When you spend time every day online, you’re adding to the risk of having your data stolen. That’s ignoring minor headaches like location restrictions, preventing you from getting your favorite streaming content when traveling. All of the above can be avoided though by connecting to the web via a virtual private network, or VPN. That might sound technical or expensive, but it doesn’t have to be either — right now you can get Shimo, one of the most secure and versatile VPN clients available, for just $19 at Cult of Mac Deals.

The Apple Online Store has temporarily gone down in advance of today’s Apple keynote.

When it returns, we’re expecting to see a new MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar, MacBook, and potentially more — and there’s a chance you may even be able to order them today.

With the improvements Apple made in iOS 10, Siri is more useful than ever. It is proving particularly helpful to lonely guys desperately looking for love, with hundreds of people turning to virtual assistants for “sexually explicit” conversations every day.

The new MacBook Pro is nearly here!

Months of rumors and leaked images finally culminate today with Apple’s second keynote in two months. Live from Apple’s campus, Tim Cook and Co. are expected to unveil the all-new Mac lineup.

Apple’s “Hello Again” keynote starts today at 10 a.m. Pacific and you don’t need a press badge to watch. All the festivities will be livestreamed from Apple’s HQ in Cupertino, California, so you can follow along on your iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV.

Here’s how to get in on the action:

An Apple executive has avoided jail as part of an Italian investigation into Apple’s failure to pay corporate tax in the country.

The executive in question, the head of Apple’s Irish-based Apple Sales International, was being investigated as part of the case. Apple agreed to pay 318 million euros last year to close the investigation, but the exec could still have been forced to spend six months in prison for his part in it.

There’s typically a period of anticipation after every Apple keynote, between a new product being announced and it arriving in stores for customers to buy.

That may not be the case with today’s Mac event, as a photo shared online show Apple Stores set up with outside line dividers — suggesting that whatever Apple announces today may well go on sale immediately following the event.

SAN FRANCISCO — Rene Oehlerking is positively stoked that Apple killed the headphone jack on the iPhone 7.

That’s because, as chief marketing officer of Jaybird, he’s been touting the winning combo of killer audio and wireless freedom for years. With its controversial move, Apple made Bluetooth headphones the new normal virtually overnight.

“We’ve been waiting for this moment for a long time,” Oehlerking said during a demo of his company’s latest headphones, the Jaybird X3. “It puts pressure on everyone to just buck up.”

We’ve got iPad minis for every budget (as long as your budget falls between $220 and $325). You’ll find those, plus a super-affordable third-party Apple Watch band, in this week’s roundup of the best Apple deals.

Apple’s wireless future has been delayed.

The iPhone-maker revealed today that it is still not ready to start shipping AirPods, even though customers were told they would launch by the end of October.

Google’s new smartphone, the Pixel XL, can’t match the iPhone 7 Plus when it comes real-world speed.

In a new speed test pitting the mighty iPhone 7 Plus against Google’s handset, the Pixel XL gets absolutely stomped, despite having more RAM and the latest SnapDragon 821 processor.

Watch the iPhone 7 kill the Pixel XL:

On the eve before Apple is expected to unveil the future of the Mac, Microsoft fired its biggest shot at taking down the Mac with its first ever all-in-one PC.

It’s beautiful. It’s powerful. And it could give the iMac some serious competition.

Apple faces a serious challenge when it rolls out the rumored OLED “Magic Toolbar” on new MacBook Pros tomorrow: It must convince the world that the new adaptive touchpad is more than a gimmick.

Offering customizable function keys that work in different ways depending on which apps are running, the Magic Toolbar could make the new MacBook Pro one of Apple’s most exciting laptops in years.

But to be more than a gimmick, the Magic Toolbar needs to improve the way we interact with our Macs, not simply add another confusing control element to the laptops. The Magic Toolbar needs to make it easier to perform tasks that we now do using keyboard shortcuts or on-screen toolbars. If it can’t do that, the Magic Toolbar will go down in the history books as a failure.

Luckily, there’s one simple step Apple can take to ensure that the Magic Toolbar becomes a success.

Apple’s next iPhone will feature an all-glass back, according to the latest rumor out of Asia that also claims the 2017 iPhone will come in three different sizes, with one that’s in between the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus.

Jake Harms was on his way to the warehouse when a supervisor asked him to take a cart full of garbage to the dumpster. On top of the cart was an old indigo blue iMac G3.

Crossing the warehouse floor, Harms needed to turn left toward the dumpster. Instead, he steered the cart right toward the parking lot so that he could offload the broken iMac into his car.

That rescued iMac would become the first of more than 700 to get a second life as an aquarium.

Apple plans to unveil a new way to discover what to watch on TV at its event tomorrow.

The new recommendation service will come in the form of an app, according to a new report that claims it will also help networks by giving them a place to promote new show.

If you’re an Apple Watch and iPhone owner, there’s a good chance you suffer from cluttered-nightstand syndrome. There’s only so much surface space on your standard bedside table, and plugging in multiple devices for overnight charging can mean a tangle of wires and general disarray.

The Belkin PowerHouse charging dock, which juices up an iPhone and an Apple Watch at the same time, will cure you instantly of this 21st-century malady.

Let’s face it — smart watches are sleek and feature rich, but they also seem to miss the point of what a ‘watch’ is supposed to do. Watches used to be timepieces, something you look to for an instant check on where you’re at in the day. The Martian Notifier seems to have kept the essential usefulness of the wristwatch in mind, striking a balance between the familiar mechanical watch, and the usefulness of notifications and other smartwatch goodies. It’s a classic take on the new trend in watches, and right now you can get one for $29.00 at Cult of Mac Deals, a quarter of the usual price.

Apple’s Services business is now worth more than its individual iPad, Mac and Apple Watch businesses, according to the company’s quarterly earnings — and beautifully illustrated by the Apple-watching website Six Colors.

Check out their graph below.

Apple can’t make enough iPhone 7 devices to satisfy demand from customers (and from Wall Street to make more money).

During Apple’s Q4 2016 earnings call today, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri hinted that big things are in the pipeline that should put the company back on track to growth — and it all starts Thursday with the MacBook Pro.

Here’s what we learned from the Q4 earnings call:

Apple is set to report its Q4 2016 earnings today, only instead of it being a time for celebration, the company is expected to announce its first annual revenue decline in 15 years.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri warned Wall Street that this quarter wouldn’t smash any records, but with the iPhone 7 doing better than expected, could relief be on the way?

Investors and analysts will grill Apple about how well the company expects to perform next quarter during today’s earnings call. And Cult of Mac will be right here, liveblogging the whole shebang when it starts at 2 p.m. Pacific.

Come join the fun — it’s livestreaming on Apple’s investor site.

Apple today revealed its results for the fourth fiscal quarter of 2016. While the company made as much revenue as expected, it still posted its first annual revenue decline since 2001.

The good news for investors is that Apple is projecting a lot of iPhone growth next quarter. In Q4 2016, Apple earned $46.9 billion in revenue and $9 billion in profit, but in Q1 2017 Apple predicts it will rake in $76 billion to $78 billion.

Xiaomi’s incredible new Mi Mix smartphone brings a jaw-dropping “edgeless” display, a ceramic design and groundbreaking new technologies.

Unveiled today, it isn’t just the prettiest smartphone of 2016; it’s the prettiest smartphone to date.

The Mi Mix is not an iPhone clone — something Xiaomi has become famous for — but it could tell us a lot about Apple’s next handset.

Need more proof that Apple is going to launch a new MacBook Pro on Thursday?

Apple accidentally leaked images of the OLED touchbar on the upcoming MacBook Pro in its latest update for macOS Sierra. Not only do the images confirm what we’ve known for months, but they also give us a glimpse at how the Magic Toolbar will work.

Check it out:

The rotting corpse of Blackberry Ltd. may provide the extra juice needed to get Apple’s car project rolling.

Apple has reportedly poached key engineers from BlackBerry’s QNX team in Canada to help develop the operating system for its self-driving car. And the iPhone-maker has set up shop just five-minutes away from the QNX offices.

This post is brought to you by LG Electronics.

It’s a sad fact that around a third of people on Earth — and some 80 percent of Americans — can no longer enjoy the glory of the night’s sky, due to light pollution. The celestial firmament has been a source of wonder and inspiration for the entirety of human existence, making its sudden disappearance a truly significant loss.