The FBI wants the tech industry to help unlock thousands of smartphones and tablets involved in criminal cases each year.

FBI Director Christopher Wray did not single out any companies during his talk at a cybersecurity conference today. Still, Apple certainly sits at the top of his wish list.

iOS 12 will focus on fixing all the problems plaguing iPhone and iPad users. This concept imagines what it could do for Apple Music. It showcases a gorgeous new design with improved controls, and a dark mode that would be perfect for iPhone X.

Apple is prepping more-affordable versions of its new HomePod smart speaker and other pricey devices, according to an unconfirmed report out of Asia.

One of the iPad’s handiest features is its keyboard-shortcut cheatsheet. Whenever you have a USB or Bluetooth keyboard attached to your iPad, just hold down the Command key and wait for a second. An overlay will pop up showing you all the keyboard shortcuts available for the current app.

Did you ever wish you could do the same with the Mac? After all, you always have a keyboard connected the Mac, so a cheatsheet overlay should be even more useful. Then you need CheatSheet, an app that does exactly that.

It’s not like you can ever find the app you’re looking for on your various home screens anyway, so why not do something fancy with those icons instead? Like, making your home screen an expression of your inner chakra, man. Or getting in tune with the color harmonies of the universe or whatever.

Whatever hippie crap you’re using to justify it, the results can be amazing. And who knows — if you arrange your home screens by color, then maybe you’ll actually end up finding things faster.

Anyone afraid that the robot apocalypse is imminent might head to the panic room now: Reports are coming in that Amazon’s Alexa smart speaker has begun laughing all on its own.

People who claim to have experienced this generally say they’re not interacting with their Amazon Echo, but it will suddenly begin laughing. Many of the descriptions describe the robolaughter as “creepy.”

Apple will deliver a revamped iPad Pro during the June quarter of this year, according to a new report.

Inspired by the iPhone X, the device is expected to have significantly slimmer bezels and Face ID, and could make up for weaker-than-expected demand for Apple’s latest smartphones. Apple could also be planning a smaller, more affordable version of HomePod.

The Finder has been with the Mac since day one, way back in 1984. But just because it’s old, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have some new tricks. Did you know, for instance, that you can add a path bar to the bottom of the window to show the path of the current folder on your Mac? Or that you can add a status bar in the same spot so you always know how full your drive is? Or that you can add a permanent preview pane over on the right side of a Finder window, even in icon and list views?

Let’s take a look, and see what else you can do.

Apple improves the speakers in iPhones, iPads and iPods with each release — usually making them louder than the previous generation. Still, people constantly complain that iPhones are not loud enough.

In our latest Quick Tips video, I’ll show you a super-easy way to boost those tiny speakers. Check out the video below to see how to make iPhone speakers louder!

T-Mobile has increased LTE speeds to a staggering 500Mbps in New York City. It has become the first carrier to test commercial Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) technology, which sends 4G signals over unused 5GHz Wi-Fi channels to increase bandwidth, in the United States.

LAA will soon be expanding its reach across the U.S. — but you won’t be able to enjoy it on iPhone.

Apple Music subscribers who use Android devices can now enjoy stable streaming. Apple’s latest update fixes the frustrating playback issues some users were facing on certain devices. It also adds the ability to listen to music videos in the background.

The augmented reality revolution sparked by Apple’s ARKit needs a dash of accuracy if it’s really going to catch fire — especially when it comes to mapping.

That’s why London developer Andrew Hart created a location-aware toolkit that uses artificial intelligence to punch up the precision in apps built with ARKit.

“One problem with AR location experiences is the low accuracy of phone GPS and compasses, which makes it difficult to ensure that things line up,” Hart told Cult of Mac. “The toolkit uses computer vision techniques to recognize landscapes from tagged imagery, and then aligns the AR environment upon recognition. It works in different weather conditions, and means you can have really precise experiences.”

We’re still in the midst of a startup boom. The model of small, scrappy business-building has resulted in a body of knowledge about how to succeed. It’s also led to a bevy of tools that can help anyone, whatever they’re building. So we’ve gathered some of the best of them into a bundle of biz-boosting software.

It’s probably the most iconic aspect of Apple’s iPhone X design, but according to a new report Apple will get rid of the “notch” design for future handsets released as early as 2019.

“Apple decided to get rid of notch design starting from 2019 models, and is having discussions with relevant companies,” an unspecified supply chain source is quoted as saying. “It seems that Apple is planning to implement full-screen that is more complete to its new iPhones.”

After a lengthy period in soft launch, The Sims Mobile is finally available for download worldwide — and it looks impressively close to its desktop older sibling.

As one of the top-selling game franchises of all time, everyone is surely familiar with The Sims. If you’re not, it’s a game in which you create your own virtual humans, design a home for them to live in, pick a career, and then, well, get on with living everyday life. Only more fun than that makes it sounds.

Check out the trailer below.

Do you find it suspicious that the Internal Revenue Service would allow you to pay back taxes with iTunes gift cards? That’s because it’s not true, and is in fact a scam.

Sadly, it’s a scam that people appear to be falling for. That’s why the Treasury Department has issued a scam alert to point out that, “Any caller requesting taxpayers place funds on an iTunes gift cards or other prepaid cards to pay taxes or fees is an indicator or fraudulent activity.”

The usual informal relationship between police and criminals is that criminals commit the crimes and the police catch them. A New Orleans police officer recently decided to shake things up, however, by allegedly stealing a pair of AirPods wireless earphones from the Apple Store in Metairie, Louisiana.

24-year-old patrol officer Ayona McGilberry was issued with a summons for misdemeanor theft this week, according to a spokesperson for the Sheriff’s Office. McGilberry has subsequently resigned from the force.

A rare Macintosh prototype that was once rescued from the trash recently sold for more than $10,000 on eBay.

But the winning bidder backed out and now, the clear-plastic Macintosh Portable M5126 laptop is back on the auction site. Bidding started at 99 cents with no reserve.

A mophie juice pack air for iPhone X has been approved, if not announced. The case will come with a built-in battery that supports wireless charging.

Nylon bands for Apple Watch are in high demand for their comfort and versatility. Add in great engineering and style, and you’ve got the ideal strap to fit your everyday needs.

Enter Casetify, a company that believes in being radically unique, creating beautifully designed, made-to-order products that are hand-inspected from beginning to end.

The company recently launched its line of Nylon Fabric Bands for Apple Watch, and we’re now featuring them all in our Watch Store. A great value at $40!

Google Street View now offers panoramic views from nearly a dozen Disney theme parks, giving users a glimpse inside.

These join thousands of other immersive images from attractions around the world already in the app.

Safari is a pretty full-featured mobile browser, but if you tap the time to long-press on its buttons and icons, you’ll discover a whole lot of neat extra tricks. These aren’t esoteric power-user tricks either. Pretty much every button on a safari page has an extra function, and it is almost always something you’ll find yourself using every day. Today we’ll see what the plain old reload button can offer us.

Xiaomi is gearing up to invade the U.S. with its Apple clones.

We’ve been waiting years for the Chinese company to make its most popular gadgets available outside of Asia. Now Xiaomi has confirmed that it plans to enter the U.S. market in late 2018 or early 2019.

Although the notch at the top of the iPhone X display drew quite a bit of criticism, many Android makers like the idea. LG might become the next to release a device that resembles Apple’s flagship phone.

Is your Mac stuffed fit to burst? Do you look at the Finder’s Status Bar, see “1GB available,” and then give up what you were doing and go check Twitter instead? What if I told you that you could offload much of the junk/important data on your Mac to iCloud, just like you do with your iCloud Photo Library? Well, you can, and it’s easy. It’s called Optimized Storage.