We’re looking forward to new publishing initiatives in 2023—will you join over 3600 other TidBITS members in helping us develop new approaches to sharing practical Apple content? Are you irritated by the badge left on your Settings app if you didn’t set up Apple Pay? Or have you started getting a Google Hangouts dialog that announces the required migration to Google Chat? We unintentionally ended up with a pair of articles about how to solve those usability annoyances. Adam Engst also shares his long and increasingly dysfunctional history with Adobe Creative Cloud en route to recommending that anyone in a similar situation check out Serif’s suite of Affinity Publisher, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Photo, which currently costs less than two months of Creative Cloud. Notable Mac app releases this week include Agenda 16.1; Mimestream 0.40.1; Airfoil 5.11.3, Piezo 1.7.11, and Audio Hijack 4.0.6; Default Folder X 5.7.2; BusyCal 2022.4.6; and Carbon Copy Cloner 6.1.4.
It’s time for TidBITS to learn new tricks in the wake of managing editor Josh Centers leaving, while continuing to bring you the Apple advice and technical details you’ve come to rely on over the past 32 years. Will you help us start a fun new chapter in our long history?
If you’re among those who dislike having notification badges permanently affixed to iOS apps, you may be frustrated by the badge on the Settings app that nags you to set up Apple Pay. Here’s how to get rid of it without enabling Apple Pay.
Annoyed by an “It’s time for Google Chat” dialog displayed by Brave on every launch, Adam Engst spent more time than he should have figuring out how to prevent the dialog from appearing.
Serif launched the next generation of its Affinity layout, design, and photo apps in conjunction with a 40%-off sale through 14 December 2022 that drops the one-time price of all three to just $99.99, less than the cost of two months of an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription. Adam Engst encourages those who aren’t sure why they’re paying for Creative Cloud to give Affinity a try.
Watchlist
Brings new features, improvements and bug fixes to the date-focused note-taking app. (Free with $24.99 premium purchase option, free update, 69.6 MB, macOS 10.14+)
Adds support for joining Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Skype events with a single click from the calendar. (Free, 11.8 MB, macOS 11+)
The three Rogue Amoeba audio apps add full compatibility with macOS 13 Ventura. ($35/25/64 new, free updates, various sizes, macOS 10.15+)
Ensures the Open/Save dialog enhancement utility works correctly with Stage Manager in macOS 13 Ventura. ($34.95 new, free update, 13.7 MB, macOS 10.13+)
Calendar app updated with a few handy new features and improvements. ($49.99 new, free update, 56.6 MB, macOS 10.13+)
Preserves space savings of pure "cloned" files when copying from an APFS volume to another APFS volume. ($39.99 new, free update, 22.7 MB, macOS 10.15+)
