 11 Big Sur and the M1-based Macs. (Free, 149 MB, macOS 10.12+)

Path Finder 10.0 Agen Schmitz 11 comments

Path Finder 10.0

Major update to the file browser alternative to the macOS Finder adds AirDrop support and an updated user interface for macOS 11 Big Sur. ($36 new, free update, 19.9 MB, macOS 10.12+)

ExtraBITS

Josh Centers 4 comments

The United States vs. Facebook

The US Federal Trade Commission and the attorneys general representing most of the United States’ states and territories are ganging up on Facebook to wrest away control of Instagram and WhatsApp and prevent Facebook from continuing to cement its dominant position in social networking.