This week brings two highly focused operating system updates from Apple: macOS 13.5.1 Ventura, which restores location services permissions, and watchOS 9.6.1, which fixes a bug affecting Parkinson’s disease apps. If you’ve ever wanted to extract data from a table on a Web page, Adam Engst has a browser extension for you—Copytables, which simplifies selecting and copying cells, columns, rows, and entire tables. Then he examines the results of our Do You Use It? poll on Spotlight, revealing interesting usage patterns, providing tips for effective searching, and sharing suggestions for alternative search and app launching tools. This week’s poll asks how you check the weather on your iPhone: Apple’s Weather app or something else. We also look briefly at The Verge’s coverage of the 25th anniversary of the iMac and the passing of Adobe co-founder John Warnock. Notable Mac app releases this week include Microsoft Office for Mac 16.76, EagleFiler 1.9.12, and LaunchBar 6.18.
With macOS 13.5.1, Apple has restored location permissions to the Location Services screen of System Settings. Check your settings after updating.
Apple has updated watchOS 9 to address a highly targeted bug associated with access to the Movement Disorder APIs. Unless you use an affected app, install this update only when convenient.
The results of our poll asking how often people use Spotlight and what they use it for are in. While Spotlight enjoys broad usage, by far the most common features are finding files and launching apps—most of its more esoteric capabilities aren’t heavily used.
If you’ve ever been frustrated by trying to copy a column of data—or even just a handful of cells—from within a table on a Web page, get the Copytables browser extension for Chrome-based browsers, Firefox, or Safari.
Watchlist
Deprecates support of PostScript Type 1 fonts for all apps in the Microsoft Office suite for Mac. ($149.99 new for one-time purchase, $99.99/$69.99 annual subscription options, free update, macOS 10.15+)
Resolves a crash that occurred in the forthcoming macOS 14 Sonoma. ($49.99 new, free update, 34.3 MB, macOS 10.13+)
Keyboard-based launcher now supports automatic theme switching. ($29 new, free update, 17 MB, macOS 10.14.6+)
