As the 21st century hums right along, you’ll want to upgrade to 21st century skills. This week at the Cult of Mac Store, we’ve got a bundle of coding lessons for Amazon Echo and their virtual assistant Alexa, a convenient tool for getting through books faster, a masterclass in Excel spreadsheets, and the ultimate media conversion platform, Roxio Toast. Everything is discounted by 50 percent or more, read on for more details:

In this week’s Cult of Mac Magazine, we take a look at how a Siri-powered smart speaker could bring better audio (and a higher price tag) than the Amazon Echo. It’s highly like such a device will be unveiled by Apple at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.

Plus we’ve got how-tos: You’ll learn how to turn anything into a PDF on your iPhone or iPad, and how to use Apple Pencil to mark up those PDFs in the Mail app.

Also, check out Juuk Designs’ third collection of high-grade aluminum bands for Apple Watch. The new Ligero collection is now on view in our Watch Store.

Here are this week’s top stories.

This week on The CultCast: Apple’s secret Siri speaker is just around the corner — we’ll tell you everything (we think) we know about it. Plus: Why AirPods are the best product Apple’s made in years; and why Microsoft’s MacBook clone is actually great for Apple fans.

Finally, we’ll deconstruct and decode Tim Cook’s mysterious and quickly deleted accidental tweet, and you’ll be shocked at the truth!

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

Apple Music may soon get exclusive streaming rights to an unreleased Prince concert that was performed as a surprise in Minneapolis just before the release of his iconic Purple Rain soundtrack.

If Apple does land the rights, the company may owe a big ‘thank you’ to its rival Spotify, which employs the executive negotiating the deal.

A simple message on a red hat helped Donald Trump win the presidency. Could the same work for Apple?

The company Throwboy has thrown down a challenge to the tech giant by offering for sale a red hat sure to land on the heads of at least a few Apple fans. On it in white lettering is the phrase “Make Apple Great Again.”

There’s a little-known but awesome trick you can do with the iPhone’s camera: triple-click the Home button to turn it into a magnifying glass. This is great if you don’t see so well, either because you’re farsighted or because you’re just getting old and doddery.

Today we’ll see how to switch on this awesome feature so it’s ready to deploy, and also take a look at some of the extras Apple built in to make the Magnifier tool even more powerful.

You can get a good idea of what the iPhone 8 might be like to use, thanks to a new concept video that imagines how redesigned apps will look on the device.

Apple is supposedly going with a bezel-free design this year, which could give developers more space for new features. Viewing pictures will also be an incredible experience if Apple includes an edge-to-edge display that makes it feel like you’re holding a photograph.

Check it out:

Apple’s big pause in iPhone sales leading up to this year’s new models isn’t worrying one of the company’s biggest investors.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett says he loves what Apple is doing with its buyback program for investors and even though sales are slow, the stock is still a great buy.

A Citibank analyst says Apple is sitting on so much cash, a likely change in tax code could see Cupertino use its “Merger and Acquisition firepower.” The most likely target would be Netflix.

Citibank puts the odds of a Netflix buyout at 40 percent, according to analyst Jim Suva in a note to clients titled Addressing the Problem of Too Much Cash.

Among the many, many troubling stories in the news these days is the vote by Congress to lift regulations that require your internet service provider to get permission before selling your private data. This, along with a slew of malicious hacks reported over the past few years, has helped make the public aware of the critical importance of internet security.

Now many people are looking for ways to stay safe and anonymous. Here’s one obvious solution: Get a virtual private network. Here are three reasons you should seek out a VPN solution today.

Amazon will reportedly bring its Amazon Prime Video app to Apple TV sometime in the third quarter of this year.

Although it’s not confirmed, some industry observers have suggested that such a move would have had to be worked out directly between Apple and Amazon CEOs Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos.

An employee of PC World, a U.K.-based computer superstore, has admitted to stealing 27,000 euros ($30,000) worth of Apple products from his workplace. Oh, the irony!

21-year-old Eoin Giles of Dublin, Ireland, pleaded guilty to stealing 21 MacBooks, six Apple Watches, and seven iPads Pros, and then selling them on. Giles described it as a “stupid” attempt to make money.

Apple is reportedly switching some of its iPhone motion sensor orders from InvenSense to German firm Robert Bosch.

It comes as the latest example of Apple shaking up its supply chain, which has already seen Apple distance itself from GPU maker Imagination Technologies and power-management chip company Dialog Semiconductor.

Apple has overtaken Fitbit to be crowned largest wearables vendor in the world, according to Strategy Analytics.

The market research firm claims that Apple sold around 3.5 million Apple Watches in the first three months of calendar 2017. That’s an increase of a massive 59 percent from the 2.2 million units Apple sold during the first quarter 2016. It means the company currently holds 16 percent of the worldwide market share.

Today we’ll learn how to open and edit a PDF right in the iOS Mail app, and then send it on its way, all without opening any extra apps. Given that a lot of PDFs we receive are documents that need to be checked over, or signed, and then returned, this tip is a real time-saver.

Instead of waiting until you get back to your Mac, you can take care of things right from your iPhone.

ExxonMobil stations throughout the U.S. are now accepting Apple Watch payments.

Customers will need to download the Speedpass+ app, which lets you settle your gas bill with a tap of your wrist. You’ll have the option to use Apple Pay, or input your credit card information manually.

Getting rid of the home button could be one of the greatest things Apple could do for the iPhone 8.

Rumors have been swirling for months that Apple plans to embed Touch ID into the screen in order to ditch the home button. A fantastic new concept imagines how Apple could use that extra screen real estate to make navigating the iOS faster than ever.

The iPad continues to dominate the tablet market, but the tablet market continues to decline.

For a 10th-straight quarter, year-over-year sales of tablet computers fell to a five-year low, according to the market research firm IDC. Even with enviable sales figures, iPad revenues have had a year-over-year slide for the last 13 quarters, according to the IDC report.

Snap Inc apparently wants in on the hottest new trend among tech companies: TV shows.

Following the lead of Amazon and Twitter, Snapchat reportedly plans to start showing vertical short films in its app. Only instead of doing all the work on its own, the company is inking deals with some of the biggest names in media.

You may be able to barter with merchants for good deals in Turkey’s famous markets. But if you’re looking for a deal on an iPhone 7, you will want to pick another country.

An iPhone 7 in Turkey costs more than any other country in the world and is about one and half times more expensive than here in the U.S., according to an annual report by Deutsche Bank comparing prices on common goods.

iPhone clones just hit a new low.

Meet the UMIDIGI G, a device that isn’t ashamed to be a complete ripoff of Apple’s latest smartphone. It runs Google’s latest Android 7.0 Nougat operating system, and it’s super-affordable at just $79.99. Its specifications aren’t bad, either — but you shouldn’t buy one.

The FBI was unable to access the contents of “nearly half” of mobile devices it tried to hack in the first half of the fiscal year, FBI Director James Comey revealed at a Senate oversight committee hearing this week.

That added up to more than 3,000 mobile devices.

There’s been an awakening. Have you felt it? Star Wars is back, and the return of the year’s biggest nerdfest is upon us. May the 4th is when fans of the galaxy far, far away get a chance to revel in their fandom with their fellow fans around the world. And with the next Star Wars movie mere months away, the Force is strong with this one.

Part of the festivities is the chance to get great deals on Star Wars swag, and the Cult of Mac Store is no exception. We’ve got deals on a bundle of some of the best Star Wars games ever made, a treasure chest of Rogue One collectibles, and a floating speaker worthy of Darth Vader’s desk. Everything is dramatically discounted and worth nerding out over.

Apple’s fantastic Apple Park campus reportedly opened to some employees last month, but construction crews are still racing to bring the project to completion.

As shown off in a gorgeous new drone flyover video by UAV filmmaker Duncan Sinfield, the buildings are virtually complete, but there are more construction vehicles than ever on site.

Check out the campus as it looks this month below:

It appears that Apple won’t be slashing commissions it pays when affiliates redirect customers to buy apps from the iOS App Store, after all.

Despite Apple previously noting that, “Starting on May 1st 2017, commissions for all app and in-app content will be reduced from 7% to 2.5% globally,” it seems that the change applies only to in-app purchases.