Grassroots protests against the government’s attempts to hack the iPhone are set to take place today in nearly 50 cities around the United States, beginning at 5.30pm local time.

“FBI Director [James] Comey has been repeatedly asking the White House and Congress for a backdoor to encrypted phones for the past year,” privacy advocates Fight for the Future representative Holmes Wilson tells Cult of Mac. “If he says he doesn’t want this kind of access going forward, he’s just lying, and you can see it in the public record.”

According to Wilson, this is why this story is such a big deal — and what Cult of Mac readers can do to get involved:

It just got a little easier to search for Disney content on the Apple TV, now that Disney properties such as the Disney Channel, Disney Jr., Disney XD, and Watch ABC are  searchable through the Apple TV’s universal search API.

With yesterday’s release of the latest iOS 9.3 beta, one thing is looking more and more likely: Apple has intentionally debuffed the Apple Pencil so it can no longer be used to navigate through iOS.

Now, it’s only meant for drawing and writing within apps.

FBI director James Comey and his supporters suggest that making Apple break its iPhone encryption for the San Bernardino shooter case would be a one-off event, and not the start of a slippery slope into unwanted surveillance.

Well, it seems that someone needs to tell the Department of Justice that, because the D.O.J. is reportedly salivating at the thought of being able to hack iPhones for criminal investigations — with court orders being filed for Apple to help extract iPhone data in a further dozen cases around the U.S.

We’re decades removed from Bill Gates’ vicious battle against Steve Jobs, but Gates isn’t quite as ready as some of his contemporaries to side with Apple concerning one of tech’s biggest stories of 2016.

In a new interview, Gates defies Silicon Valley consensus, arguing that Apple should create an FBI backdoor for the iPhone — and siding with FBI director James Comey by suggesting that this wouldn’t, in fact, set a dangerous precedent for the possibility of future snooping.

If Apple loses its encryption battle with the FBI over the data contained on a terrorist’s phone, it will make Manhattan’s district attorney and police commissioner very happy.

Despite the federal government’s claim that the updated version of the iPhone’s operating system will only be used on this case, D.A. Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. sees a government victory as a sure way to get Apple to unlock a bunch of other devices his office is sitting on. And by “a bunch,” we mean hundreds of phones that the company could suddenly be compelled to compromise.

Apple has added Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to its growing list of elite tech allies that support that company’s fight against the FBI’s demands to create a back door on iOS to unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone.

During an appearance today at the the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Zuckerberg said that adding backdoor access to devices is neither effective nor the right thing to do.

Project management can get overwhelming quickly, especially if you’re juggling multiple initiatives and deadlines at once. From keeping your team on track to ensuring there is good communication and planning between you and your client, there are tons of project management apps available in the App Store to help you tackle even the most challenging of tasks.

I’ve been using my iPhone and iPad to help me manage teams and keep projects moving for the better part of five years now. While my workflow constantly changes as tools and apps become better and better, here are my favorite project management apps that I just couldn’t do without.

Folks looking to promote their next big block-party, wedding or musical shindig can now get in on Snapchat’s action with these new temporary geofilters for the popular photo-sharing service.

Called “On-Demand” geofilters, they’ll allow anyone, including local businesses, to create temporary location-based filters that will show up whenever other Snapchatters walk through the area defined when they’re created.

The bad news? The new feature will cost you $5 per filter to create.

We were already worried about keeping hotel keycards in the same pocket as our cell phones, but it turns out that our devices might be erasing some slightly more important things. Namely, men’s sperm.

In a new study, fertility experts claim that men who keep their mobiles anywhere near their reproductive organs — in their front pants pocket, for example — “may bear adverse effects on sperm concentration.” The scientists also found some correlations between lower sperm counts and talking on the phone for more than one hour a day and using the phone while it is charging.

The FBI claims Apple’s resistance to its demands to hack the San Bernardino terrorist’s are part of a marketing brand strategy, but if it is, it’s not one that the American people support.

A new poll from the Pew Public Research Center has revealed that over half of the country opposes Apple’s position in its privacy battle against the FBI, while only 38% of Americans think Apple should not unlock the iPhone to ensure the security of its customer’s private data.

We’re not saying that you search for inappropriate stuff on Instagram or anything, but if for some reason you’d like to clear your search history in the photo sharing app, you can.

You can’t view your search history directly, but it does inform your new searches, making it “easier for you to find your favorite people and hashtags again quickly,” according to Instagram.

So, if you don’t want certain (ahem) searches to show up when you’re looking for new things, here’s how to clear your Instagram searches.

Best List: MacBook Pro Skin by dbrand

The time I spend hacking away on my laptop at coffee shops, hotel lobbies and conference room floors I inevitably spot another MacBook user with a cooler-looking laptop than mine, filling me with envy.

Well, dbrand has the goods to make the other coffee shop patrons jealous.

Apple has seeded a new beta build of OS X El Capitan to developers this morning in the form of OS X 10.11.4 beta 4.

The new beta build can be downloaded directly from Apple’s Developer Member Center, or via the Software Update option in the Mac App Store if your Mac is already rolling on the last El Capitan beta.

A big batch of new beta software has landed on Apple’s Developer Center today.

The fourth beta builds of iOS 9.3, tvOS 9.2 and watchOS 2.2 are now available for developers to test bringing a host of new features to the iPhone like NightShift mode, improved Apple News and Apple Music apps, and some great education features for iPad.

The FBI claims there’s absolutely no other way for it to access San Bernardino terrorist Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone 5c expect other having Apple create a backdoor. But according to Edward Snowden there’s at least one other option: acid and lasers.

The former NSA contractor and privacy activist appeared in a virtual talk at Johns Hopkins University and pointed out that even though FBI insists forcing Apple to hack the iPhone is the only way forward, that’s simply not true.

According to Tim Cook, Apple is working alongside Steve Jobs’ family to come up with an idea for the “right way” to pay tribute to him with Apple’s upcoming “spaceship campus.”

In an interview with Fortune, Cook confirmed that, “We will definitely honor [Steve] in the right kind of way,” with the new campus — whose opening has reportedly been delayed from 2016 until early 2017.

Our computers are thinner than ever, but also deeper, meaning getting to the bottom of a problem takes expertise or just the right tool. TechTool Pro 8 goes beyond basic diagnostics to plumb your system’s inner workings, even testing the motherboard, to keep your Mac running at peak performance. Whether you’re using one computer or several, this is a tune-up kit worth getting. And right now you can get a copy of TechTool Pro 8 for just $39.99.

Carol Adams’ son, Robert Adams, was among the 14 people killed by Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife on December 2 in San Bernardino, but she doesn’t think the FBI should force Apple to hack the terrorist’s iPhone.

Adams said she stands by Apple’s decision to fight the FBI’s demands to weaken the iPhone’s security in order to access information on Farook’s locked iPhone, explaining that the constitutional right to privacy “is what makes America great to begin with.”

Tim Cook doubled down on his privacy position this morning, refusing to give in to the FBI’s demands to create an iOS backdoor so the bureau can unlock the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone.

In an email to employees with the subject line “Thank you for your support,” the Apple CEO says the company’s battle is about much more than a single iPhone or single investigation.

Samsung may have “borrowed” Apple’s Upgrade Program for its new Galaxy S7 handset, but one thing it seemingly can’t copy is Apple’s perfectionist approach to design.

New photos popping up online highlight how Samsung just can’t seem to afford the ruler it would require to get all of its Galaxy S7 ports, microphones, speakers and jacks to properly line up with one another.

Check out the photos below.

Tim Cook sent out an email to all Apple employees this morning, thanking them for their support and outlining the reasons why the FBI’s court order needs to be dropped.

“This case is about much more than a single phone or a single investigation, so when we received the government’s order we knew we had to speak out,” Cook wrote. “At stake is the data security of hundreds of millions of law-abiding people, and setting a dangerous precedent that threatens everyone’s civil liberties.”

Author of brainy best-sellers The Name of the Rose and Foucault’s Pendulum died late last week, and was heavily eulogized over the weekend in pretty much every major newspaper around the world.

But while most people (understandably) focused on his status was one of Italy’s best-known literary exports, did you know that Eco also once wrote an essay about the benefits of Mac OS versus MS-DOS? It’s pretty much the academic’s answer to those classic Mac vs. PC TV commercials.

Apple Pay may have finally launched in China, but it seems that Apple flinched first in its negotiations with Chinese banks over their adoption of the service.

At least, that’s according to a new report — citing “people with knowledge of the matter” — which claims that Apple will only earn about half of what it does in the U.S. for every Apple Pay transaction in China.

The director of the FBI has written an impassioned open letter to Apple, asking it to go along with the recent court order to unlock the iPhone at the center of the San Bernardino shooting investigation.

James Comey writes that the FBI, “isn’t about trying to set a precedent or send any kind of message. It is about the victims and justice.”

Check out the rest of his open letter below: