TidBITS

Twitter joins a growing club of sites that let you reduce the chance of a hijacked login with two-factor authentication. 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.

Peter Lewis of Stairways Software has updated the Keyboard Maestro macro utility to version 6, adding a slew of new features, including the capability to automate Web pages, trigger macros when USB devices are connected or disconnected, step through macros one action at a time, sync macros between Macs, and much more. 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 MacBook Air Flash Storage Firmware Update 1.0, Skype 6.4.0.833, PDFpen and PDFpenPro 6.0.3, iMovie ’11 9.0.9, Sandvox 2.8, and BusyCal 2.0.5. 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.

This week we have a grab bag of ExtraBITS for your reading pleasure, such as iOS 6 being approved for military use, an overview of announcements at the Google I/O developer conference, Bill Gates talking about the last days of Steve Jobs, Blackberry Messenger finally coming to iOS, and Matt Neuburg’s discussion of Apple’s future on the MacVoices. 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 the wake of Adobe’s decision to provide new versions of Photoshop only to Creative Cloud subscribers, we wonder if Pixelmator could be an acceptable Photoshop substitute. Spoiler: the answer is, “It depends on who you are.” 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.

After reading a couple of breathless announcements of the App Store’s 50 billionth download and Pixelmator 2.2’s 500,000 downloads, Adam Engst attempts to bring some context to these big numbers. 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.

Creative Cloud may be the way Adobe sees the future, but lots of people don’t like it. Adam Engst and Josh Centers outline some of the problems with Creative Cloud, with suggestions on both how Adobe could solve them and how you can register your opinions. 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.

Dots is a simple, yet addicting connect-the-dots game for the iPhone.  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 release also tweaks the rendering of multi-disc albums for an improved display in Albums view, plus adds display of album artwork to the Songs view, provides AppleScript control of AirPlay speakers, and tweaks the interface for iOS app updates. (Free, 188 MB) 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.

Our latest title, Michael E. Cohen’s “Take Control of PDFpen 6,” explains precisely what you can do with PDFpen 6 and its big brother, PDFpenPro 6, and with the mobile versions, PDFpen for iPad and PDFpen for iPhone. 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.

How can you type on an iPad while on the go? You could muddle along on the virtual keyboard, of course, or you could carry a physical Bluetooth keyboard around with you. The TouchFire takes a middle course. 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 Thunderbolt Firmware Update v1.2, Alfred 2.0.3, Microsoft Office 2011 14.3.4, and Fission 2.1.3. 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.

With Managing Editor Josh Centers on the job, we have a nice set of ExtraBITS for you to read this week, including articles about how the iPad could interfere with pacemakers, how iOS encryption is slowing down law enforcement, concerns about Apple’s weak and confusing photo management story, Apple breaking into the Fortune 10 for the first time, and a nice overview of iPad writing tools. 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 looking for more of a challenge from casual iOS games, then our own Matt Neuburg’s apps will hit the spot. 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.

Marvin, an ebook reader for iPad, offers advanced reading tools over other ebook readers, but its Achilles heel is faithful rendering of more complex book layouts. 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.