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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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Apple TV and Peacock Bundle Feels Wrong

TidBITS ·

2025/10/17

In a press release, Apple writes:Apple and NBCUniversal today announced the launch of the Apple TV and Peacock Bundle, available beginning October 20. … Customers in the U.S. can save over 30 percent by subscribing to the Apple TV and Peacock Premium bundle for $14.99 per month, or Apple TV and Peacock Premium Plus for $19.99 per month, through either app or website. Apple One subscribers on the Family and Premier plans can subscribe to Peacock Premium Plus and receive a 35 percent discount — the

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New M5 Chip Accelerates the MacBook Pro, iPad Pro,...

TidBITS ·

2025/10/15

Apple can’t be accused of sitting on its hardware laurels. Just a month after launching the iPhone 17 lineup with the new A19 and A19 Pro chips, the company has shifted its attention to the Mac, iPad, and Vision Pro, unveiling models powered by the new M5 system on a chip. The M5 brings unprecedented performance to the base level of the next generation of Apple’s M-series chip family. It features a new 10-core GPU architecture that promises over 4x the peak GPU compute performance of the M4

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Camo Studio 2.4

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

Reincubate has published Camo Studio 2.4 with improvements to USB device adjustment controls. The virtual camera system boosts interface visibility by displaying a bolt icon next to camera adjustments when they’re controlled via hardware, improves handling of hardware-controlled camera properties across supported devices, ensures iOS devices no longer unpause unexpectedly when the device list changes, addresses a crash that occurred when using iOS 15 Camo Camera devices in the audio tab, and

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Scrivener 3.5

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

Literature & Latte has released Scrivener 3.5 with support for macOS 26 Tahoe and improvements to alleviate trackpad scrolling lag. The long-form writing tool also receives a new Liquid Glass app icon, works around an Apple bug where lists could take on the formatting of the preceding paragraph, updates text caret resizing code, ensures project search no longer closes the composition mode window if the latter is in a different space, fixes a bug where captions beneath images would not be

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DEVONthink 4.1.1

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

DEVONtechnologies has issued DEVONthink 4.1.1 with added support for new AI models, including Anthropic’s Claude 4.5 Sonnet and Google’s Nano Banana text-to-image engine. The document and information manager now detects empty pages when clipping PDFs, updates the Safari and share extensions so they’re more reliable in macOS 26 Tahoe, reduces resources used for versioning by 90% (especially during toolbar searches), loads Apple Mail mailboxes and their structures faster and more reliably in the

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SpamSieve 3.2.1

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

C-Command Software has published SpamSieve 3.2.1 with bug fixes and improvements for the spam-filtering utility. The release works around a bug in macOS 26 Tahoe that prevented messages from moving to the Junk mailbox for some customers with POP accounts, resolves an issue where remote training would log (harmless) errors for POP accounts, improves the Mail extension’s error reporting, works around a change where macOS would keep trying to add the SpamSieve icon to the menu bar even if the Show menu

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Fission 2.9.1

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

Rogue Amoeba has released Fission 2.9 with initial support for macOS 26 Tahoe, as well as interface and icon updates. The audio editor updates its user interface with a refreshed light theme that complements the app’s gold coloring and modernizes its app icon for Tahoe. The release also ensures the Cut and Cut & Split menu items correctly copy audio when used, improves the Set Playhead command to be more forgiving with entered data, and corrects drawing issues that could be seen when

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SoundSource 5.8.8

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

Rogue Amoeba has issued SoundSource 5.8.8 with additional workarounds for bugs in macOS 26 Tahoe. The audio control utility now automatically employs an alternate audio capture method for audio from FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and the new Phone app to ensure audio is captured as expected. The release also updates the ARK plug-in to version 12.3.1 with Tahoe-related fixes, ensures capturing audio from Apple Remote Desktop works as expected, displays the on-screen volume indicator in Tahoe

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Juice Jacking Protection Setting Broken in iOS 26

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

You may have heard about “juice jacking,” a type of attack that exploits a security vulnerability in USB charging. This vulnerability exists because USB ports can simultaneously transfer both power and data, potentially allowing a compromised charging station in an airport, hotel, or other public place to attack a connected iPhone. Although there are no reports of juice jacking attacks in the wild, Apple added protection against this vulnerability years ago with a setting that explicitly prompts you

en-US

Apple TV+ Rebranded to Just Apple TV

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

At the bottom of a press release about the global streaming debut of F1 The Movie, Apple writes: Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity. Yes, that means people will watch Apple TV (the streaming service) in Apple TV (the app) using Apple TV (the digital media player). From now on, those of us who write about Apple will have to treat “Apple TV” as a modifier or work hard to create clarity through context. The very next paragraph in Apple’s press release runs smack into this

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Apple Discontinues Clips Video App

TidBITS ·

2025/10/13

Apple Support writes: The Clips app is no longer being updated, and will no longer be available for download for new users as of October 10, 2025. You can continue to use Clips on iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 or earlier. Save your Clips videos to your photo library or another location. You can save videos with any effects you might have added in Clips or save individual clips without effects. Then, watch your videos in other apps like Photos or make new videos with individual clips using iMovie or other

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Parallels Desktop 26.1.1

TidBITS ·

2025/10/10

Parallels has released version 26.1 of its Parallels Desktop for Mac virtualization software, featuring improvements for Linux and Windows. The update fixes a bug that caused Windows 11 virtual machines to crash with a blue screen of death (BSoD) when Norton 360 security software performed a scheduled smart scan, introduces a driverless version of Parallels Tools for Linux, adds several updated Linux distribution (including Ubuntu 24.04.3, Kali 2025.2, and Debian 12.11) for installation on Macs with

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Mimestream 1.8.3

TidBITS ·

2025/10/10

Mimestream released version 1.8.2 of its Gmail-specific email app with fixes for several bugs related to macOS 26 Tahoe. The update resolved an issue that prevented the font size pop-up in the format bar from working correctly, addressed a crash that occurred when re-ordering account inboxes in the sidebar, fixed the padding between the Add buttons in the Profile detail view, adjusted the look of the message list filter toolbar button, and resolved some sluggishness when switching folders. Version

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EagleFiler 1.9.19

TidBITS ·

2025/10/10

C-Command Software has released EagleFiler 1.9.19, featuring a short list of enhancements for the document organization and archiving app. The new version ensures that the capture key works as expected with DEVONthink 4, updates the share extension so it can now import images with no associated file (such as from the Quick Look preview window after taking a screenshot), fixes a bug where tag searches with negative conditions sometimes didn’t find any matches when Match Partial Words was unchecked,

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How to Turn Liquid Glass into a Solid Interface

TidBITS ·

2025/10/09

Apple’s new Liquid Glass interface design brings transparency and blur effects to all Apple operating systems, but many users find it distracting or difficult to read. Here’s how to control its effects and make your interface more usable. Although the relevant Accessibility settings are quite similar across macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS, I separate them because they offer different levels of utility in each. I have no experience with (or interest in) a Vision Pro, so I can’t comment on Liquid Glass

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Apple’s Liquid Glass Design Prioritizes Content Over...

TidBITS ·

2025/10/06

I’ve finally figured out my core discomfort with Liquid Glass, Apple’s new translucent interface design language for its latest operating systems. It’s not that there are occasional spots where the translucency renders the interface nearly illegible. It’s usually either obvious what is being obscured or easy to clear up the confusion with a small movement. Nor is it that controls can shrink, expand, and “dynamically morph,” which harms discoverability and reduces affordances for users who assess the

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iPhone 16 Pro Slightly Outperforms iPhone 17 for...

TidBITS ·

2025/10/06

After feeling slightly suckered by Apple’s claims of 48-megapixel macro photography last year (see “Understanding the iPhone 16 Pro’s 48-Megapixel Macro Photography… and Reverting to 12-Megapixel Shots,” 4 October 2024), I decided to see if I was being snobby about needing a Pro-level iPhone for the macro photos I enjoy taking. Macro photos use the iPhone’s Ultra Wide camera, and Apple upgraded the standard iPhone 17 with a 48-megapixel Ultra Wide camera, which sounded like the same one found in the

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Final Cut Pro 11.2, Compressor 4.11, and Motion 5.11

TidBITS ·

2025/10/06

Apple has released updates for its three professional video apps: Final Cut Pro 11.2, Compressor 4.11, and Motion 5.11. Final Cut Pro removes support for FireWire-connected devices in macOS 26 Tahoe, unlocks more controls for ProRes RAW video shot on iPhone (for adjusting exposure, color temperature, tint, and demosaicing), adds support for editing Apple Log 2 footage with the vibrancy of the original scene by applying the Apple Log 2 LUT, improves stability when adjusting sliders in the ProRes RAW

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Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher 2.6.4

TidBITS ·

2025/10/06

Serif has updated Affinity Designer, Affinity Photo, and Affinity Publisher to version 2.6.4 with a lengthy list of bug fixes. The release resolves misplacement of odd page numbers when exporting Photoshop PSD and Affinity files to PDF as All Pages, fixes a bug that caused master page pasteboard content to disappear from the page, addresses a crash when sliding through History after adding extra pages, ensures that the independent baseline grid is scaled correctly, and fixes a bug that could render

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PopChar 10.5

TidBITS ·

2025/10/06

Ergonis Software has released PopChar 10.5, a maintenance update that’s recommended for all users running macOS 26 Tahoe. The character discovery and font exploration utility resolves issues with the View Changer and Shape Finder buttons that made them unclickable in Tahoe, and brings further unspecified Tahoe adaptations and improvements. ($39.99 new with a 25% discount for TidBITS members, free update, 5.8 MB, release notes, macOS 12+)

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