If you’re a Verizon customer, the company has likely already enrolled you in its new “Custom Experience” data-collection scheme, but you can turn it off and delete the collected data.
In keeping with our tradition, we’re going to take off the last few weeks of 2021, which this year means slightly larger gatherings with our immediate families and video calls with far-flung relatives. You can expect the next email issue of TidBITS on 10 January 2022. Thanks for reading TidBITS, and we hope our content has enriched your life.
iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 can sum up less-urgent notifications in regular summaries to reduce the number of times per day your phone distracts you.
Adam Engst shares how he has significantly added to his HomeKit-based home automation system over the past year and muses about the true benefits of home automation. Hint: it’s not about making things physically easier.
With the iOS Music app, it’s easy to accidentally delete a purchased song from your library when you merely intend to remove the downloaded audio. You can’t recover from this mistake within the Music app but must work through the iTunes Store using a Mac.
The Life360 app lets subscribers see where their friends and family members are at all times, but unfortunately, the company is also selling access to that data to data brokers that repackage and resell it widely.
Apple has released iOS 15.2 and iPadOS 15.2, with delayed features like App Privacy Report and Digital Legacy. Apple also dropped watchOS 8.3, tvOS 15.2, and HomePod Software 15.2.
Apple’s latest operating systems offer powerful features to tame notifications, but how can you make sure you always get important alerts at the right time? The answer is Time Sensitive notifications.
Ever wonder what it would be like to surf the Web on your Apple Watch? For just 99 cents, you can find out! Eat your heart out, Dick Tracy.
TidBITS Talk readers shared an insightful essay that nicely describes the motivation of many TidBITS members in supporting us and a tip that the Gmail app now supports non-Gmail accounts.
Apple has updated the firmware in all currently supported AirPods models but hasn’t said what it’s supposed to change.
A collection of well-known Apple developers, podcasters, and professors have signed on to the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking, a call to action among software developers and users alike to encourage capabilities that allow linking between information resources, both local and on the Web.
TidBITS has been bringing you the Apple news, advice, and technical details you need for over 31 years, but the only way we can keep it up is if you chip in a few bucks to make it happen. Join the TidBITS membership program today!
watchOS 8 wished Adam Engst a happy birthday recently, which was both a nice touch and a small surprise. He also discusses some quirky problems related to printer drivers.
USB-C was supposed to make connectivity easier. Instead, it has acquired a profusion of footnotes, exceptions, and labeling that can leave average users frustrated—and with the wrong cable. USB 4 and Thunderbolt 4 are our last best hope.