Your iPhone’s dock is ever present. Also ever-present is the translucent ribbon behind the icons. Maybe it’s there to provide visual separation from the wallpaper behind it, but seeing as the rest of your home-screen icons are left to fend for themselves, visibility-wise, then maybe not. Perhaps it’s there to provide a visual separation between the privileged Dock and the rest of the home-screen proletariat?

But if you don’t like this separator, then you’re stuck with it. Or are you? You may not be able to remove the ribbon, but you can hide it.

HomePod’s arrival makes the smart speaker market even more confusing for the average consumer. Amazon and Google are dominating right now, but HomePod’s closest rival is actually the Sonos One.

It’s in a similar price range, it’s about the same size, and both speakers focus on sound quality above everything else. I’ve now spent over three weeks with both the HomePod and the Sonos One to help you figure out which one you should buy.

Check out our comparison video below.

Apple Maps can now help you find a healthier and more environmentally-friendly ride. A new partnership with Ito World allows you to locate bike sharing stations in more than 175 cities across 36 countries. Simple search “bike sharing” now to get going.

Apple is moving into magazine distribution by acquiring Texture, a digital subscription service that grants users unlimited access to their favorite titles for a single $9.99 monthly fee.

The service, which could be thought of as Apple Music for magazines, covers 200 top magazines. These can be read either in their complete form or via curated articles.

A new Apple Watch band can detect dangerous levels of potassium in your blood without the use of needles.

KardiaBand takes an electrocardiogram, then uses a specially designed algorithm to identify abnormal patterns. AliveCor says its Apple Watch band can detect hyperkalemia with 94 percent accuracy. Such a diagnosis usually would require invasive blood tests

Rihanna is the first female artist to surpass 2 billion streams on Apple Music, according to a tweet sent out by Cupertino.

It’s not clear whether the quick stat refers to just Rihanna’s solo songs or includes other artists’ tracks on which she appeared. However, it’s a big achievement — and proof positive of just how big Apple Music is getting.

Reading is the key to a broader, sharper mind. It’s also the key to success for countless innovators and entrepreneurs with voracious reading habits, no less than Elon Musk and Bill Gates. So if you want to make a difference in the world and in your life, reading more is square one.

Fortnite Battle Royale has landed on mobile! You can now sign up for early access to the game on iPhone and iPad. If you’re lucky enough to get an invite, you’ll also receive codes for your friends.

WhatsApp’s latest update give users more time to delete accidental messages after they’ve been sent.

Its message deletion feature, introduced last October, previously gave us just seven minutes to undo a potential mess. Now the “delete for everyone” option is available for just over an hour.

Like a whole lot of folks, I’m a massive fan of Westworld, the HBO TV series which depicts a wild west-themed amusement park, staffed by futuristic robots.

A new game, coming to iOS, promises to bring that same experience to our pockets. No, it doesn’t let you play as a guest, living out your wildest gunslinger fantasies — but instead takes the form of a simulation game, in which you’re tasked with running the park. Check out the intriguing (if ambiguous) trailer below.

Apple is prepping a new entry-level 13-inch MacBook that will debut in the second quarter of 2018. It will reportedly set users back around the same price as the MacBook Air, which would peg it at about $999.

While the report leaves a bit of flexibility by saying that it could be this price “or slightly higher,” this suggests that users could get a price cut versus the $1,299 12-inch MacBook.

A brilliant minimalist settler simulation with added monsters is just of one of our picks for this week’s “Awesome Apps of the Week.”

In addition, we’ve got a great new version of The Sims for mobile, and two Google apps which have received big updates. Check out our selections below.

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. In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, we’ll show you some amazing tweaks for your home screen.

You’ll find that story and more in this issue. Get your free subscription to Cult of Mac Magazine from iTunes. Or read on for this week’s top stories.

When we launched our mouth-watering iPhone X giveaway, we knew people would jump at the chance to win Apple’s newest flagship device. And we were right — it sure seems like a lot of people would like to get a $1,000 smartphone for free.

After a flurry of entries, we can at last announce the lucky winner. Drumroll, please….

In just 24 hours, Apple went from being ho-hum in charisma to number one in brand intimacy.

What sounds like fickle middle school popularity are actual rankings based on research, data and scientific surveys of, well, fickle people.

Apple ended its workweek ranked first for brand intimacy among millennials, according to a report MBLM, a marketing firm that specializes in helping brands form said connection. Apple as a brand must have worked hard on itself over the last year because it beat out Netflix, which was tops among millennials last year.

Smart speaker sales have exploded, with 47 million Americans now using one, up from about zero two years ago. And Apple fans are leading the trend — they’re 22 percent more likely than Android users to own a smart speaker.

Custom ringtones and text tones are great for letting your know who’s calling, or who just sent a message. But what about when your iPhone is sett to silent, and hidden in your pocket? All your alerts use the same vibration, so you have no idea if that buzz was a message from your awesome and hot significant other, or yet another eBay alert about those paperclip auctions you’re watching.

Did you know that you can set custom vibration alerts for each of your contacts? And that you can actually record your own vibration patterns and assign them to whoever you like? You can, and you’re going to love how easy it is.

You can navigate the world as Mario for a limited time inside Google Maps.

The awesome new feature, added to celebrate Mario Day on March 10, shows you driving along in Mario’s red kart — complete with familiar sound effects.

No one enjoys vacuum cleaning, so why are we still doing it? Robotic vacuum cleaners have gotten so good — and so much more affordable — that manual cleaning is no longer necessary. I let the Deebot N79S do all my vacuuming for me.

The N79S is an updated version of the best-selling N79. It packs all the same features and the same great design, but now it supports Amazon Alexa. That means you don’t even have to push a button to get it going; you just tell it what to do.

It’s one of the many things that make the N79S one of the best affordable robot vacs you can buy.

Apple’s Swift programming language it continuing its ascent through the coding ranks. According to a new quarterly ranking by developer-focused analyst firm RedMonk, Swift has entered the top 10 programming languages as indicated on GitHub and Stack Overflow.

The rest of the top 10 (from no. 1 through no. 9) is comprised of JavaScript, Java, Python, PHP, C#, C++, CSS, Ruby, and Swift and Apple’s previous coding language Objective-C ranking in joint tenth place.

Life on the internet means feeling stress about having your data or identity stolen. That’s why signing on with a virtual private network (VPN) is key for online peace of mind. So where do you start?

This week’s episode of The CultCast is packed with great Apple stories. We talk: Reports of a cheaper, smaller HomePod; the end of iTunes; MoviePass tracking your every move; the first security camera for your car; and more! Hit play to catch the discussion.

Our thanks to Casper for supporting this episode. Learn why Casper makes the internet’s favorite mattress, and save $50 off your order at casper.com/cultcast.

Epic Games is bringing its insanely popular Fornight Battle Royale to iPhone and iPad.

It will be exactly the same 100-player game you’ve been enjoying on consoles, with the same map and the same weapons — and it will support cross-platform play between PlayStation 4 and PC. You can sign up to join the beta on Monday, March 12.

Amazon could beat Apple to become the world’s first $1 trillion company, a new report suggests.

While Apple’s market cap currently stands at $893 billion to Amazon’s $752 billion, the online retail giant is rapidly closing the gap. By current trajectories, it will beat Apple to the $1 trillion mark by a mere week.

Apple is reportedly battling with Netflix and Amazon to sign former President Barack Obama to a deal that would see him produce a high profile series of shows with wife Michelle Obama.

These shows will likely focus on the Obamas hosting conversations on a variety of topics, ranging from health care and climate change to nutrition. Unfortunately for Apple, it seems that Netflix may have this deal in the bag!