We have two feature articles for you this week. Glenn Fleishman leads off with a look at how today’s newspaper cartoonists rely on digital tools, but not in the way most of us would expect. Then Adam Engst goes deep with 21 carefully considered and explained steps for clearing space on your Mac, starting with the easiest, safest, and most effective. We also briefly cover how Walmart has started selling the M1 MacBook Air and share an interview with the last man standing in the floppy disk business. Finally, this week’s Do You Use It? poll asks about your preferred podcast app. Notable Mac app releases this week include Audio Hijack 4.3.2, GarageBand 10.4.11, Little Snitch 5.7.4, Microsoft Office for Mac 16.83, Parallels Desktop 19.3, and Piezo 1.9.
You might think that modern cartoonists would create their strips using digital drawing tools, but in fact, many still rely on traditional pens and brushes. Glenn Fleishman explored the surprising way that cartoonists meld the old with the new as part of the research for a new book, How Comics Were Made.
Apple no longer makes it easy to tell precisely how much free space is available on your Mac, but you know when you don’t have enough. Adam Engst offers (and explains) 21 simple steps to clear space quickly.
Watchlist
Maintenance update for the audio-recording workflow app. ($64 new, free update, 37.1 MB, macOS 11+)
Addresses an important security vulnerability. (Free, 855.3 MB, macOS 13.5+)
Resolves an issue Automatic Profile Switching problem with macOS 14.4 Sonoma. ($45 new, free update, 32.2 MB, macOS 11+)
Update focused on improvements and fixes for Outlook. ($149.99 new for one-time purchase, $99.99/$69.99 annual subscription options, free update, macOS 10.15+)
Fixes a bug that prevented the virtualization software from launching on Macs with Apple silicon. ($99.99 Standard Edition, free update for version 19 licenses, macOS 10.14.6+)
Introduces new, simplified audio capture backend to the audio recording tool. ($19 new, free update, 24.5 MB, macOS 14.4+)
