TidBITS

In keeping with our tradition, we’re taking the last few weeks of the year off, so look for the next email issue of TidBITS on 2 January 2017. Thanks for your attention in 2016, and here’s to 2017! 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.

Netflix now allows iOS users to download movies and TV shows for offline viewing. Josh Centers explains how. 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.

Amazon’s iOS app now enables you to look inside packages from the company to help you figure out what you’ve received without having to open each box. 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 need your support to keep TidBITS vibrant and relevant in the next year. With your help, we’ll continue to write articles that explain core Mac technologies, help you protect your digital life, cover Apple’s hardware and software releases, and keep you up to date on essential Mac apps. 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.

The new MacBook Pro laptops are the first Macs with Thunderbolt 3, a standard that uses the USB-C plug style and retains USB compatibility. But what’s most interesting about Thunderbolt 3 is how it supports numerous other protocols, including USB, Thunderbolt 2, FireWire, DisplayPort, and Ethernet, with the addition of appropriate adapters. 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 you’ve been confused by three quick updates to iTunes that all have the same release notes, you’re not alone. 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.

People are angry about all the adapters required for the new line of MacBook Pro laptops, but thankfully Apple is temporarily reducing prices on those adapters and the LG 4K and 5K monitors. 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.

Moving your data from an old Mac (or a PC) to a new one can be a complex undertaking. Joe Kissell provides a detailed walkthrough of the process for each of several common scenarios. 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.

MacTech has now announced that Marshall Smith, NASA’s Chief Engineer of Human Exploration Systems, will be giving the keynote at MacTech Conference 2016. Smith will be talking about NASA’s plans for sending humans to Mars and what sort of collaborative efforts at the enterprise level are necessary to achieve such a goal. 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 has released its first set of updates for macOS 10.12, watchOS 3, and tvOS 10 to address a variety of bugs. If you have already updated to the major releases, these updates are worth installing soon, but if not, hold off for another week or so to make sure they haven’t introduced some new problem. 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.

iOS 10.0.3 addresses some unspecified cellular connectivity issues for iPhone 7 users, especially those on Verizon Wireless. 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.

macOS 10.12 Sierra doesn’t just contain new features — it also removes some longstanding capabilities that Mac users have grown accustomed to over the years. Read on to discover what you won’t find in Sierra and how to work around these missing options. 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 you want to invoke Siri on your Sierra Mac with your voice — no need to click an icon or press a key — read on for instructions from Scholle McFarland’s “Sierra: A Take Control Crash Course” book. 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 person-to-person payment services have added iMessage app versions, letting you text money to friends. Glenn Fleishman explains the P2P payment space and looks at the iMessage apps for payment services Circle, Square, and Venmo. 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.

macOS 10.12 Sierra offers a subtle new way to keep all the windows on your desktop neatly aligned. Josh Centers explains how to take advantage of it. 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.