No one could protest legislation aimed at curbing child sex abuse, but a bill that reportedly will be introduced soon in the US Congress could have much wider consequences. One result might be a legally mandated requirement that messaging services have a “backdoor” so that law enforcement can read all encrypted messages.

Tossed into the swirl of rumors and reports about coronavirus and its impact on Apple production is an alleged new entry to the AirPods lineup called “AirPods Pro Lite.”

The quotes bookending the product name are because no one is sure what to make of what is essentially a rumor first reported by a Chinese website with a mixed record for accuracy.

In the last few days, reports have surfaced in DigiTimes of a second “lite” version supplier, giving further credence to the various reports.

This week on The CultCast: New iPads Pro, new AirPods and AirTags are incoming, but Apple warns coronavirus could mean big manufacturing delays. Plus: From cut and paste, to Newton, and more — we remember the inventions of tech folk hero Larry Tesler.

And stick around for an all new What We’re Into, where Leander pitches some of the most bizarre shows on TV.

Our thanks to LinkedIn for supporting this episode. A business is only as strong as its people, and every hire matters … head to LinkedIn.com/cultcast and get a $50 credit toward your first job post.

WhatsApp’s brand-new dark mode will be exclusively available on devices running iOS 13 when it finally makes its debut. The feature is now being tested in early versions of the app ahead of its rollout to everyone.

Approaching a year-and-a-half after it marched onto iPhone, I’m still amazed that Sid Meier’s epic Civilization VI has somehow been squeezed onto a device that fits in your pocket.

Now there’s a new reason to be amazed, too. That’s because the turn-based 4X game (that’s “eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate” for all you newbies) has been discounted to its cheapest price yet. Instead of the $59.99 regular price, it’s currently just $4.99.

How can you go wrong?

It’s unlikely that we’re going to stop wanting new apps anytime soon. So mobile app development remains one of the best skill sets to cultivate. This bundle of seven courses can build your mobile development chops.

Steve Jobs’ autograph is rare because a) he was Steve Jobs and b) because he reportedly hated signing autographs. That makes any opportunity to get your hands on the John Hancock of Apple’s late CEO and co-founder pretty exciting.

An upcoming auction promises one of the more interesting Jobs autographs I’ve seen. RR Auctions is auctioning off a mid-1990s PowerBook 190cs, signed by Jobs in black felt tip. Its starting price? A mere $1,000 — although you can expect it to sell for many, many times that figure.

Leaked benchmarks believed to be from the next-generation 13-inch MacBook Pro reveal the machine could be powered by Intel’s latest Ice Lake processors.

The chips, which haven’t been used in a Mac before, will provide Apple’s newest notebook with a sizable boost in speed and graphics performance. They won’t be the only reason to buy a new 13-inch MacBook Pro, though.

Pokémon Home, the new service that lets you send all your Pokémon to the cloud for transferring between devices, has gotten off to a terrific start on mobile. New figures reveal it raked in $1.8 million during its first week alone.

SK Hynix, the world’s second largest memory chipmaker, which counts Apple as one of its biggest clients, sent 800 workers home Thursday amidst coronavirus fears.

The 800 workers quarantined themselves as a precautionary measure after a single trainee had close contact with a coronavirus patient. While most of the coronavirus virus-related supply chain disruption centers on China, this incident took place in South Korea, where a small outbreak recently took place in the city of Daegu.

Call it the Streisand effect if you want, but the book written by a former App Store manager that Apple attempted to ban has risen to the number one spot on Amazon’s book charts in the writer’s native country.

Apple lawyers have tried to lean on the publishers to destroy all copies of the book. They claim that it contains inside secrets.

Unsurprisingly, this has sparked a whole lot of interest in a book that — by its own admission — shares only publicly available details about how Apple approves third-party apps in Germany.

T-Mobile and Sprint have finalized their deal terms as their all-stock “New T-Mobile” merger continues to head toward completion. They’re hoping that the megamerger could be officially approved as early as April 1.

Originally, Sprint owner SoftBank was scheduled to trade 9.75 shares for each T-Mobile share. According to the new agreement, it will trade 11 shares per T-Mobile share. Sprint’s other shareholders will get the original exchange ratio.

A San Francisco man accused of stalking Tim Cook allegedly trespassed at the Apple CEO’s home twice in the last three months and threatened various Apple employees, according to court documents obtained by Cult of Mac.

Rakesh “Rocky” Sharma, 42, also purportedly posted sexual imagery to his Twitter account, tagging Cook, and engaged in other inappropriate acts.

As a result, Apple received a temporary restraining order earlier this month mandating that Sharma stay at least 200 yards away from Cook as well as Apple security officer William Burns and other Apple employees.

Apple designed an iPhone that’s all touchscreen. Front, back, top, bottom and sides — every bit of the exposed surface is a wraparound display.

And the description shows engineers put quite a bit of thought into the proposal.

Cult of Mac spotted an Apple employee wearing an updated data-gathering backpack powered by iPhone 11 Pros on Thursday in Silicon Valley. The wearable rig, presumably used to collect images and data for Apple Maps, looks similar to one seen in 2018. But it features a new hardshell cover — and at least three of Apple’s latest iPhones, apparently used to capture images from the backpack’s sides.

Take a look at how it compares to the old setup:

Replacement iPhone batteries with more capacity than the standard ones promise to significantly extend the time between recharges. Tests done on these third-party alternatives show that some deliver on their promises but not others.

Twitter is looking for ways to notify its readers when posts by politicians are judged to be factually untrue. The social-networking service is considering attaching large, orange “harmfully misleading” warnings to posts that are fake news.

Someone thinks a foldable smartphone is a good idea. That person, for now, is not the consumer.

In a survey of 11,374 Americans, a whopping 82 percent of the respondents said they have no plans to purchase a foldable smartphone. That doesn’t mean companies need to shut the lid on the idea.

With the COVID-19 coronavirus spreading around the world, it’s worth taking a moment to learn how to wash your hands. Official government advice says that touch is not the most likely way for transmission of the deadly virus. But in general, touch is more likely to spread disease than kissing, according to Bill Bryson in his latest book, The Body. Which means that washing your hands is one of the best ways to guard against catching a cold or something worse.

You probably wash your hands plenty of times throughout the day. But unless you’re a surgeon, you probably don’t do it properly.

Production of some AirPods components has managed to stay at normal levels despite the COVID-19 virus causing problems with Apple’s supply chain and stores in China.

AirPods Pro supplies were constrained months before the coronavirus outbreak in China. Tim Cook told investors that he couldn’t predict when production would finally catch up, but a new report gives some encouraging signs that things could get back to normal soon.

Twitter is rolling out a new “continue thread” feature that lets you easily publish follow-ups to previous tweets. Simply pull down in the compose window to see recent posts in one place.

There’s also a new update for the official Twitter app on Mac that fixes an annoying notifications bug.

While most workout gadgets estimate all the calories you burn during the day, Apple Watch does something different. It uses a metric called Active Calories, which is always lower than Total Calories. And that’s actually a good thing. Here’s why.

Castro, one of the top two or three podcast apps for iOS, now lets you side load YouTube videos into the app. It’s audio-only, so this isn’t a way to download videos for offline viewing. But it’s a sweet feature for anyone who just wants to listen to a presentation/lecture/etc. instead of having to watch it.

Microsoft Defender, the built-in antivirus software that you would typically find baked into Windows, is coming to iPhone.

Defender has already started making its way to macOS, where it provides full virus protection and the ability to scan your system for any malicious software. We’re expecting a very different experience on iPhone, however.

One of the most high-profile projects in development for Apple TV+ is already running into some huge problems while shooting its first season.

Apple reportedly shut down production on its TV series adaptation of the popular novel Shantaram in Australia. The reason: the writers can’t churn out scripts fast enough.