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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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Bookends 15.2.2

TidBITS ·

2025/11/14

Sonny Software has released Bookends 15.2.2, featuring a new Apple-related AI feature for the reference management tool. If a unique identifier isn’t found when importing reference metadata from Bookends Browser, Bookends will use Apple Intelligence’s on-device model to extract metadata from the page. The release also enables you to create a separate bibliography for each chapter (section) when using the native Word scan, improves native Word unscanning, fully renders HTML attachments in

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Hazel 6.1

TidBITS ·

2025/11/14

Noodlesoft has released Hazel 6.1, with a new Liquid Glass look for the automation and cleanup utility in macOS 26 Tahoe. The update adds menu icons for Tahoe and new folder options to tell Hazel how to handle cloud-only files. It also works around an Apple bug that could cause Hazel’s icon to be shown for external drives in the Finder’s sidebar, ensures preview is done in the background to avoid locking up the user interface, addresses the lack of a scrollbar when bringing up the text

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Apple Introduces Digital ID, but It Doesn’t Replace...

TidBITS ·

2025/11/12

Apple continues to push forward with adding digital ID cards to Apple Wallet (see “Apple Announces Details of Storing State IDs in Wallet,” 2 September 2021). Currently, iPhone users can add a driver’s license or state ID to the Wallet app in 12 US states—Montana, North Dakota, and West Virginia came online recently—and Puerto Rico. Those in Japan can add My Number Card.Apple has now launched the more general Digital ID, which will initially roll out in beta at TSA checkpoints at more than 250 US

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Apple’s iPhone Pocket Is a Rorschach Test, Not a...

TidBITS ·

2025/11/12

Apple writes: ISSEY MIYAKE and Apple today unveiled iPhone Pocket. Inspired by the concept of “a piece of cloth,” its singular 3D-knitted construction is designed to fit any iPhone as well as all pocketable items. Beginning Friday, November 14, it will be available at select Apple Store locations and on apple.com in France, Greater China, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and the U.S. While it’s hard for Apple users not to think of the iPod Socks (see “Sockarooni!” 15 November 2004),

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Fission 2.9.2

TidBITS ·

2025/11/10

Rogue Amoeba has released Fission 2.9.2 with full support for macOS 26 Tahoe (with a strong recommendation for macOS 26.1), as well as further refinements to the app’s updated color scheme (blue is back!). The audio editor now confirms your intentions if you attempt to open more than 11 files by dropping them onto the app’s Start window, makes several improvements to VoiceOver compatibility, restores the zero dB center line to Fission’s waveforms, adds a new Automatically Show Start Window option in

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Acorn 8.3.2

TidBITS ·

2025/11/10

Flying Meat has released Acorn 8.3.2 with a few improvements and bug fixes for the image editor. The update changes how the Horizontal & Vertical Align Center commands are used for multiple selected layers, now using the optical bounds of selected layers instead of automatically centering in the canvas. Acorn also slightly changes its behavior when transforming selections—see the release notes for a complete explanation. Other changes include a resolution for an issue where new layers weren’t

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Affinity 3.0.1

TidBITS ·

2025/11/10

Canva has issued Affinity 3.0.1, a maintenance update for the recently announced single app that brings together the creative suite of Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher (see “Canva’s Affinity Combines Photo, Designer, and Publisher into One Free App,” 31 October 2025). The release improves stability for the Ask panel in macOS 26 Tahoe, ensures Save as Package works correctly with restricted fonts, improves the reliability of Export to Canva completions, and ensures controls in the Develop

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TextExpander 8.4

TidBITS ·

2025/11/10

TextExpander has issued TextExpander 8.4 with a new Date Picker feature. When building snippets, the Date Picker Fill-in lets you select any date (past, present, or future) from a visual calendar and insert it directly into your Snippet as it expands. (Check out this TextExpander blog post, which features an overview video featuring TidBITS alum Josh Centers.) The release also improves sync reliability and fixes issues with renamed or deleted snippet groups not syncing correctly across devices. ($40

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Audio Hijack 4.5.5 and Piezo 1.9.7

TidBITS ·

2025/11/10

Rogue Amoeba has updated Audio Hijack 4.5.4 (full-featured audio recording) and Piezo 1.9.7 (simple audio recording) with full support for macOS 26 Tahoe—Rogue Amoeba recommends macOS 26.1 or higher in the strongest possible terms. The two audio utilities work around a bug in Tahoe that could cause audio to be corrupted and fix a bug related to launch order that could prevent the capture of FaceTime audio. Audio Hijack now supports capturing audio from the new Phone app in Tahoe, ensures choosing a

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Comparing the Classic and Unified Views in iOS 26’s...

TidBITS ·

2025/11/10

I suspect many TidBITS readers are of the generation that still uses the iPhone as a phone. Heck, many of us remember rotary phones that needed actual dialing, and some may even have had party lines, which were, sadly, a lot less fun than they sound now. Since then, phones have switched to keypads, gone cordless, shrunk and grown again, and become our constant companions. As a result, we’ve grown accustomed to the iPhone’s Phone app, and for the most part, it works reasonably well. Nonetheless,

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Tahoe’s Terrible Icons, Another Take

TidBITS ·

2025/11/05

A few months ago, we pointed to an Apple icon comparison (see “BasicAppleGuy’s macOS Icon History,” 9 September 2025). Now Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba has weighed in with another look at how Apple’s app icons have changed in macOS 26 Tahoe. Paul writes:On the new MacOS 26 (Tahoe), Apple has mandated that all application icons fit into their prescribed squircle. No longer can icons have distinct shapes, nor even any fun frame-breaking accessories. Should an icon be so foolish as to try to have a

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Apple Launches Unified App Store Website

TidBITS ·

2025/11/04

With no fanfare, Apple has launched a new App Store website that brings together the individual platform stores for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It’s a well-designed, responsive site that adjusts well to different screen and window sizes. You can switch between stores, browse categories, search for apps, view each app’s full entry, and share a link via Messages and to apps with sharing extensions. You can’t copy the URL directly from the share sheet, but you can grab it from your

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Six Colors Charts Apple’s Fiscal 2025

TidBITS ·

2025/11/04

At Six Colors, Jason Snell writes: Being that Apple’s fiscal 2025 has now concluded, it’s time for a second set of colorful financial charts, ones that take the longer view and show the changes in Apple’s business over an entire year. Let’s dig into the charts, starting with the big one, overall Apple revenue for the last 27 years: While we like covering Apple’s quarterly reports to contextualize where the company is going throughout the year, Jason’s charts of Apple’s annual performance give a

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OS 26.1 Updates Bring Small Improvements

TidBITS ·

2025/11/04

A week later than past release patterns suggested, Apple has pushed out the 26.1 versions of all its operating systems. iOS and iPadOS receive the most changes, while macOS gets a subset, visionOS adds just a couple, and watchOS, tvOS, and HomePod Software see only bug fixes. Shared iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1 Improvements For many things, Apple tries to keep its operating systems in feature parity, so changes appear in multiple operating systems at once. As I wrote in “iOS 26.1 to Add

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1Password 8.11.16

TidBITS ·

2025/11/03

1Password has issued 1Password 8.11.16, adding ChatGPT Atlas as a trusted Web browser. (As a counterpoint, also see “Be Cautious with Agentic Web Browsers,” 1 November 2025.) The password manager now adds breadcrumb navigation to the SSH Agent and CLI pages, resolves an issue where 1Password’s main window could unexpectedly take focus away from other apps, fixes a bug that could prevent you from unlocking the app if it was closed during sign-in, ensures icons load significantly faster across the

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Transmit 5.11.1

TidBITS ·

2025/11/03

Panic has released Transmit 5.11.1, adding support for renaming files larger than 5 GB in AWS S3. The file transfer app also updates the default connection address for DreamObjects, addresses a potential crash when dragging files out of Transmit, fixes a problem that would cause the selection to change unexpectedly in column view, avoids a crash that could occur in column view when displaying the contextual menu, ensures opening folders using keyboard shortcuts works as expected, and fixes a bug

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Be Cautious with Agentic Web Browsers

TidBITS ·

2025/11/01

At The Verge, Robert Hart writes:In the past few weeks alone, researchers have uncovered vulnerabilities in Atlas allowing attackers to take advantage of ChatGPT’s “memory” to inject malicious code, grant themselves access privileges, or deploy malware. Flaws discovered in Comet could allow attackers to hijack the browser’s AI with hidden instructions. Perplexity, through a blog, and OpenAI’s chief information security officer, Dane Stuckey, acknowledged prompt injections as a big threat last week,

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Canva’s Affinity Combines Photo, Designer, and...

TidBITS ·

2025/10/31

The market for high-end graphic design software just got weirder. Several years ago, I wrote “Consider Switching from Creative Cloud to Affinity V2” (5 December 2022) to encourage those who were paying significant monthly fees to Adobe for Creative Cloud to check out a competing trio of apps from a company called Serif. Affinity Photo, Designer, and Publisher gave Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign a run for their money. They may not have fully matched up to Adobe’s powerhouse apps, but they

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Services, Mac, and iPhone Drive Apple’s Q4 2025...

TidBITS ·

2025/10/31

$102.5 billion: that’s how much revenue Apple generated in its fourth fiscal quarter of 2025. That mind-boggling figure is a September-quarter record and is 8% higher than the same quarter last year (see “Apple Sets Q4 2024 Revenue Record on Services and iPhone Growth,” 1 November 2024). Of that revenue, $27.5 billion was profit, driven by double-digit annual growth in the Services and Mac categories and 6% growth in the iPhone segment. Services revenues set an all-time record, and iPhone revenues

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Can Agentic Web Browsers Count?

TidBITS ·

2025/10/30

Everyone and their dog is now releasing a Web browser with a built-in chatbot. At last check, that includes at least: Brave, from the company of the same name ChatGPT Atlas, from OpenAI Comet, from Perplexity Dia, from The Browser Company (now owned by Atlassian) Edge, from Microsoft Google Chrome (not yet available to me since I don’t subscribe to Gemini) Opera Neon, by Opera (I’m still on the waitlist) Apart from the last two, I’ve played with each of these a bit, mainly by asking questions

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