Upwards of $150,000 worth of Macs, iPads, and Apple Watches was stolen this week from a Best Buy stores in Peoria, Illinois. The theft took place overnight on Wednesday.

It was noticed by the manager early the following day, who filed a report with the Peoria Police Department. The theft is described by Lt. Mike Boland, who leads the department’s detective bureau, as one of the largest heists in terms of dollar value in recent memory.

The early reviews for the camera on the iPhone XR have been impressive – and that has a few who purchased the iPhone XS wishing they had waited a few weeks.

Apple, trying to accommodate more budget-minded consumers, announced the mid-range iPhone XR for $799 at the same time it unveiled the more expensive iPhone XS and XS Max.

The XS line was available on Sept. 21 while the XR, not quite ready for shelves then, went on sale today.

Color is easy to appreciate, but tough to identify precisely. Is that midnight blue or navy blue? Or if you’re working on a computer, is that shade of red more firebrick (#B22222) or strawberry (#BE2625)? It’s ok, you don’t have to know the answer.

Oracle founder Larry Ellison may have been Steve Jobs’ BFF and even considered buying Apple at one point, but he doesn’t agree with everything the company does. In a recent interview, Ellison criticized Apple’s refusal to help hack an iPhone belonging to a shooter in the 2015 San Bernardino attack.

The case blew up into a massive standoff between Apple, in favor of privacy, and the FBI. Speaking on Fox, Ellison called Apple’s behavior, “bizarre.”

Code discovered in Apple’s latest iOS 12.1 beta confirms its next-generation iPad Pro lineup will pack Face ID — and it will work in both portrait and landscape mode.

Users will be asked to set up the facial recognition system in portrait mode, but once this process is complete, the new iPad Pro can be unlocked in either orientation.

This week on The CultCast: With iPhone XR finally here, we’ll give you 10 reasons why it’s the best iPhone you can get. Plus: How iOS 12.1 solves “Beautygate”; new Macs leak ahead of Apple’s big October hardware event; Ming-Chi Kuo says new iPad minis, AirPods and the AirPower mat are finally on the way. Finally, we wrap up with our iPhone XS cases and a superb Thunderbolt 3 dock in an all-new Under Review.

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. It’s simple to accept Apple Pay and sell your wares with your very own Squarespace website. Enter offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first hosting plan or domain.

Snapchat isn’t having a good time right now. The company just released its third quarter results, and once again suffered a decline in daily active users.

That number fell by 2 million to 186 million people, marking the third straight quarter of user declines. However, Snap seems confident it can break the losing streak in 2019.

Apple’s fancy new iPhone XR is available to purchase today. Pop into your local Apple Store and you’ll have an opportunity to play with the device — and if you’re really lucky, they might have a unit left that you can take home with you.

But there’s one thing you won’t find in the Apple Store. Or anywhere else.

The iPhone XR is officially available for sale. Those who pre-ordered the device have began receiving their orders, while Apple Stores are also stocking the new phones.

With the iPhone XS and XS Max out as well, that means that Apple’s complete 2018 iPhone range is now available for you to purchase. Well, provided you can find the handset you want, that is!

You know how you can download a copy of all the data Apple holds on you? For many folks, this is an academic issue — it’s interesting to know about, but of little practical value. But a tool from developer Pat Murray lets you visualize your Apple Music listening habits, using a browser-based tool.

All you need is one small file from your Apple data dump — and Murray’s Apple Music Analyser.

The Apple CEO’s tour of Europe continued today with a visit to sunny Spain. He’s there to promote tomorrow’s launch of the HomePod in the country. He’s also talking up the release of the iPhone XR, which will debut around the world on Friday.

The full cast of Apple’s morning TV show comedy is starting to take shape after two more actors have signed onto the project.

Billy Crudup and Gugu Mbatha-Raw have joined the cast for the untitled Apple TV series that lists Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston as both executive producers and stars of the show.

One of the biggest Apple copycats finally found a way to bring some innovation of its own to the smartphone game.

Xiaomi unveiled its new Mi Mix 3 phone today that ditches the camera notch Apple popularized in favor of a front camera array that slides out of the display. The end result is a smartphone with a screen-to-body ratio of 93.4 percent and it actually looks pretty cool.

Check out how the camera slides out:

Linea Go is the little sister of Linea, perhaps the best pick-up-and-go drawing app on the iPad. And unlike the iPad, where there are a ton of really top-end drawing and painting apps, the iPhone has far fewer, especially if you just want a great way to lay down a quick sketch.

If nothing else, Linea Go shows just how great it would be if the Apple Pencil worked with the iPhone.

“Welcome Home,” a television commercial for the Apple HomePod directed by Spike Jonze, welcomed another slew of advertising awards today.

Apple took home two first-place honors in the prestigious shots Awards. It won three other first-place shots for Best Director (Jonze), Editing house of the Year (Final Cut of Los Angeles) and Production Company of the Year (MJZ of Los Angeles).

Playing Pokémon GO requires you to get off the couch and explore the world. The game now takes that idea and runs with it (pun intended) by rewarding you for exercising even when not hunting virtual monsters.

Twitterrific, one of the best third-party Twitter clients still standing, just got a nice new update on macOS. The latest version of the app finally brings support for share extensions, and some welcome improvements.

Dress up your dashing new Apple Watch with a smart, stainless-steel watch band from Rilee & Lo — maker of highly stylish stretch-link Apple Watch bands.

Apple Watches are functional, fun and engaging, and now totally fashion-friendly. Rilee & Lo’s exclusive watch bands fuse tech and fashion brilliantly, for both men and women, and we filmed an unboxing video to give you an inside look into what makes these bad boys so special. Grab a band for yourself or as a gift. Check out the full lineup of Rilee & Lo’s stunning bands in our Watch Store.

Apple products have changed the way we live. Can it save journalism?

If the Apple News app is part of the solution, Apple will be one tech company curating the stories and information the old fashioned way – with human editors.

Apple has done a great job of making the iPhone more water-resistant over the years, but one thing you still can’t do particularly well is to use your iPhone when it’s wet.

That’s something that Apple wants to change, based on a pair of patent applications published today. They describe technology to allow finger tracking in wet environments, letting users continue swiping and tapping away even if they’re out in the rain.

Spotify has seen a rise in Premium subscriptions after the music streaming service started cracking down on family plan subscribers who aren’t really family.

New data reveals 38 percent of Spotify users in the U.S. now pay for the Premium service — up from 36 percent last quarter. Apple Music remains the only platform that has presented Spotify with real competition, but it still has a lot of catching up to do.

Online life is risky, with countless threats to our identity and data security. That’s why we’re big advocates of connecting to the internet via a virtual private network, or VPN. So we’re excited to share this deal on a subscription to a top-shelf VPN.

A representative for China’s Foreign Ministry says a report in The New York Times about the country possibly eavesdropping on President Donald Trump’s personal iPhone is “fake news.” Spokesperson Hua Chunying does, however, have some advice for the leader of the free world: Switch to a Huawei phone.

Hey, for a company like Huawei that loves celebrity endorsers, Trump would be one hell of a catch!

Apple has confirmed that its first retail store in Thailand will open next month in Bangkok — and it looks absolutely spectacular. If Apple’s goal was to make a strong impression from day one, we can safely say this: Mission accomplished.

The new store is part of the ambitious Iconsiam complex on the Chao Phraya River in Bangkok. Along with Apple’s debut retail store in the country, Iconsiam is home to two shopping malls, a department store, 3,000-seat auditorium, amusement park, fitness center, and residential buildings.

Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor says he quit his job at Apple because he felt “guilty” over abandoning his work as an artist in favor of a product design and marketing job.

“I have a mixed set of feelings about the whole thing,” he admitted in a recent interview with Stereogum. Reznor joined Apple back in 2014 as part of the $3 billion Beats acquisition. After joining, he worked on a secret project which turned out to be the launch of Apple Music.