The Cult of Mac Store is bringing you an exclusive discount on Xvida’s magnificent magnetic accessories for iPhone. Buy any charging pad, charging stand, or portable power bank and bag an Xvida case at half the usual price.

This deal ends tomorrow, April 4, so enjoy it while you can!

Skeptical about how water-resistant modern iPhones are? Try telling that to the woman who discovered her iPhone in the Thames river in London two months after she dropped. Still in working order.

Twenty-nine-year-old Thayse Bussolo-Vieira said she was feeding the swans in early February when her brand new iPhone 8 fell out of her pocket and into the river. According to the Mirror newspaper, she was “devastated” because it contained thousands of photos she had not backed up to iCloud.

If you’re having trouble sleeping these days, you’re not alone. Stress is high, schedules are screwy, and the future is uncertain — but a good night’s sleep is as important as ever. Plenty of us are staring at our phones instead of sacking out, but now your phone can actually help get much-needed Zzs.

Apple has eliminated a number of serious flaws that allowed an iPhone’s camera to be hijacked.

Hacker Ryan Pickren discovered the vulnerabilities during a “pretty intense” bug-hunting expedition in Safari. He was paid $75,000 through Apple’s Bug Bounty Program for his efforts.

This week on The CultCast: iPhone SE… 2! Let’s talk about it. Plus: Apple is “scrambling” to prevent iPhone 12 delays amidst COVID-19 challenges; and we wrap up with an all new What We’re Into, Quarantine Edition! We’ll tell you about the shows, game videos and other stuff we’re doing with our extra “free” time.

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.

April 3, 1995: Apple introduces the Macintosh LC 580, an affordable computer offering good multimedia capabilities on a budget.

It quickly proves popular in the educational market. If you used a Mac in the classroom in the mid-1990s, there’s a good chance it was this very model!

Apple’s newest iPad Pro has the ability to disconnect its microphone when the device is not in use for increased security. The disconnect happens at a hardware level so software cannot override it — but there’s a catch.

The feature only works for you if you have the right accessories.

Apple Stores across the U.S. will remain closed until at least early May, the company’s SVP of Retail and People Deirdre O’Brien has told staff, Bloomberg reports.

In a memo sent to employees Thursday, O’Brien also noted that “flexible work arrangements will remain in place for all offices.” Tim Cook previously advised Apple employees to work from home where possible.

Apple TV+ has debuted all 10 episodes of Home Before Dark, its new drama inspired by the real-life reporting of 9-year-old journalist Hilde Lysiak.

The mystery series stars child actress Brooklynn Prince, best known for The Florida Project, alongside Jim Sturgess (Cloud Atlas) and Abby Miller (Justified).

Apple may have accidentally leaked the name for its own upcoming low-cost iPhone, courtesy of an Apple Online Store listing discovered Thursday.

The $39.95 Belkin InvisiGlass Ultra screen protector is advertised as fitting the iPhone 7, iPhone 8 and… iPhone SE. Previous rumors suggested that the new low-cost iPhone would be named either the iPhone 9 or iPhone SE 2. Instead, it seems Apple could go back to the well by reusing the iPhone SE name.

After months of waiting, the successor to the iPhone SE is allegedly ready to launch any day now.

Apple is supposedly ready to accept orders for its new entry-level iPhone “as soon as tomorrow” according to a new report from 9to5Mac that claims if the launch doesn’t happen on Friday, it will be “very soon.”

HBO is joining the wave of companies that are offering free access to their content to placate everyone sheltering in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Starting on April 3, the HBO Now and HBO Go apps will offer freebies to anyone the doesn’t already have a paid subscription. The trove of over 500 hours of free content includes all seasons of The Sopranos, Silicon Valley, The Wire and Ballers. But if you’re hoping to finally catch up Game of Thrones for free, you’ll be sorely disappointed.

The FCC will vote April 23 on a proposal to expand Wi-Fi to the 6GHz band. If approved, the move would add almost five times the bandwidth to the short-range wireless networking standard used by MacBooks, iPads, and virtually every other mobile device. That could bring faster Wi-Fi connections, with less interference from nearby computers.

SXSW 2020, one of the biggest annual conferences covering the convergence of music and film, was canceled last month due to the COVID-19 pandemic last month, but it’s getting a brief second life online.

Amazon Prime Video is partnering with SXSW to offer on-demand streaming of the films that were set to debut at the festival in Austin, Texas. Anyone with an Amazon account will be able to watch the movies for free for 10 days as part of the SXSW 2020 Film Festival Collection.

The official name of Apple’s Bluetooth tracking tiles leaked online on Thursday and Apple only has itself to blame.

Apple published a new iPhone support video on YouTube the educates customers on how to erase your iPhone that made reference to ‘AirTags’ that have been rumored to be coming down the product pipeline since last year.

The second season of Helpsters debuts on Apple TV+ on Friday, April 3. A music video starring Ne-Yo with helpful muppets gives a sneak peek of what’s coming to this educational children’s show.

Watch it now:

Zoom might be the best video-conferencing app, but that’s a bit like saying Facebook is the best social network. It might be true ¹, but that doesn’t mean you won’t feel dirty if you use it. Despite a seemingly never-ending stream of privacy violations, security holes and utter disregard for its customers, Zoom is still being used as the de facto standard video conferencing and broadcasting tool during the COVID-19 crisis.

We’ve already seen the problems with Zoom. And we’ve also shown you how to protect yourself if you choose to use Zoom despite the company’s many privacy missteps. (Zoom pledged to do better this week.) But what about other services you could rely on during the coronavirus shutdown? Read on. We have five great Zoom alternatives you can use.

Apple has been working tirelessly to make the iPhone more and more waterproof over the last four years. Now it appears that the company wants to make it possible to actually use the display underwater too.

Recent patent filings revealed that Apple is putting some serious thought into how to make the iPhone easier to use underwater by creating a simplified UI that lets the user focus less on taps and more on swimming or whatever else you’d be doing underwater.

A company that makes low-cost home security cameras doesn’t sound like an organization you’d call for help in the fight against COVID-19 as it sweeps across the United States.

Wyze didn’t wait for a call.

Located in Kirkland, Washington, close to where the first U.S. cases surfaced, the company used its worldwide connections and ingenuity to help the local medical community fight the coronavirus pandemic. But it also helped consumers stuck at home better use Wyze’s iOS-compatible security cameras as webcams.

Once in a while, an app comes along that changes the way you think of a computer platform. Like Photoshop on the Mac, Lotus 1-2-3 on the IBM PC, or GarageBand on the iPad. We just got another one of these apps Tuesday. It’s called Drambo, from veteran music-app developer BeepStreet, and it redefines music apps on iOS.

Yes, iOS. This amazing, modular, do-almost-anything app works on the iPhone as well as the iPad.

Zoom had over 200 million daily meeting participants in March, about 20x the average, as people isolate themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic.

But this video conferencing service faces criticism for a lack of security. That’s why Zoom CEO Eric Yuan on Thursday stopped all work on adding new features to its software to instead focus on fixing problems with privacy and public trust.

Apple is teaming up with Leonardo DiCaprio, Laurene Powell Jobs and the Ford Foundation to create a new fundraiser aimed at ensuring all Americans have reliable access to food during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The project, called America’s Food Fund, launched this morning on GoFundMe with $12 million in donations and a goal to hit $15 million that will be distributed to the World Central Kitchen and Feeding America.

The all-new Facebook Messenger app for macOS made its official Mac App Store debut on Thursday at a perfect time for those working and interacting more from home.

Messenger for the desktop first appeared in early March, almost a year after Facebook announced it at its F8 conference, but was then on offer in only a handful of countries. It is now open to all — and free to download.

Apple has relaxed a policy that saw it take a 30% cut of payments from competitors who use its platform to sell TV shows and movies through their own video apps, according to a published report.

One of the first companies to seize on the relaxed policy change was Amazon, which started selling and renting Prime Video movies on Apple devices Wednesday.

Spotify’s newest update on iOS, out Thursday, lets users control their music using Siri on Apple Watch. Simply add “on Spotify” to the end of your voice commands to play your favorites artists, albums, playlists, and more.