Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ TidBITS Needs Your Support in 2026 Adam Engst As 2025 winds down, many readers will receive TidBITS membership renewal notices via email. If you're among them, thank you in advance for renewing'we rely on your continued support! If you have trouble, contact Lauri Reinhardt at [1][email protected]. Because TidBITS memberships operate on a rolling annual basis, if you don't get a renewal reminder, it's likely because you joined at another time of year. You can [2]check your membership expiration date on your account page; if it's blank, your membership is set to auto-renew. I'm not exaggerating the importance of reader support'it made up 93% of our revenue last year. The only corporate sponsors we have are those who actively choose to support the Apple community while promoting their products. That's because the level of tracking employed by the broader surveillance advertising industry offends me, and I far prefer to write for readers than feel that I'm collecting eyeballs for advertisers. Throughout 2025, I've continued to focus on practical and personal topics, as well as on significant Apple developments that affect the everyday user experience. In particular, I've devoted a lot of time to hands-on testing of AI tools and features to determine what's genuinely useful versus what's just hype. Other sites can cover the business dramas that most users will never notice. Support from members also enables me to focus more time on answering questions, keeping threads focused, and moderating discussions on [3]TidBITS Talk, which is becoming ever more popular. 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References Visible links 1. file://localhost/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#6a191f1a1a05181e2a1e030e08031e1944090507 2. https://tidbits.com/membership/ 3. https://talk.tidbits.com/ 4. https://tidbits.com/membership/benefits/ 5. https://tidbits.com/membership/benefits/ 6. https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/ 7. https://tidbits.com/members/ 8. https://tidbits.com/membership/benefits/ 9. https://tidbits.com/membership/levels/ 10. https://tidbits.com/membership/levels/ Hidden links: 11. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2024/12/TidBITS-Membership-Benefits-2025-2.png .