There’s a leap of faith involved when hitting ‘send’ on important or sensitive information — whether personal correspondence, financial information, location, you name it, there’s someone willing to steal it. One way to take faith out of the equation is by connecting via a virtual private network, or VPN. SaferVPN a quick and reliable connection that’s encrypted and accessible with a single click. And right now you can get a lifetime of SaferVPN for just $49 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Apple Music added to its impressive string of exclusives by releasing Endless, a 45-minute “visual album” by Frank Ocean.

The film, which is available now to subscribers of Apple’s streaming music service, is thought to be a tease for an upcoming album by the Grammy-winning singer that could be released this weekend.

With iPhone demand slowing down, one of the ways in which Apple is hoping to increase earnings is by pushing its suppliers to work for less money — but it doesn’t seem to be going entirely to plan.

According to a new report, Apple is meeting resistance from manufacturers in its Taiwan-based supply chain as it requests that they lower quotes for iPhone 7 components by as much as 20 percent.

The next-generation Apple Watch won’t totally cut ties with the iPhone when it launches later this fall.

Although Apple plans to add a number of much-needed features to the Apple Watch 2, a new report claims the company hit roadblocks when trying to make a major change that would have added LTE or other cellular data connection capabilities to the device.

Leaked camera parts supposedly destined for this year’s 4.7-inch iPhone have revealed that Apple finally plans to add a feature found on its Plus-sized units the past two years.

While most of this years’ iPhone camera rumors have focused on the dual-lens module coming to the iPhone 7 Plus, a leaked iPhone 7 rear camera module hints at some big improvements coming to the smaller device.

The Apple Store is no longer called the Apple Store.

Apple has begun dropping “Store” from the name of its 479 retail locations worldwide, so they are now referred to simply as “Apple.”

The ability to seamlessly hand off web pages or emails from your Mac to your iPhone (or vice versa) has been around for a couple of years now. However, in macOS Sierra and iOS 10 it’s taken to the next level — courtesy of a Universal Clipboard feature which lets you easily copy and paste content between your Mac and iOS devices.

Here’s how to use the feature when running Apple’s next-gen iOS and macOS, which are currently in public beta and will be released this fall.

T-Mobile has declared “the era of the data plan is over,” and that it is offering all users unlimited data from this point on.

Called T-Mobile ONE, the new setup announced by CEO John Legere offers customers a way to get rid of pesky data plans — with unlimited talk, text and 4G LTE smartphone data, all for the impressively low cost of $40 per line if you’re a family of (at least) four.

We could all use an extra couple hundred gigs of space on our MacBook, but no one is excited about having a bulky and expensive external drive sticking out of their computer. Hence the appeal of Nifty’s MiniDrive, which seamlessly adds up to 200GB to your MacBook without altering the laptop’s sleek profile.

This is a great, reliable alternative to cloud-based storage or more bulky options like USB drives, and right now you can get one for just $33.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Are you one of those people who is forever forgetting where you left your iPhone? Now Amazon Alexa can help you find it, thanks to TrackR integration.

Apple may have fared better in its recent quarterly earnings than some were predicting, but iOS is still being obliterated by Android in overall marketshare worldwide.

How much so? According to new figures published by Gartner, Android is currently the mobile operating system found on a whopping 86.2 percent of handsets worldwide. In other words, based on this single metric, it’s not even close!

A small woodwork shop in Oregon has a fondness for Apple products and goes to great lengths to craft eye-appealing iPhone cases, iPad docks, and monitor stands.

Now, Portland-based Grovemade makes a play for the ears with horn-shaped hardwood desktop speakers that debuted this week.

Parallels Desktop, a go-to program for anybody wanting to run Windows on a Mac, just got more powerful and convenient to use. The Parallels Desktop 12 update, brings increased speed as well as a suite of handy new tools that simplify everyday tasks.

“This is the best Windows-on-Mac performance in the history of Parallels,” said John Uppendahl, Parallels’ vice president of communications, during a briefing about the new software, which will be available Thursday for subscribers and upgraders. (New users must wait until Aug. 23.)

Getting your chicken fix will no longer require a wallet at Chick-fil-A restaurants.

The company’s long-awaited Apple Pay rollout that was announced last year is finally coming to stores nationwide this week, allowing iPhone and Apple Watch owners to pay with a tap.

Austria is reportedly set to finally get its first Apple Store, which will be located at one of downtown Vienna’s most profitable shopping streets.

Staples is offering the chance to stream high-def content at an unbeatable price, while Groupon cuts huge discounts off a wide range of Apple gear and accessories. You’ll find all these and more in this roundup of the week’s best Apple deals.

Our new App Business section is brought to you by MacPaw, maker of proven Mac apps.

Like death and taxes, distributing your new app through the Mac App Store can seem inevitable. It’s widely considered the easiest way to get the widest exposure for an app, a centralized marketplace for software with a captive audience of buyers.

But ever more developers are looking beyond the Mac App Store (MAS) for distribution options that best serve their app. MacPaw, maker of DevMate, performed an interesting survey of developers to ask if they prefer MAS or another app store alternative, and why.

A Connecticut man has filed a lawsuit against an EMT after being hit on the head with an iPad while in the back of an ambulance. Robert Alix, who is seeking $15,000 in damages, also claims that he was beaten and told to “get a haircut and join the military.”

AT&T customers soon won’t have to worry about going over their monthly data limit, thanks to a new set of plans the carrier is rolling out nationwide later this month.

Instead of cutting your data off once you go over, the new Mobile Share Advantage plans simply throttle your speeds down to a maximum of 128 kbps, making the carrier more competitive with the likes of T-Mobile.

Apple’s next-generation iPhones will indeed be named the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, but they will not be accompanied by an iPhone 7 Pro, according to a new report citing “reliable sources.”

The Mac debut of Siri on macOS Sierra opens up a ton of intriguing new use-cases in terms of functionality. One of the most useful? The ability to use Apple’s virtual assistant to search for photos either on the web or your own computer — and then drag them into directly into apps.

Here’s how to use the feature when running Apple’s next-gen macOS, which is currently in public beta and will be released this fall.

Declining sales of Apple products is one of the factors Target has blamed for its disappointing second-quarter earnings.

During a conference call today, Target CEO Brian Cornell noted that Apple products fell 20 percent in sales at his company’s stores, resulting in a double-digit percentage sales decline in the retailer’s electronics division.

When Chris Maury tried helping an elderly blind woman use voice commands on an iPad, she thanked him but said, “I just wish Siri could read me the news.”

Maury understood her frustration. He, too, was losing his vision and could foresee a struggle to remain productive using the visual interfaces common on all computing devices.

The slim Lightning cables that come with our iPhones serve as their lifeline, but they sure are fragile. If you’ve had one for more than a few weeks, you’ve seen it get frayed, cut, scuffed, and generally put through the ringer. It’s only sensible to have a backup lying around, or three — right now you can get a trio of MFi-certified Lightning cables for a big discount, $21.99 at Cult of Mac Deals.

Most people are pretty darn excited about the possibility of Apple adding an OLED display to the iPhone in the near future, but according to one analyst, the feature is likely to be rolled out slowly — arriving first of all as an “added bonus” for only select higher-end iPhones.