Adam Engst

I’ve just worked with a reader on a type of scam that’s new to me but not to some bloggers targeted by it in the last few years. A webmaster receives what looks like a copyright infringement message claiming that an image on their site has been used without permission. (This is all too believable for many, particularly people who have been posting for years: most of us weren’t as careful about checking on usage permission in the past as we are today.) The message contains a link to the image, a link to the purportedly infringing page, and a threat to start legal proceedings if certain actions aren’t taken within five business days.

To my mind, Clean Up is the most impressive Apple Intelligence tool we have now. Introduced in Photos in macOS 15.1 Sequoia, iOS 18.1, and iPadOS 18.1, Clean Up enables you to remove distracting people and objects from the background of photos, replacing them with AI-generated scenery. Clean Up may automatically highlight items you might want to remove, and you can always scrub over or circle an unwanted one to eliminate it.

Has your iPhone 14 Plus rear camera stopped providing a preview? Apple says a very small percentage of iPhone 14 Plus devices manufactured between 10 April 2023 and 28 April 2024 may exhibit this problem. The company has started a repair program to fix the problem for free.

If you don’t know what CSV stands for, stop right here. I’ll save you the time of even reading that it’s “comma-separated values” and is a funny, least-common-denominator format used to pass field-based data in rows—tabular data—between apps. For those who read “CSV” and thought, “Aha!” I want to introduce you to an excitingly useful new app.

A longtime TidBITS reader contacted me in a slight panic yesterday. While searching on his iPhone for an obituary, he tapped a possible result in the Google search results. The site to which he was sent threw up a bunch of dire-sounding warnings about how his iPhone was infected

Although there are no details about the transition, Apple has taken over the previously independent iCloud Passwords add-on for Firefox. The move enhances the company’s password management services for users outside its ecosystem.

As 2024 winds down, many readers will receive TidBITS membership renewal notices in email. If you’re among them, thanks in advance for renewing—we rely on your continued support! If you have trouble (especially with resetting your password, an aspect of the site that has just been broken by an onslaught of spambots—we’re working on it), contact Lauri Reinhardt at

Apple has integrated ChatGPT into Siri with the second set of Apple Intelligence features that debuted in this week’s operating system releases. Don’t get too excited.

With macOS 15 Sequoia, Apple has addressed a long-standing issue by letting update notifications open the App Store’s Updates screen. It’s a small improvement that improves the user experience when updating apps from the Mac App Store.

Rogue Amoeba has finished moving its entire fleet of audio apps to its next-generation audio capture technology, a process that took three years after being forced by Apple security changes. Here’s the story.