When I think back to the Mac ads that have been my favorite over the years, it’s the ones that show everyday users (albeit frequently exceptionally talented ones) using Apple products that really stand out.

A celebrity-filled ad that makes you laugh is all well and great, but the ads that demonstrate how Apple products can help to create art or empower ordinary people are some of the most powerful ones. Which is why the latest “Behind the Mac” ad is my favorite 2020 commercial so far.

Check it out.

Apple updated its homepage over the weekend to pay tribute to John Lewis, the Democratic congressman and civil right hero, who died Friday at the age of 80.

Apple’s homepage featured an image of Lewis, with the quotation: “Never, ever be afraid to make some noise and get in good trouble, necessary trouble.”

Games are as common on our laptops, phones and tablets as they are on consoles. Unfortunately, playing those games means smudging up screens or hooking up a mouse. Not so with this feature-packed Bluetooth wireless controller.

If you’ve always dreamed of running a Windows or Mac operating system on iPhone or iPad, this is your lucky day. We’ve got how-tos that show you how to run Windows XP or Mac OS X on an iOS device. It turns out it’s not that difficult — and it doesn’t require a jailbreak!

If you’re not up for a weekend project like that, don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of other good reading in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Download it now and enjoy all the week’s top stories on your iPad or iPhone.

It’s got plenty of Apple news, including info on iOS 13.6 and the other software updates Apple released this week.

The internet has revolutionized music, and so have mobile devices. That’s as true of learning music as it is for listening to it, as these three deals demonstrate. With them, you can gain command of the ukelele, master Apple’s powerful Logic Pro X music-production program, and learn thousands of tunes straight from digital sheet music.

Connell McCarthy is a senior designer for Shopify by day and moonlights as a musician. His setup was built to handle both of these activities.

He works at a Strucktube table, by Tokyo Desk, which gives him a ton of space to work with. His monitor is the LG 32-inch FreeStyle IPS Monitor which gives him good screen quality without breaking the bank. The nerve center of his rig is a MacBook Pro.

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when wearing a face mask slows the spread of this disease, Apple really must change its medical mask emoji. It seems like a small tweak, but it’s important.

Currently, the face shown is unhappy about having to wear a mask. The design needs to show the person is glad to do their part.

This week on The CultCast: A massive Twitter hack has Apple pushing a bitcoin scam to millions! Plus: iOS 13.6 brings some cool new features to Apple News. And we’ll tell you the newest info on Apple Glass, while pondering the fate of Jon Prosser, the prolific Apple insider who vanished right after leaking details on the AR specs.

Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. Easily create a beautiful website all by yourself, at Squarespace.com/cultcast. Use offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

The Terminal is a back-alley cafe where the dead mingle with the living. Necrobarista, which debuted Friday on Apple Arcade, is the story of Maddy Xiao, the new owner and an amateur necromancer.

Route 59 calls its creation “a unique take on the visual novel medium.” It offers a free-roaming first-person perspective on a 3D world with anime aesthetics.

Yet another major Apple contract manufacturer is embracing India as a possible location for building iPhones. According to Bloomberg, Pegatron is the third major iPhone maker — after Foxconn and Wistron — to explore setting up a plant in India.

Does the voice data harvested by voice assistants like Siri give tech giants an unfair marketplace advantage? Lawmakers in Europe are currently pondering that exact question.

A European Commission investigation into the matter will look at whether this data is being used to stifle competition and maintain the position of companies like Apple and Amazon in the marketplace. This most notably relates to the rapidly expanding constellation of smart, connected devices.

The more we learn about how much of our information is up for grabs, the more it makes sense to protect ourselves. Privacy and security are precious, and we’ve got a great deal on a pair of powerful tools for preserving both.

Apple has made plenty of public-facing moves to show its push for diversity in tech. But it’s making some behind-the-scenes changes, too — like tweaking the terms in its developer ecosystem to remove words the company no longer considers appropriate.

Examples include switching “master” code repository to “main” code repository, and changing “blacklist” to “deny list.” Here’s what Apple had to say in its announcement:

Worldwide app downloads have boomed over the past three months, hitting an all-time high of 37.8 billion downloads, a new report by app analytics platform Sensor Tower claims.

Of that number, 9.1 billion were from the App Store. The remaining 28.7 billion was from the Google Play store for Android users. Both saw considerable growth versus last year. That’s despite the effects of coronavirus and the subsequent economic downturn.

Apple opened its first store in China back in 2008 at Beijing’s Taikoo Li Sanlitun mall. Now, more than a decade later, it has opened a spectacular new Apple Sanlitun store adjacent to the now-shuttered location of the original.

Apple Sanlitun is twice the size of the original Beijing store, and includes a viewing gallery, boardroom (for users to get advice from Apple experts), and a forum for future live events. Check out the pictures below.

Wissam Abirached is a senior engineering manager at Github, so he needs a desk to match his position. His MacBook Pro-powered rig orbits around an LG 34-inch UltraWide monitor. Aside from Apple’s Pro Display XDR, the LG’s UltraWide is the monitor to use when working with Apple products.

He uses an Apple Magic Keyboard and Mouse — can’t go wrong there. His MacBook sits on top of a Griffin GC16034 Elevated Laptop Stand. This puts his laptop at a comfortable height and gives him a place to store his Xbox controller.

Friday is World Emoji Day, and the celebration wouldn’t be complete without Apple unveiling the new additions coming to iPhone, iPad and Mac. Highlights of the iOS 14 emoji include ninjas, the transgender symbol, and a certain Italian hand gesture.

But the complicated process emoji have to get through before reaching our phones means there aren’t any timely ones, like more people wearing masks.

Apple on Thursday gave a straight-to-series order to Echo 3, a new action-thriller from Mark Boal, who picked up multiple Oscars for writing The Hurt Locker.

The 10-part series headed for Apple TV+ is inspired a novel by Amir Gutfreund.

If you’ve ever used the brilliant Magic Keyboard for iPad Pro late at night, while someone sleeps quietly beside you, you’ve probably noticed that clicking its trackpad is too darn loud! But you can avoid it.

With one simple settings change, you can use a silent tap to click instead. Here’s how.

If you’ve ever spent any amount of time in macOS, you will have likely tried to use its familiar Command+Q keyboard shortcut to quit apps on iPad — only to find it does nothing. But you’re not using it properly.

There is a trick that allows you to use this shortcut to quickly close iPadOS apps, and in this pro tip, we’ll show you how.

The Logitech Folio Touch takes full advantage of the trackpad support added to iPadOS. And its keyboard and kickstand help convert the 11-inch iPad Pro into a MacBook alternative.

It offers premium features, like backlit keys, multi-touch trackpad gestures, and support for the Smart Connector.

Tests done on a range of iPhone models running the just-released iOS 13.6 reveal that it slightly reduces the battery life of all these handsets when compared to the previous version. And, generally speaking, that has held true for the last six iOS 13 updates.

But there’s good news. Tests with an early iOS 14 beta showed this upcoming version brings a significant increase to battery life.

B&H Photo has slashed up to $100 off Apple’s newest Mac mini for a limited time only. Prices start at $759 — down from $799 — for the entry-level machine, but you’ll save even more on beefier models.

B&H says a limited supply is available, so claim yours before they’re gone.

Apple is deepening its connection with historically Black colleges and universities to create “community hubs for coding and creativity.”

Under the heading of Apple’s Community Education Initiative, the partnership with an addition 10 learning institutes will allow Apple to expand its coding initiative — while also helping widen participation in tech.

Amazon has been busier than ever during the COVID-19 pandemic, as shuttered high streets drive people online to do shopping that, well, they were increasingly doing online anyway.

But user spending habits have changed, says a new report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP). Provided its data is accurate, some of those changes could well have an impact on Apple’s business.