Category: TidBits

Prepare for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS OS 27 by Updating to 26.6
Security

Prepare for macOS, iOS, and iPadOS OS 27 by Updating to 26.6

Apple released macOS 26.6 Tahoe, iOS 26.6, and iPadOS 26.6 with a huge number of fixes for security vulnerabilities. However, the release notes for each also include an unusual comment along the lines of “optimizes the Spotlight index in preparation for macOS 27.” At WWDC, Apple promised a rearchitected Spotlight search engine that would be faster and more reliable, so

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WhatCable Reports on Your USB-C Cables
TidBits

WhatCable Reports on Your USB-C Cables

We’ve all ended up with a collection of random USB-C cables that arrived with devices, were purchased while traveling, or were left by visitors. But you can’t look at a cable to determine its data speed, how much power it can carry, or whether it’s hampering display quality. You could buy a hardware tester, but for most people, the free

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Be Careful When Offloading iPhone Apps
TidBits

Be Careful When Offloading iPhone Apps

Automatic offloading of seldom-used apps can be a good strategy for recovering space on an iPhone whose storage is almost full, and iOS can do this for you in Settings > Apps > App Store > Offload Unused Apps. When you open an app that was offloaded, iOS will re-download it from the App Store so you can use it—assuming

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Turn Off Unused Sharing Services on Your Mac
Security

Turn Off Unused Sharing Services on Your Mac

Apple just released macOS 26.6.1 Tahoe, macOS 15.7.9 Sequoia, and macOS 14.8.9 Sonoma solely to patch a vulnerability in Screen Sharing that could allow unauthenticated connections from attackers on the network. Yes, you should update, but also take a moment to visit System Settings > General > Sharing and turn off any sharing services you aren’t actively using. Many security

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AI-Powered Hack Shows Why Updates Are More Important Than Ever
AI

AI-Powered Hack Shows Why Updates Are More Important Than Ever

Last month brought news of an unprecedented event in the evolution of AI. Several OpenAI models hacked a real company, not for malicious reasons, but because they decided that finding the test answers was more efficient than solving the problems themselves. This sounds like science fiction—it’s not far off the fictional Kobayashi Maru test in the Star Trek universe, where

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Don’t Delay Mac Purchases to the Last Minute
AI

Don’t Delay Mac Purchases to the Last Minute

We’ve become accustomed to being able to get nearly anything we want—including Macs—overnight, or at least within a couple of days. Unfortunately, surging demand from AI data centers has created a global memory shortage that’s squeezing the consumer electronics industry. As a result, we’re seeing both higher Mac prices and significantly longer delivery times as Apple competes for a limited

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How to Develop Safely with AI
AI

How to Develop Safely with AI

Generative AI is transforming software development. Large language models are good at human languages, but they’re even better at programming languages, which have much smaller vocabularies and fewer ways to combine words. Most importantly, code does something, so running it confirms whether it performs as intended. The result has been a democratization of development, much as happened with desktop publishing.

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Eliminate Article Distractions with Safari Reader
Productivity

Eliminate Article Distractions with Safari Reader

Reading articles on the Web has become fraught with distraction. Ads are terrible, of course, but publications also inundate you with navigation links, pop-ups encouraging you to subscribe, popular article lists, and more. Even worse is when an article requires multiple clicks or taps to keep reading. It’s maddening—you just want to read and get on with your day! The

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Never Miss a Meeting Again with In Your Face
Productivity

Never Miss a Meeting Again with In Your Face

If you are often late to or miss meetings because Apple’s notifications are too easy to ignore, we recommend trying the In Your Face app. Available for the Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch, In Your Face displays unmissable full-screen alerts and plays audible alarms for calendar events and timed reminders. Unlike standard notifications that quietly vanish or sit

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Drag Documents to Apps in the macOS App Switcher
Productivity

Drag Documents to Apps in the macOS App Switcher

You undoubtedly know about pressing Command-Tab to bring up the macOS App Switcher and mousing to the app you want to switch to. Keyboard jockeys probably even know to keep holding Command down while pressing Tab or right-arrow to cycle to the right (press Shift-Tab, the grave accent/tilde key, or left-arrow to cycle to the left), before releasing the Command

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