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The oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet, TidBITS brings you the Apple Macintosh, iPhone, iPad, and iPod news, reviews, tips, and commentary that matters. Join us each week for audio versions of award-winning coverage from industry stalwarts Adam Engst, Glenn Fleishman, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, Michael Cohen, Rich Mogull, Jeff Carlson, Tonya Engst, and others.

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Google Allowed to Keep Chrome and Continue Paying...

TidBITS ·

2025/09/03

After years of legal proceedings, the Google antitrust case has finally resulted in a ruling with real-world impact—though perhaps not in the way many expected. Rather than forcing dramatic changes, the ruling preserves key aspects of how users currently engage with Google’s products. In a highly readable 230-page PDF, Judge Amit Mehta writes: Last year, this court ruled that Defendant Google LLC had violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain

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Should You Let Claude Learn from Your Chats?

TidBITS ·

2025/09/02

On its blog, Anthropic writes: Today, we’re rolling out updates to our Consumer Terms and Privacy Policy that will help us deliver even more capable, useful AI models. We’re now giving users the choice to allow their data to be used to improve Claude and strengthen our safeguards against harmful usage like scams and abuse. Adjusting your preferences is easy and can be done at any time. By participating, you’ll help us improve model safety, making our systems for detecting harmful

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Are AI Subscription Models Sustainable?

TidBITS ·

2025/08/28

When it comes to AI, what should be available for free? We’re accustomed to getting many core Internet services, such as search and email, for free, but running anything at scale requires massive investment and operating costs. To give you a sense of the scale, OpenAI recently reported 700 million active weekly users of ChatGPT, four times the number accessing the service at the end of last year.You can use ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and others to an extent without paying. But all of them come with a

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Apple “Awe Dropping” Event Scheduled for 9 September...

TidBITS ·

2025/08/26

In what has become a predictable September tradition, Apple has announced its annual iPhone event for 9 September 2025, at 10 AM Pacific Time. You can stream it from Apple’s website, through the Apple TV app, or on YouTube, and Apple provides an easy way to add it to your calendar. The event’s teaser title, “Awe Dropping,” was featured on invitations sent to select (meaning, “not us”) members of the media. Apple’s home page and Events page feature an interactive logo that changes colors when touched

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No Email Issue on 1 September 2025 for Labor Day

TidBITS ·

2025/08/25

We’re taking next Monday’s email issue off to spend time with family and celebrate the Labor Day holiday here in the United States. We’ll continue to publish new articles throughout the next two weeks, and the lively TidBITS Talk discussions will continue unabated. TidBITS will return to your inbox on 8 September 2025—likely right before Apple’s next big iPhone announcement. In the meantime, TidBITS members can receive articles by email as soon as they’re published or read the full text of articles

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Lightroom Classic 14.5

TidBITS ·

2025/08/25

Adobe has issued Lightroom Classic 14.5 with a brief maintenance update for the desktop-focused photo cataloging and editing app. The release enhances the Generative Remove and Distracting People Removal features with speedier results, enables you to create and manage custom subsets in Copy-Paste settings, adds support for more Fujifilm and Sony cameras for tethered capture, adds more supported camera models and lens profiles (including the Samsung Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7 and Fold7), and allows you

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Carbon Copy Cloner 7.1.2

TidBITS ·

2025/08/25

Bombich Software has published Carbon Copy Cloner 7.1.2 (CCC) with official support for macOS 26 Tahoe, as well as a new “glass” icon for the new operating system’s Liquid Glass design. The drive cloning and backup utility now enables you to move the CCC icon around the menu bar by holding down the Command key while dragging, adds a menu item to the Volumes sidebar contextual menu that offers to delete an APFS volume, introduces another workaround for Apple’s restriction on

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Mimestream 1.8

TidBITS ·

2025/08/25

Mimestream has released version 1.8 of its Gmail-specific email app with support for the new Liquid Glass user interface in macOS 26 Tahoe. The update also adds Trash/Archive as a right-edge swipe action, fixes a bug that prevented Google contact groups from appearing in autocomplete, avoids inserting text replacements (like period instead of double space) inside code blocks, addresses inconsistent ordering of addresses in the compose window’s From address picker, resolves app crashes that

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Airfoil 5.12.5

TidBITS ·

2025/08/25

Rogue Amoeba has released Airfoil 5.12.5 with two new special sources for the wireless audio broadcasting app. The new Spoken Content special source (replacing Text to Speech) captures audio from the Accessibility settings Spoken Content area, as well as from apps that play text-to-speech audio. The Notification Center special source captures other audio that plays through the system’s Notification Center (like alarm sounds). The update also ensures that Airfoil is more resilient on networks where

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EagleFiler 1.9.18

TidBITS ·

2025/08/25

C-Command Software has released EagleFiler 1.9.18, adding compatibility with macOS 26 Tahoe. (C-Command notes that it’s best to install version 1.9.18 before installing Tahoe to prevent the app from hanging.) The document organization and archiving app disallows Tahoe’s Security Code AutoFill in text fields (due to irrelevancy), ensures the Merge Message Files command no longer marks the new mailbox record as unread if all the messages were already read, adjusts the behavior of the Drop

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Do You Use It? We’re Highly Invested in the Apple...

TidBITS ·

2025/08/25

The sky is still blue, water is still wet, and TidBITS readers are indeed highly invested in the Apple ecosystem, as indicated by the more than 2000 responses in our latest poll (see “Do You Use It? The Apple Ecosystem,” 15 August 2025). However, Apple’s hold on our hearts and wallets isn’t spread evenly across its hardware lineup. Nearly everyone uses a Mac as their primary computer, but fewer own a HomePod, and very few use a Vision Pro. Still, no other manufacturer beats Apple in any of these

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1Password 8.11.6

TidBITS ·

2025/08/22

1Password has issued 1Password 8.11.6 with a few improvements and fixes for the password manager. The release resolves an issue where single sign-on users were unable to unlock their accounts after an email change, ensures the SSH agent suppresses approval prompts for requests from background applications regardless of the “Remember key approval” setting, fixes a bug that displayed incorrect banners saying Git commit signing must be reconfigured, addresses an issue where the app could incorrectly

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Former Apple Executive Mike Shebanek Speaking at NMUG...

TidBITS ·

2025/08/22

I don’t usually share meeting announcements, but the Naples MacFriends User Group (NMUG) has a particularly interesting presentation that they’ve invited TidBITS readers to attend for free. On Wednesday, 3 September 2025, at 11:30 AM EDT, Mike Shebanek will be sharing stories from his 19 years at Apple, from 1994 through 2013. Throughout his Apple career, he rose from Senior Systems Engineer to Senior Product Manager and Product Line Manager in Apple’s Worldwide Product Marketing group, leaving his

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AppleCare One Stumbles Over Multiple macOS User Accounts

TidBITS ·

2025/08/22

On Mastodon, John Siracusa writes:I finally called Apple Support and resolved my AppleCare One problem. It is as I suspected: AppleCare One does not correctly handle multiple user accounts in macOS. This is a known issue. No ETA for a fix. After days of receiving nonsensical “you have 24 hours to comply” emails about his AppleCare One coverage, John finally discovered that AppleCare One cannot properly handle multiple user accounts in macOS, a limitation Apple acknowledges but has no timeline for

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Apple TV+ Monthly Price Increases to $12.99

TidBITS ·

2025/08/22

Apple has increased the monthly subscription fee for Apple TV+ to $12.99 in an effort to reduce or better monetize churn. Since Apple TV+ lacks the deep library of a Netflix or Hulu/Disney+, it’s common for people (raises hand) to subscribe, catch up on the few shows or movies they care about, and then cancel. Personally, I lucked out recently because Apple decided to give me a 3-month free trial after I bought my 14-inch MacBook Pro. I don’t plan to renew once the free trial ends. You can save

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You Know What an Email Address Is, Right?

TidBITS ·

2025/08/21

Developer Samwho has built a 21-question quiz that tests your knowledge of what is and is not allowed in an email address. It starts easy but gets hard fast. Familiarity with RFC 822, RFC 2822, RFC 5322, and RFC 6532 is useful, but you’ll still be surprised by some of the answers, such as @.

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Apple Expands Self Service Repair to Canada

TidBITS ·

2025/08/21

In a press release that will likely make little difference to anyone, Apple writes: Apple today announced the expansion of its Self Service Repair and Genuine Parts Distributor programs to Canada, providing individuals and independent repair professionals across the country broader access to the parts, tools, and manuals needed to repair Apple devices. Given the seemingly minimal uptake of the Self Service Repair program, it’s hard to get too excited about its entry into Canada, the program’s 34th

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Apple Updates Block Zero-Day Malicious Image Exploit

TidBITS ·

2025/08/20

Apple has released a set of emergency security updates, including iOS 18.6.2 and iPadOS 18.6.2, iPadOS 17.7.10, macOS 15.6.1 Sequoia, macOS 14.7.8 Sonoma, and macOS 13.7.8 Ventura. The updates address a critical vulnerability in ImageIO that has been exploited. The ImageIO vulnerability, which Apple credits as being discovered internally, could allow an attacker to use a maliciously crafted image file to corrupt memory in an exploitable way. Apple acknowledged that this security flaw “may have been

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HandBrake 1.10

TidBITS ·

2025/08/18

The HandBrake Team has released version 1.10 of its open-source video conversion program HandBrake with a few additions and improvements. The update adds a new Social 10MB preset, addresses excessive memory usage during the in-depth scan, adds support for Apple’s VideoToolbox AV1 hardware decoder, reduces CPU usage when using VideoToolbox decoders and encoders, adds an option to disable Dolby Vision and HDR10+ passthru to the command line interface, improves Framerate Shaper metrics

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ScreenFlow 10.5

TidBITS ·

2025/08/18

Telestream has issued ScreenFlow 10.5 with new screen recording capabilities, numerous bug fixes, and a change in system requirements. In its first update since October 2023, the screencast recording and video-editing app now enables you to exclude ScreenFlow and specific applications from recordings, adds support for recording screen regions, and enables looped and timed recordings. The Recording monitor displays the desktop preview from the recorder, audio levels from microphones, and audio levels

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