Adam Engst

For me, Internet connectivity is a requirement for getting my work done. That’s seldom a problem, but we’ve occasionally suffered from spates of flaky connectivity over the years. Squirrels once chewed some of the cable leading to our house, our AirPort Extreme base stations’ reliability degraded over time, and we’ve needed several cable modem replacements. In each of these cases, the connection would vary between working fine, being slow, and dropping entirely, and it often took days to realize that something was going on enough to call for support.

Adam Engst shows how you can access your Apple purchase history to uncover when and for how much you purchased apps and content, providing insights into your past Apple transactions.

Recent revelations of unauthorized location tracking by Babel Street expose privacy vulnerabilities for iPhone users. Adam Engst offers actionable strategies to reduce the likelihood of having your privacy violated by data brokers.

Apple’s latest 24-inch iMac introduces the powerful M4 chip and enhances the user experience with a nano-texture glass option and a 12-megapixel Center Stage camera.

Yesterday, Apple introduced the M4 iMac (see “ New 24-inch iMac Upgraded with M4 Chip,” 28 October 2024). Today, the company pulled back the curtains on the diminutive M4 Mac mini, described in an intro video on the product page as “the lovable little Mac that can do it all.” (The video also teased more announcements for tomorrow.)

Although Apple spread its Mac hardware announcements over three days, you can still detect a progression that culminates in today’s announcement of the new MacBook Pro models.

Apple has increased the base amount of memory in the M2 and M3 MacBook Air models, possibly to ensure optimal performance for Apple Intelligence.

On 17 September 2024, we moved our Internet infrastructure to Cloudways, as I announced in “ LittleBITS: Main TidBITS Server Moving This Week ” (16 September 2024). Although we hoped things would go smoothly, there were inevitable hiccups. Most were behind the scenes, but readers encountered a few that impacted the TidBITS website and Matt Neuburg’s TidBITS News app. We’ve dealt with those issues now, so I wanted to explain for those who might have noticed problems.

Apple apparently hasn’t learned much from the criticism it took earlier this year for an ad showing creative works unceremoniously crushed in an industrial press (see “ Apple Apologizes for Tone-Deaf “Crush!” iPad Pro Ad,” 10 May 2024). A pair of new ads for Apple Intelligence portray the Writing Tools and Memories movies as tools for those unwilling to put in any effort.

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.