PODCAST

TidBITS

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.

All Episodes

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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,

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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

en-US

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+)

en-US

Nick Heer Peers Through Liquid Glass

TidBITS ·

2025/09/30

In a deep examination of Liquid Glass on the iPhone and Mac on his Pixel Envy blog, Nick Heer writes:I am spending an awful lot of words on the MacOS version because I think it is the least successful of the two Liquid Glass implementations I have used. MacOS still works a lot like MacOS. But it looks and feels like someone dictated, context-free, that it needed to reflect the redesign of iOS. The iOS implementation is more successful since Liquid Glass feels — and I mean feels — like something

en-US

OS 26.0.1 Updates Fix Early Bugs

TidBITS ·

2025/09/29

Apple has released small updates across its operating system lineup to fix early bugs that came to light after the official launch of the OS 26 upgrades: macOS 26.0.1: Apple says that the update resolves the problem that prevented some users from upgrading to Tahoe on the M3 Ultra Mac Studio (see “macOS 26 Tahoe Won’t Install on the M3 Ultra Mac Studio,” 17 September 2025). iOS 26.0.1: This update fixes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth dropouts on the iPhone 17, iPhone Air, and iPhone 17 Pro, suggesting an

en-US

Predicting When We’ll See OS 26 Updates

TidBITS ·

2025/09/26

On his Eclectic Light Company blog, Howard Oakley has pored over the past two years of macOS releases to predict when we might see macOS 26 Tahoe updates—and, by extension, updates to Apple’s other operating systems, which typically come out on the same day. He suggests:If Tahoe follows the same pattern [as Sonoma and Sequoia], you can expect releases to occur on the following dates: 26.0 – 15 September 2025 26.1 – 27 October 2025 26.2 – 15 December 2025 26.3 – 26 January 2026 26.4 – 30 March

en-US

Lunar 6.9.1

TidBITS ·

2025/09/26

Alin Panaitiu released version 6.9 of Lunar with support for macOS 26 Tahoe. The display brightness control utility also enabled Enhanced Contrast to function even when Overlay dimming is in use, and resolved an issue with the Paddle window not being clickable. A quick update to version 6.9.1 enhances the visibility of on-screen display (OSD) text on white backgrounds and corrects an incorrect brightness value in OSD when making fine adjustments. ($23 new, free update, 20.8 MB, release notes, macOS

en-US

791 results