Tim Cook has upped the ante in the privacy conversation by calling for the United States to adopt “comprehensive” privacy laws similar to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union.

GDPR is a unifying regulation concerning data protection and privacy for individuals in the European Union and European Economic Area. It was introduced in May 2018, tightening up on Europe’s already strict data regulations. Now Cook wants to bring it to the U.S.

Update: Video of Tim Cook’s speech added.

Looking for a fun game to get you through the rest of the week? You’re in luck if so, since massively popular farming RPG Stardew Valley just landed in the App Store, optimized for iPhone and iPad.

And it’s every bit as great as you’d hope. Check out the trailer below.

The streaming TV service Apple is almost certainly developing won’t be just for Americans. A new report indicates the company will make its content available in over 100 countries around the world.

After years of silence, details of this streaming service are starting to leak out, and this is just the latest good news for Apple fans.

Steve Carell is finally making his return back to the small screen after reportedly signing a deal to join one of Apple’s new TV shows.

Apple struck a deal with Carell to star alongside Jennifer Anniston and Reese Witherspoon for its comedy TV series about a struggling morning TV show. The role will be Carell’s first since starring in The Office.

Today’s tip uses iOS 12’s Screen Time feature to stop yourself from wasting your life on Twitter and/or Facebook (or any other app or website). Maybe you obsess over a golfing forum, or you have a Fortnite habit you just can’t shake.

If so, Screen Time can protect you from yourself. Let’s see how.

Beta testing for macOS 10.14.1 began the day after the launch of its predecessor, macOS Mojave. A month later, the release of this new version could be drawing close.

Developers just got their hands on the fifth beta. Which might be the last.

This post is presented by Dashlane.

On the web you don’t see, hackers constantly upload lists of passwords, usernames, Social Security and phone numbers, addresses and other personal information every day. Do you know if your data is being bought and sold on the dark web? Using a service like Dashlane can give you the answer.

If you haven’t already preordered an iPhone XR, the only way to get one on its release date is to head to a nearby Apple Store and hope they have one in stock.

Preorders for these colorful new handsets started last Friday, and until now devices were arriving on Oct. 26. Not any more.

Analysts are predicting big things for Apple’s App Store business ahead of the company’s Q4 2018 earnings report coming on November 1.

Search ads from the App Store could generate over $500 million in revenue during all of 2018, according to Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi. Even better, Sacconahi thinks the App Store ad business could be worth a whopping $2 billion by the end of 2020.

The iPhone XS might be Apple’s best phone yet, but the iPhone XR will probably be Cupertino’s best-seller ever. It could even beat out the record-breaking iPhone 6, which proved so successful it skewed Apple’s sales numbers for years after its launch.

Why? Because the XR is cooler, cheaper and bigger than the top-of-the line iPhone XS, and nobody who buys it will care about the other differences. I almost wish I’d waited and bought one of these instead of the iPhone XS.

Apple is allegedly making a new iPad mini, according to one of the most reliable Apple analysts around. And new AirPods might be on the way, too.

TFI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo told investors today that he expects Apple to release two new iPad Pros at the October event in New York City. Even more surprising is Kuo’s claim that an iPad mini is in the works.

We all struggle to stay on top of our email inboxes. When it comes to email, it’s a tricky balance between being responsive and keeping healthy habits. Luckily, technology can offer a helping hand.

Over a year ago, Apple announced AirPower, an accessory that’ll wirelessly charge three devices at once.  It has yet to be released, but there’s definite evidence the project hasn’t been abandoned.

The documentation for the new iPhone XR makes a clear mention of this unreleased product.

Update: A respected analyst predicts that AirPower will be released, but might not make Apple’s current deadline.

The first iPhone XR reviews are out just a few days before the handset makes its official debut, and one thing’s clear: This is one of Apple’s best smartphones to date.

Despite being a more affordable alternative to the iPhone XS, the iPhone XR is just as good in many areas, and even better in a few others. It makes some sacrifices to be more affordable, but it certainly lives up to the promises where it counts.

Here’s what the early reviews are saying so far.

Apple is teaming up with a French digital vocational school Simplon to teach Swift coding to learners. Swift is the language used for developing iOS apps.

“Proud to announce our new training program in partnership with France’s [Simplon], teaching the basics of coding with Swift,” Tim Cook wrote in a tweet. “Learning to code unlocks a world of creativity and potential.”

Apple has stopped “signing” the original release of iOS 12 following the arrival of iOS 12.0.1. That means that anyone who has upgraded to iOS 12.0.1 can no longer go back to the previous version.

Apple is about to make “Beautygate” a thing of the past. The company soon will improve iPhone XS selfies by eliminating the skin-smoothing feature that annoyed many users by making their narcissistic snaps unrealistically beautiful.

October 23, 1999: Apple releases Mac OS 9, the last version of the classic Mac operating system before the company will make the leap to OS X a couple years later.

It does not veer far from OS 8 in terms of look and feel. However, OS 9 adds a few nifty features that make it well worth the upgrade.

Apple has opened a New York studio for its Beats 1 radio station. The new office is located in Manhattan’s Union Square. It joins other broadcasting studios in London and Los Angeles.

“I want this space to represent the sound and energy of New York, and how multicultural this city is,” said Ebro Darden, who hosts a hip hop music-based radio show on Beats 1. Zane Lowe, one of the first DJs to join Beats 1, described it as a “huge moment” for the station. “We are fully functioning in one of the greatest cities in the world now,” he said.

The CEO of Amazon Web Services and the CEO of Super Micro have joined Apple CEO Tim Cook is asking Bloomberg to retract its recent spy chip story.

All three companies were named in a recent Bloomberg Businessweek article claiming that Chinese spy chips had been embedded into hardware supplied by Super Micro. Since the story first broke, Super Micro lost more than half its value in a single day. Unsurprisingly, it’s not happy about it. And clearly neither is Amazon.

The fifth beta version of iOS 12 was released exclusively to developers this morning. But it turns out everyone else didn’t have to wait very long because the public beta is already available.

In past beta cycles, Apple has made the public wait as much as a week to get a new pre-release version after developers could access it. The iOS 12.1 beta process is much more fast and loose.

Avoid using the latest version of the GasBuddy app on your iPhone. The developer admits it is causing problems and has temporarily withdrawn it from the App Store until a fix can be released.

UPDATE: A fixed version of GasBuddy is available on the App Store. Users of this service should install this new version immediately.

GasBuddy lists crowdsourced gasoline prices. It’s free and useful enough to make our list of 50 essential iOS apps.

Too many people assume that it takes a MacBook Pro or something similar to create serious digital art, while an iPad is more of a toy. The best response to that is a new video showing album artwork for Muse’s new Simulation Theory album being created with an iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil.

Amazon’s line up of Echo speakers accounts for 63 percent of all smart speakers in use, while Apple’s late-to-market offering, the HomePod, has just a 4 percent share of the market.

While the results of a quarterly consumer survey, published today in a report by Strategy Analytics, seem daunting for Apple, the numbers reflect only one side of the story.

The Portrait Mode in iPhone XS is the best thing to happen to iPhone photography in quite a while. It uses the XS’ dual cameras, plus the A12 chip’s Neural Engine, to work out how far away everything is in your photos. Then, it blurs everything in the background, just as if you used a fancy big camera.

But what if you want even more blur? The iPhone XS’ Depth Control feature looks very realistic, but maybe it’s a bit too realistic? Maybe you want to really wipe out that background with some extra blur. The good news is, there are some great apps that do that.