Apple tends to underplay any admission of bugs in its software. It doesn’t even like to use the word “bug.” Rather, it refers to fixing “issues.” For example, in its support article on OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.2 Update Apple notes that “an issue in which Keychain may not be accessible” has been resolved. As in this case, such admissions typically do not get posted until after Apple has released the update that fixes the bug.
However, as I initially covered back in 2008, a scrutiny of Apple’s support articles can reveal information about bugs that Apple is currently working to resolve. You’ll know you found one of these bug reports if the article concludes with the sentence “This document will be updated as more information becomes available.” These articles provide Apple’s current recommended work-around for the unresolved bug; the promised “more information” will likely be a future update that eradicates the problem altogether.
After a brief search, I found two recent examples of these type of articles.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Clark Ross finds his past has overgrown his present. He writes:
I use Time Machine to back up my Mac but the hard drive I use for my backups has run out of space. I plan to purchase a larger hard drive, but how do I safely move my backup from the old one to the new drive?
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Walt Bischoff and his spouse—like all good couples—would like to share more of their lives with one another. He writes:
My wife and I have separate Apple IDs and would like to share contacts via iCloud. How should we set up iCloud to achieve this? Right now we never seem to be able to access all of our contacts.
I can offer a couple of solutions. We’ll start with iCloud.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Aiden Andrews is planning to venture out but would like some of his most important files available to him. He writes:
I’m planning to be away from my home office for a couple of weeks but will take my MacBook Pro and iPad with me so I can work while traveling. What’s the best way for me to best arrange things so I have access to my files and can share them between my computer and iPad?
With the prevalence of cloud storage and mobile devices lots of people are interested in the most efficient ways to share their work. There is no one right answer but I can sketch out some of your options.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Every so often my coworkers, in the course of other business correspondence, slip in an Apple-related question of their own. For example, Coworker A tagged on this little gem to a recent communique:
We used to have an issue where we’d be using the Apple Remote to run Apple TV and then, all of a sudden, iTunes on my wife’s MacBook would start playing. Any sort of fix?
I can recommend a couple of fixes. The first is to simply not use the Apple Remote with your Apple TV. I happen to know that you have at least one iOS device in your possession and because you do, you can put Apple’s free Remote app to good use. As long as your iOS device and Apple TV are on the same network, that iOS device is all you need to control Apple’s set top box. Plus, it has the added advantage that it will interact only with the Apple TV—your other Apple devices will remain blissfully ignorant of its presence.
My Apple hardware has recently been bothered by several unrelated bugs—ranging from alert sound loss on my Mac Pro to free space mysteriously disappearing from my iPad. While I’ve figured out satisfactory work-arounds for most of these symptoms, they still defy a complete and permanent solution. Here are a quartet of the ones that have frustrated me the most:
Alert sound loss
Periodically, my 2009 Mac Pro appears to stop playing alert sound effects. I typically first take notice of the problem because Office for Mac’s Outlook stops playing the sounds that accompany sent or received mail. Finder alert sounds similarly vanish. Sounds in most other situations, such as music in iTunes, continue to play just fine. Of possible relevance, I have external speakers connected to my Mac via Line Out.
Chris has covered technology and media since the latter days of the Reagan Administration. In addition to his journalistic endeavors, he's a professional musician in the San Francisco Bay Area. More by Christopher Breen
Reader Chris Connors is not entirely happy with interactions between the Calendar and Mail applications. He writes:
I’m running Mountain Lion on my MacBook Air but I’m using an email client other than Mail. The problem I’m having is that every time I receive an event invitation via the Calendar application, Mail launches. Is there some way I can prevent this?
Although one might be tempted to simply trash Mail, try and do so and you’ll find that the OS prevents it. Like many of the applications bundled with Mountain Lion, this one is said to be “required” by the OS.
