iPadOS 16’s marquee feature is Stage Manager, which adds Mac-like windowing to the iPad, but controversially, Apple requires an M1 iPad to use it. Josh Centers explores Apple’s reasoning and suggests how the company could calm the waters. Adam Engst tells the strange story of how Citibank wouldn’t process TidBITS membership payments because it erroneously thought we were selling cryptocurrency. Finally, Adam explains why a triumvirate of interlocking Apple privacy features—iCloud Private Relay, Limit IP Address Tracking, and Hide IP Address—can cause unusual connection problems. Notable Mac app releases this week include BusyCal 2022.2.3, Camo Studio 1.7, and Evernote 10.39.
After discovering a bunch of failed TIdBITS membership renewals, Adam Engst spent the week working with Stripe support to figure out why Citibank was refusing to honor payments to TidBITS Publishing, claiming that they were for cryptocurrency.
In many ways, iPadOS 16’s marquee new feature is Stage Manager, which brings windowing to the iPad—or at least M1-based iPads. But it won’t be available on the vast majority of iPads. Are there legitimate technical limitations or is Apple trying to push hardware upgrades?
In its ongoing effort to protect users’ privacy, Apple has built a series of related technologies into macOS 12 Monterey, iOS 15, and iPadOS 15. Unfortunately, they can cause network connectivity issues, such that you might want to disable one or more. Here is how we think they work.
Watchlist
Adds support for the beta release of macOS 13 Ventura. ($49.99 new, free update, 56 MB, macOS 10.12+)
Brings a new overlay editor for creating customizable text, shapes, images, and colored overlays. ($39.99 annual subscription, free update, 29.1 MB, macOS 10.13+)
Information management app updated with a few improvements. (Free, 312 MB, macOS 10.14+)