TidBITS

A couple of custom ringtones refused to sync to Michael Cohen’s new iPad. The Genre metadata was the culprit, and one of Apple’s unspecified “minor bug fixes” in iTunes 11.1.3 closed the case. 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.

Joe Kissell weighs in on Apple’s recent update to Mail in Mavericks. 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’re buying a new iPad and want to push it to its limits, Infinity Blade III is the app to do it. But as a sequel, it doesn’t bring much new to the table. 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 an update to target issues with Google’s Gmail and the Mail app in OS X 10.9 Mavericks. But will it solve all woes reported by Mail users? 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.

Torn between the iPad Air and the iPad mini with Retina display? Josh Centers shares his iPad Air experience and tells you what you need to know to make the right buying decision. 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 Mavericks, you can finally read books from your iBooks library on your Mac. Hooray! But even with the new Mavericks iBooks app managing your book library, iTunes still has a hidden role to play, and that can cause mischief with your metadata. 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 have an Apple TV attached to your television, our in-progress book from Josh Centers, “Take Control of Apple TV,” has the advice you need to get more great content and use it more fluidly than ever before. Tune in regularly to read each chapter as it’s published! 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 following along with Jeff Carlson’s advice in our streamed ebook, “Take Control of Your Digital Photos,” you’re shooting smarter, assigning metadata at import, and applying keywords and other metadata later on. Now it’s time to take advantage of that work, and learn how you can locate images nearly instantly. In this chapter, Jeff provides step-by-step instructions in the four photo-management apps on how to search for specific metadata — such as keywords and ratings, and even camera-generated data — to track down shots. Then he explains how to encapsulate such searches into smart albums whose contents change based on criteria you specify. 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.

Android’s critics often talk about how fragmented its ecosystem is, but the developers of the OpenSignal app have finally given the fragmentation life with a variety of visualizations. In Apple news, the Obama administration has saved older iOS devices from a Samsung-initiated import ban, and Apple is giving away free content in its Apple Store app. We also bring you the story of the classic educational game The Oregon Trail, Josh Centers appeared on MacVoices to tell the story of how he joined TidBITS, your Xerox WorkCentre copier could be mixing up its numbers, and Amazon has found a clever workaround for Apple’s in-app purchasing restrictions. 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.

Notable software releases this week include OpenOffice 4.0, Growl 2.1, Airfoil 4.8, Typinator 5.6, ReadKit 2.2.1, and Final Cut Pro X 10.0.9. 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 created a simple way to report iMessage spammers until you can block them entirely in iOS 7. 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 popular iOS podcast client is now available on the Mac. How does it stack up with its arch-rival, Instacast? 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.

Lumosity is an iOS app that promises to make you smarter while you have fun. But does it work? Josh Centers explores the app and the science behind it, but isn’t sure if he has become more intelligent in the process. 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.

Despite selling over one million units, FileMaker Inc. has announced that it is discontinuing its personal database product Bento. Adam Engst delves into the details, and suggests that the moral of the story is that we users must constantly be vigilant when relying on an app or service to make sure we have an exit strategy. 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.

At a mere $35, Google’s new Chromecast is a tempting alternative to the Apple TV, but how does it stack up for Apple users, including educators and business professionals? Josh Centers put it through its paces, and even tried a game to see how it compares to the Apple TV. 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.