April 1 marks the 50th anniversary of the corporate founding of Apple Computer. Numerous entities have marked the event with articles, videos, gatherings, and even books. We’ve collected the most compelling of these in TidBITS Talk for those who are interested, and there are some great stories there.
However, I must confess to a distinct lack of interest in the event as a whole, even though most of Apple’s history overlaps with my own. The Apple I came before my computing years—I was only 9 when Apple was founded—but my first computer in high school was a Franklin ACE 1000—an Apple ][+ clone that Apple sued out of existence. I went to college in 1985 with an Atari 1040ST that provided more power than the Mac for less money, but Cornell University was an early member of the Apple University Consortium, so Macs were everywhere on campus. I became proficient with the Mac while working in public computer rooms, and in my junior year, Tonya and I purchased a double-floppy Macintosh SE, which we later upgraded to an SE/30 with an internal hard drive. That was the Mac I used when we started TidBITS in April 1990, and I’ve owned and used innumerable Apple products in the subsequent 36 years.
Until April 1 rolled around and I realized that I should write something despite other deadlines looming, I hadn’t thought much about why I’m so disengaged with Apple’s corporate history. To an extent, it’s because Apple is work for me at this point, not a hobby. I can’t say when that switch flipped—computers were as much an entertainment as employment for many years—but these days, reading or watching pieces about Apple feels like a chore, not something I do for pleasure. Either I already know the material, or I have to evaluate whether it warrants coverage in TidBITS. Worse, when the time period covered includes events I know about, I can’t help but be slightly annoyed if my recollection differs or if the person writing had been given much better access than I received from Apple. It’s no longer enjoyable.
I also avoid revisiting the past to keep myself from feeling bad about it. There was a lot of idealism wrapped up in the early days of Apple and—even more for me—the Internet. From the perspective of the early 1990s, we are very much living in a science fiction future, technically speaking. Even the iPhone 17 I carry now is vastly more powerful than the Macs I used in the early 1990s—its processor is tens of thousands of times faster, its display packs nearly twenty times as many pixels, and its Internet connection is always available and thousands of times faster than the dial-up modems of the era.
But as much as I adore much of this technology, I’m not sure that it has made the world a better place overall. We were undoubtedly naive, but there was a distinct belief that technological advances would improve the human condition. That has undoubtedly happened in many places and situations, but I remain deeply troubled by the direct and indirect societal ills caused by the tech giants. We used to cast IBM as the industry’s “evil empire,” but in hindsight, its buttoned‑down monopoly looks positively staid next to the extractive surveillance machines of X/Twitter and Meta/Facebook, not to mention the social and environmental impacts of a consumerist culture. And then there are all the outright illegal activities that have forced us all to think nonstop about digital security—how many times per day do you enter passwords? Apple may be the best of the lot, but it’s a low bar, and even Apple is still clearly willing to put profit ahead of principle.
Much of my lack of interest in Apple’s history stems from a simple fact: companies have no soul, and Apple is no exception. What’s special about Apple for me is not the company as a standalone entity, but the products that Apple has produced and, even more so, the people who build, support, write about, and use Apple-adjacent products. I got into technology because I love explaining how things work and seeing people’s eyes light up when I show them what’s possible or solve a problem they couldn’t figure out. Much of my enjoyment of covering Apple came from the relationships I built through years of thoughtful email, along with in-person interactions at Macworld Expo, other conferences, and Mac user group meetings.
Very little of that came from Apple itself, and much of it is now gone. Discussion forums that once hosted in-depth conversations among people who made things happen in the industry have given way to snarky social media posts. Conferences have almost entirely disappeared, and those that remain lack the weight of Macworld Expo as a must-attend event. Most Mac user groups have folded or are a shadow of their former selves (the Naples MacFriends User Group is a shining counterexample). I keep TidBITS Talk going because it provides an important community, even if few of the participants will ever meet in person.
There may be a better path forward—one informed by looking back not at Apple itself, but at what grew up around it. The cliché is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” I prefer a version that author Rebecca Solnit ascribes to a poet and arborist named Joe Lamb: “We need to remember that we can learn from and repeat the successes of the past.”
So, in keeping with Steve Jobs’s focus on the future, I suggest that those of us who struggle to dwell on the past take Apple Fellow Alan Kay’s advice to heart: “The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
I applied that idea to start TidBITS, come up with the first advertising on the Internet (which I’m now embarrassed by, given how exploitative a business model it turned out to be), write the fifth book about the Internet (Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh, which came with the first flat-rate consumer Internet account), and build a successful ebook publishing system with Take Control Books.
All of that was aimed at helping people use technology to improve their lives and the world around them. Now I—and anyone else who feels this loss of community—need to think about which lessons from the past are worth carrying forward and how best to do that. What would you do?
ADAM ENGST 27 March 2026
Shortly after the release of macOS 26.4 Tahoe (see “OS 26.4 Adds AI-Generated Playlist Playground, Separates Family Sharing Purchases,” 25 March 2026), several TidBITS Talk users began reporting problems with running certain older AppleScripts, while other scripts continued to work normally. The affected scripts did not appear to be corrupted, but Script Editor refused to open them, making editing impossible. Fortunately, community members have identified a workaround.
Allen Gainsford first reported the issue, noting that many of his BBEdit AppleScripts no longer worked after upgrading to macOS 26.4. Attempting to run them produced macOS error code -1758(errOSADataFormatObsolete), indicating that the script’s compiled data format could not be read. More human-readable expansions of error code -1758 appear in a 1999 Apple Event Errors document (“Data couldn’t be read because its format is obsolete”) and a 2016 Open Scripting Architecture Errors document (“The data format is obsolete”). Script Editor also wouldn’t open them, displaying the error message “The document ‘filename’ could not be opened.”
Further investigation by Dafuki revealed a nuanced situation. In his testing, many AppleScripts—even some dating back to 2006—continued to run without issues when triggered from apps like BBEdit and Keyboard Maestro. However, others wouldn’t open, and after failing to open one script, Script Editor would then refuse to open any subsequent scripts until it was quit and relaunched.
He found that the issue appears to involve older compiled scripts that rely on legacy storage formats—hence the “data format is obsolete” errors. Allen Gainsford even found that one affected script had an empty data fork and a 26 KB resource fork, indicating that the actual script was stored in the resource fork—a legacy structure macOS supports only for backward compatibility.
Although Script Editor’s 2.11 version number didn’t change from macOS 26.3.1 to macOS 26.4, Apple did increment its build number from 233 to 234, indicating that it received some changes.
Dafuki’s solution involves using Script Debugger, a professional AppleScript development environment from Late Night Software. Although developer Mark Alldritt retired Script Debugger in January 2025, he generously made the final version available as a free download.
To recover an affected script:
The new file may be smaller—Dafuki reported one script dropping from 40 KB to 10 KB—and Script Editor should be able to open and run it.
Even though I have now opened hundreds of random AppleScripts dating back to the early 2000s (everything I could find on my Mac via a search), none of them suffer from this problem. Nor have I found discussions of AppleScript issues in macOS 26.4 anywhere other than TidBITS Talk, suggesting the problem isn’t widespread.
However, the fact that two regular members of TidBITS Talk—a relatively small group with only 6500 participants—both encountered this problem immediately upon updating to macOS 26.4 suggests a reproducible issue under certain conditions rather than simple file corruption.
The conditions necessary to trigger the problem—likely involving older compiled AppleScripts that use legacy binary formats or resource forks—may be highly unusual. Most Mac users don’t use AppleScript, and most of those who do aren’t using scripts they wrote decades ago. But clearly some TidBITS readers do!
If you discover scripts that won’t open, don’t panic: they almost certainly still work. You just need Script Debugger to modernize the file format so Script Editor can read them again. Also, be sure to leave feedback with Apple or file a bug using Feedback Assistant (in the Utilities folder in your Applications folder).
Andrew Orr
Apple Intelligence in Reminders
Apple Intelligence makes Reminders more useful by letting users turn highlighted text into tasks directly from the share sheet. Instead of copying details by hand, selected text from emails, webpages, or notes can generate suggested reminders automatically.
When text is shared to Reminders, Apple Intelligence scans it for actions, dates, quantities, and instruction-style phrasing. The feature is designed to speed up capture when tasks are buried inside longer material, such as emails or articles.
Instead of skimming past action items and promising to come back later, users can highlight relevant text and send it straight to Reminders. The system then presents suggested tasks for review before anything is added to a list.
The feature does not replace manual reminders and still requires oversight. Its value comes from reducing the friction between reading something and turning it into something actionable.
Apple Intelligence analyzes shared text for patterns that resemble tasks or requirements. It looks for phrasing that implies actions, deadlines, quantities, or step-by-step instructions that typically end up as reminders.
The system works best with structured or semi-structured writing, including recipes, project notes, technical instructions, and emails that contain lists of requests. Lines written as instructions or bullet-style statements tend to convert cleanly.
You can share anything from a short phrase to several paragraphs. Longer selections often generate multiple suggested reminders at once, which is where the feature saves the most time.
Reminders can also group imported items into sections, which becomes more useful as lists grow. People who previously bounced between apps while retyping tasks will notice the biggest improvement.
Casual or conversational writing usually produces weaker results. Clear source text leads to clearer suggestions.
Apple Intelligence requires supported Apple Silicon hardware, which limits availability to newer devices. Compatible iPhone and iPad models, along with modern Macs, handle the on-device processing used for text analysis.
Structured text converts more reliably into reminders
Language and region settings also affect availability. Apple Intelligence features only appear when supported combinations are enabled.
Once enabled, Reminders uses Apple Intelligence automatically. There is no separate toggle inside the app.
Open an email, webpage, or note that contains information you want to track. Highlight the relevant text, then tap the Share button that appears above the selection.
A suggestion panel appears with reminders pulled from the selected text. Ingredient lists, bullet points, and numbered steps usually convert cleanly.
Suggested reminders appear before being added to a list
Longer paragraphs still work, though they may need light editing after import. In most cases, the process is faster than creating reminders manually.
On a Mac, the process follows the same idea. Open a document, webpage, or email, then highlight the portion you want to extract.
Work documents and research material often convert well because the writing tends to be structured. Larger selections can be grouped automatically into sections.
The biggest advantage appears when a single source contains multiple action items. Long emails with several requests can turn into separate follow-up tasks in one step, instead of being retyped or mentally tracked.
Recipes, travel plans, and project notes also convert well because they already resemble lists. Apple Intelligence handles batch extraction more efficiently than manual entry, especially when switching between apps would slow things down.
Simple one-off reminders still work, but the time savings are smaller. The feature matters most when tasks arrive faster than they can be organized.
Selecting only the most relevant portion of text gives Apple Intelligence a clearer signal and usually improves accuracy. Reviewing suggestions before adding them helps keep lists clean.
Editing reminder titles after import improves readability, especially when the source text uses shorthand or internal jargon. As automated lists grow, sections, folders, and tags become more important for long-term organization.
Apple Intelligence availability depends on language support, which remains more limited than Siri's. Supported languages include:
Apple Intelligence adds practical automation to Reminders for people who regularly pull tasks out of long emails, articles, and notes. It speeds up capture and reduces friction during organization.
People who build reminders from scattered text will notice the biggest gains. Those who rely mostly on single reminders may see fewer benefits, but the feature remains useful when information starts to pile up.
William Gallagher
You can now customize the color and look of folders much more easily than before
You've long been able to customize folders in the Mac's Finder, but only with a lot of non-obvious fiddling. Now with macOS Tahoe, Apple has made it a lot simpler.
Maybe you have been using the Mac long enough to remember when third-party firms sold utilities that changed your folders into 3D. Or perhaps you've never given a folder a passing through beyond wondering where you saved it.
Whichever folder customizing camp you're in, do take a moment to see what Apple has added — and how it can benefit you.
First select a folder, then right click. Either click on a color next, or on the Customize Folder button
It's not like it's going to take you long, since there are just two elements to this:
In this case, icons and emoji don't sound all that different — whichever you choose, you end up with a symbol appearing on the folder. But there are differences, and at the least, having a choice of both gives you scope to go crazy with customizing everything.
The color tags are the row of circles in different colors. You pick by clicking on any one of them.
You can actually pick two or more colors, and what happens then is currently inconsistent between the Mac and the same feature on the iPad. On the iPad, you get a pair or more of color dots next to the name.
On the Mac, the folder changes to be the last color you clicked on. There will still be small color dots for each color used, but the overall folder look will be based on the last color selected.
Under Customize Folder, you can choose from a startling range of symbols or emoji
There is a plus sign to the right of the color tags, and it does lead to more tag options — but it isn't worth looking at. It shows you a list of all the tags that came on the Mac or that you created, but only the color ones can be used.
You can, if you wanted, click on the plus sign and then in the pane that appears, type a color name into the search box. Typing "Blue," for instance, turns out to have the same effect as clicking on the blue circle.
Your folder now has a symbol or an emoji on it. If you've chosen a symbol, then it will appear as if embossed into the folder, while an emoji will be like a full-color sticker.
In either case there are countless symbols or emoji to choose from, but you can only select one type and one such image.
There is one other difference between emoji and symbols that may affect your choice, if only through sheer practicality. If you choose to use a symbol, you are stuck scrolling through the very long list — but with an emoji, you get a search box.
Do note that the older, slightly more clunky way of customizing the look of a folder still works — although only if you have not used the new way. If you've set any color or added any symbol, you can't change anything else until you:
Once you've done that, the folder returns to its default state. And then you can change it from an image of a folder to just about anything you can think of.
Seriously — if you have any image, you can change the folder to use it. Now, it's true that you can use any image in the next set of steps, but typically it's clearest if you use a small app icon instead of a panoramic photograph.
Using Get Info, you can copy an icon from an application and paste it into a folder
You could, for example, have a folder that you use only for Pages documents. In that case, you could replace the image of a folder with the icon of the Pages app.
To do that:
Immediately, your folder turns to an image of the Pages application. Or any application — or any image you choose to paste in to the Get Info window in the final step above.
Whether you use the old and slightly contorted way, or Apple's new and simpler one, you could overuse this feature. If every folder on your Mac has a different color, a different emoji, or is a different image, the effect loses its worth.
Suddenly instead of one important folder in a sea of regular and identical blue ones, nothing stands out.
Yet this ability to mark a folder as, say, red because it's important and another as green because it's going well, is a boon. It's not a giant productivity feature, but it's one that consistently speeds up getting to what you want on your Mac.
ADAM ENGST 1 April 2026
Thankfully, this isn’t an April Fool’s prank. After I wrote “DarkSword Exploit Threatens iPhones Still Running iOS 18” (23 March 2026), Apple published the tech note page “Update iOS to protect your iPhone from web attacks,” emphasizing the importance of staying current. It also addresses what those with older versions of iOS should do, noting that Apple released updates for iOS 15 and iOS 16 (to protect against Coruna—see “Older iPhones and iPads Receive Critical Security Updates for Coruna Exploits,” 13 March 2026). Initially, the page promised an update for devices running iOS 18 as well, but on 1 April 2026, the page changed to read:
We enabled the availability of iOS 18.7.7 for more devices on April 1, 2026, so that users with Automatic Updates turned on can automatically receive important security protections.
On the security notes page for iOS 18.7.7 and iPadOS 18.7.7, Apple added this text:
Note: We enabled the availability of iOS 18.7.7 for more devices on April 1, 2026, so users with Automatic Updates turned on can automatically receive important security protections from web attacks called DarkSword. The fixes associated with the DarkSword exploit first shipped in 2025.
For those who have stayed with iOS 18 instead of upgrading to iOS 26.4, you can now go to Settings > General > Software Update, scroll down to the Also Available section, and tap iOS 18.7.7. My iPhone SE is now happily updating.
Given the severity of DarkSword, its proliferation in exploit markets, and Apple’s unprecedented move to allow users to update without upgrading this late in the cycle, I strongly encourage all iOS 18 holdouts to install iOS 18.7.7 immediately.
ADAM ENGST 30 March 2026
After nearly 20 years, Apple has officially discontinued the Mac Pro, with no plans for future models, as first reported by Chance Miller at 9to5Mac. The move marks the end of an era for Apple’s most expandable desktop, although the Mac Pro had become something of an anachronism.
Early in its run, the Mac Pro was the choice of people like me who considered themselves professionals because they needed a bit more processing power, additional RAM to avoid swapping, faster (and less cluttered) internal storage, and support for multiple displays. I bought an early 2009 “cheese grater” Mac Pro for those reasons, paying $2279.
In 2013, Apple introduced the cylindrical “trash can” Mac Pro at $2999, abandoning the cheese grater’s PCIe expandability for a compact design that relied on Thunderbolt 2 (see “Can a Normal User Justify a Mac Pro?,” 21 April 2014). The following year, the 27-inch iMac with Retina display arrived—combining significant CPU power with an unbeatable screen, user-expandable RAM, and dual-display support—capturing many users who had previously bought Mac Pros (see “Apple Launches iMac with Retina Display, Refreshes Mac mini,” 16 October 2014 and “The Retina iMac: It’s All about the Screen,” 31 October 2014). The 27-inch iMac’s popularity left the Mac Pro’s audience limited to scientists and audio/video professionals who specifically needed PCIe cards, which the cylindrical Mac Pro couldn’t provide.
Apple acknowledged its design mistake in 2017 (see “Maca Culpa: Apple Admits Mac Pro Missteps and Promises More Transparency,” 4 April 2017), but took two more years to release the third-generation Mac Pro, which hearkened back to the cheese grater design, albeit with feet and optional wheels. That model was still Intel-based, but saw a massive price jump to $5999 (see “2019 Mac Pro and Pro Display XDR: Big Iron for Big Bucks,” 10 December 2019). In 2023, Apple finally brought the Mac Pro into the Apple silicon era with the M2 Ultra chip, boosting the price again to $6999. Yet even as Apple advanced through M3, M4, and now M5 generations, the Mac Pro remained stuck at the M2 Ultra.
With Apple silicon consolidating CPU, GPU, and memory onto a single chip, the traditional appeal of the Mac Pro to even its core audience of audio and video professionals—expanding RAM, adding PCIe cards, swapping out processors—largely vanished.
For the vast majority of users who need more power and connectivity than is provided by the Mac mini or MacBook Pro, the Mac Studio now offers equal or better performance than the Mac Pro at a significantly lower starting price ($1999) and in a smaller footprint (see “New Mac Studio and Studio Display Change Mac Buying Calculus,” 8 March 2022). That performance gap can only widen if the Mac Studio gains an M5 Ultra in its next refresh. The primary advantage the Mac Pro had over the Mac Studio was always its PCIe slot expandability, and Thunderbolt 5 now handles many tasks previously managed by PCIe.
For those who truly need supercomputer-level power—primarily for AI research—emerging support for RDMA over Thunderbolt 5 may allow multiple Mac Studios to be linked together.
As someone who moved away from the Mac Pro as Apple increased the distance between it and the consumer lineup, I have thoughts about what it means to serve a professional audience. After a 2014 and 2020 27-inch iMac with Retina display, I switched to a 14-inch MacBook Pro with a pair of Studio Displays (see “Switching from a 27-inch iMac to a 14-inch MacBook Pro: A Fresh Start,” 30 June 2025). It’s a good system, even a great system, but I stand by the points I made in “Apple: Design Macs for Other Types of Professionals” (5 March 2022) about how Apple still isn’t designing Macs for professionals in some ways. Yes, we now have the Studio Display, and Mac webcams are no longer criminally poor, but all Apple has done to improve screen ergonomics is give the Studio Display a $400 stand to add height adjustment—a few books work just as well. Keyboard and trackpad ergonomics haven’t improved, the edges of Mac laptops are still uncomfortably sharp, and there’s still no option for cellular connectivity in Mac laptops.
