This is possible, but for some reason you can only set the different time zones on the iOS/iPadOS versions of Calendar, not the Mac one. Mac Calendar displays them just fine though. It’s a tiny bit hidden, but once you know easy to do. First, create or edit your event (you can create on the Mac and then edit on iOS to sort out the time zones). You get this display of the start and end times: Tap on the start time (not the date) and under the dial for setting the time you can set the time z...| TidBITS Talk
Originally published at: Do You Use It? Browser Tab Management - TidBITS Tab overload in traditional Web browsers prompted many people to try Arc, The Browser Company’s innovative browser that completely rethinks how tabs work (see “Arc Will Change the Way You Work on the Web,” 1 May 2023): Arc positions tabs in a left-hand sidebar, which enables users with more than a handful of open tabs to read their names. Other browsers are increasingly following suit; see “A Roundup of Vertical ...| TidBITS Talk
Originally published at: Beware Comcast Deleting “Inactive” Email Accounts - TidBITS Over on the Apple Consultants Network mailing list, people have been complaining about a destructive new Comcast policy that could result in “inactive” Comcast email accounts being deleted, with no option for recovery. The problem is that many users have active comcast.net email addresses that are forwarded elsewhere, so they don’t consider the associated accounts to be inactive. But Comcast does. A...| TidBITS Talk
Originally published at: Do You Use It? VPNs - TidBITS Virtual private networks, or VPNs, promise enhanced privacy and security by routing your Internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel to a theoretically trusted remote server, ensuring that no one on your local network or between you and the destination can see inside that tunnel. VPNs are also commonly used to circumvent location-based restrictions, such as watching the BBC from outside the UK, and IP-based limits, such as those school...| TidBITS Talk
My wife’s time machine SSD has been corrupted. Both of us back up with time machine infrequently since most of our use is email and research and entertainment since retirement. I’m attaching a pdf of the report from Disk Utility. The disk is described as 3 elements in Disk Utility and I’ve kept the reports in order. The disk itself seemed to pass muster. My question is would you recommend simply reformatting the disk and starting over or should the disk itself be replaced? The disk is a...| TidBITS Talk
Well, I’ve installed iPadOS 26 on my iPad Pro. Seems to be stable enough… quite like the glass interface. The multiple windows and the ability to quickly close or expand windows, the menubar, all great. Quite happy with it overall.| TidBITS Talk
Since Apple has now told us that they plan on starting to phase out Rosetta 2 with macOS 28 that means come 2027, we need to start getting serious about either VMs or Apple silicon native apps. For me that essentially boils down to FileMaker Pro 16. I have plenty of older Intel Macs I can play old games on (if I ever find the time), but it’s my own productivity apps, especially my own databases that I’ve been curating since the 90s that I need to worry about. So, what in 2025 are the leas...| TidBITS Talk
So for the past few months, almost every time I try to eject a drive that I mounted on my desktop, I get an error that the disk cannot be ejected because it is “in use”. This was never a problem in the past, but it occurs consistently now. When I check on which program is using it (there really should be an easy way to find this out and I am disappointed Apple has not built something into the OS to give more info and to give you a clean option), it invariably seems to be Spotlight. Even a...| TidBITS Talk
Originally published at: Security Updates for macOS 15.3.1, watchOS 11.3.1, and visionOS 2.3.1 - TidBITS Alongside the releases of iOS and iPadOS to address a USB Restricted Mode vulnerability (see “ iOS 18.3.1, iPadOS 18.3.1, and iPadOS 17.7.5 Block USB Restricted Mode Attack,” 10 February 2025), Apple also pushed out macOS 15.3.1 Sequoia, macOS 14.7.4 Sonoma, macOS 13.7.4 Ventura, watchOS 11.3.1, and visionOS 2.3.1. None of these releases have security notes listing CVE entries, suggest...| TidBITS Talk
Originally published at: Bill Atkinson Dies from Pancreatic Cancer at 74 - TidBITS Late last year, Bill Atkinson shared news of his health with the world (see “Bill Atkinson Diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer,” 14 November 2024). Unfortunately, pancreatic cancer is particularly deadly—in our sphere, it has also claimed Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin (who started the Macintosh project and lured Bill Atkinson to Apple), and my friend Oliver Habicht. Bill’s family posted this message on his Facebo...| TidBITS Talk
Adam C. Engst is the publisher of TidBITS and the guy who deals with everything related to this site. Message him directly if you need help.| TidBITS Talk
I’ve been a software developer since 1994 as a career, and since 1985 as a hobby. These days, I’m working mostly on embedded systems, but I’ve also developed system and application software for PCs and workstations running DOS, Windows, Linux and countless Unix-like operating systems. I’ve been using Macs since the 90’s but have done very little development on the Mac platform. My interests include movies (mostly sci-fi and action/adventure), music (classic rock and prog rock) and b...| TidBITS Talk
Originally published at: The Trials and Tribulations of Keeping Up with Apple’s Security Lockdowns - TidBITS At Rogue Ameoeba’s blog Under the Microscope, Paul Kafasis writes: During this time, Apple placed an emphasis on improving the security of MacOS, continually locking the operating system down further and further. Though their changes weren’t aimed at the legitimate audio capture we provided our users, they nonetheless made that capture increasingly difficult. We labored to keep o...| TidBITS Talk
Originally published at: Functional and Conceptual Pitfalls in Siri’s ChatGPT Integration - TidBITS 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. I’ve been trying to use this feature in the betas and now in the release versions of macOS 15.2 and iOS 18.2, and if anything, it has increased my frustration when interacting with Siri. Worse, I fear that some deeper iss...| TidBITS Talk
Physics faculty Berkeley, traveled the world, always with several Macs starting with a 128k in 1984. If you also like languages, food, or baseball we have plenty to talk about. 🙂| TidBITS Talk
