TidBITS

Apple has announced WWDC 2018 dates and that the location will remain in San Jose. If you’re interested in attending, get your name in the lottery by March 22nd. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

For anyone who needs to print in situations where there are no power outlets and where cables would be fussy, the battery-powered, Wi-Fi-enabled Canon Pixma iP110 is a reasonably priced, robust solution. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

It looks like Apple will be getting into digital magazine subscriptions with the acquisition of Texture, which provides its subscribers with access to several hundred magazines for a flat monthly fee. Apple was silent on its plans for the service. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Navigating the Settings app in iOS has become ever more difficult over the years — did you know there are over 1200 options in it? — but in this installment of Bad Apple, we have a radical suggestion that could make most trips to the top level of the Settings less frustrating: alphabetization! Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Facebook is sending its two-factor authentication users text messages they don’t want. This situation provides yet another reason why you should use a dedicated app for generating two-factor authentication codes instead of SMS. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

“Take Control of iOS 11” author Josh Centers shares a quick Live Photos tip that can rescue blurry photos of hyperactive subjects like kids and dogs. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

When you’re thinking about where you’re going to locate your sleek new HomePod, think twice about putting it on a wooden surface. The HomePod’s vibration-dampening silicone base can react with oiled wood surfaces, leaving unsightly rings. Learn how to avoid the problem or clean it up if your table has already been marked. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

We’ve had the HomePod for a weekend, and for the most part, it has been a success when it comes to music, thanks to excellent audio quality and Siri spinning Apple Music tracks with aplomb. Siri on the HomePod has been less useful as a fount of general knowledge, or perhaps we just don’t have the right questions. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Were you thinking about taking advantage of the 50 percent discount CrashPlan for Home users get when switching to Carbonite? Although those discount prices remain the same for the first year, the regular price you’ll pay later for Carbonite service has increased by 12 to 20 percent. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Facebook has added a Protect item to a screen in its iOS app that lists Facebook services. Tapping Protect takes you to an App Store page for a VPN called Onavo Protect that is owned by Facebook and “collects your mobile data traffic.” Worse, 12.5 million iOS users may already be using Onavo Protect. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Apple’s revenues and profits grew at record rates during the first fiscal quarter of 2018, but signs of softer unit sales indicate that more of the company’s money is coming from higher-priced, higher-margin products. The other big winners were the Services and Other Products categories. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

In this inaugural Bad Apple column, Adam Engst explores what happens to iCloud Photo Library when you turn iCloud off and back on. A preview: it took a 90-minute call with Apple to discover that the “expected behavior” requires a temporary upgrade to an unnecessary storage plan and then a 60-minute call to get the charge for that plan reversed. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

If Preview is displaying some PDFs as black rectangles instead of pages, even though their thumbnails are correct, you can solve the problem in a non-obvious way: by recalibrating your display. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Some iPhone 7 models are showing “No Service” messages even when cellular coverage is available due to a failed logic board component. Apple has announced a repair program to fix the problem for free. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.

Apple quietly slipped some new remote control capabilities into iOS 11.2.5 and iTunes 12.7.3. Josh Centers explains how to take advantage of them. Read the full article at TidBITS, the oldest continuously published technology publication on the Internet. To get a full-text RSS feed, help support our work and become a TidBITS member! Members also enjoy an ad-free version of our Web site, email delivery of individual articles, the ability to make long comments with live links, and discounts on Take Control orders and other Apple-related products.