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Keep your Apple device’s data secure with this VPN [Deals]

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This powerful, intuitive VPN is available at a massive discount, so there's no reason not to stay secure online.
This powerful, intuitive VPN is available at a massive discount, so there's no reason not to stay secure online.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Everyone knows that going online is risky business, so why don’t more people use a virtual private network? Maybe it’s the high cost of some VPNs, or the worry that securing your online anonymity will be a hassle.

With this massive deal on a powerful, simple-to-use VPN, neither of those excuses apply.

Share buybacks mean that Apple hasn’t actually reclaimed $1 trillion crown

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European Commission could get even tougher on tech in 2020
There's still a bit more that Apple needs to do.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Yesterday, numerous news outlets (including ourselves, based on data from Yahoo Finance) reported that Apple had reclaimed its $1 trillion crown.

However, a filing made late Wednesday reveals that Apple has not actually hit that milestone just yet. A company’s market cap is calculated by multiplying a company’s outstanding shares by the market price of one share. As a result of Apple’s continuing share buyback program, there are fewer outstanding shares available.

Apple lobbyist helps push back Right to Repair vote in California

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Cult of Mac's buyback program pays good money for your gear, even broken ones.
Laws will be pushed back to 2020 at least.
Photo: Warren R.M. Stuart/Flickr CC

Right to Repair legislation in Apple’s home state of California has been successfully pushed back to at least January 2020. After intervention by an Apple lobbyist, the co-sponsor of the bill pulled it from committee on Tuesday.

“While this was not an easy decision, it became clear that the bill would not have the support it needed today, and manufacturers had sown enough doubt with vague and unbacked claims of privacy and security concerns,” said California Assembly member Susan Talamantes Eggman.

Apple supplier CEO meets with President Donald Trump

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Terry Gou
Terry Gou is running for president of Taiwan.
Photo: Voice of America/Wikimedia Commons

Foxconn CEO Terry Gou visited President Donald Trump at the White House yesterday. Foxconn, which was founded by Gou, is one of Apple’s biggest manufacturers.

Gou discussed his plans to run for office in Taiwan, where he hopes to become president in next year’s elections. He assured Trump that he would be a friendly partner of the U.S. if elected. “If I am elected, I would be seeking to go to Washington,” he reportedly told the U.S. President.

Google enabling auto-delete of search and location history

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Setting your Google account to automatically delete old information about you will soon be possible.
Setting your Google account to automatically delete old information about you will soon be possible.
Photo: Google/Cult of Mac

Everyone who uses Google services, whether on iPhone or Android, will soon be able to have some of the data being collected about them automatically erased after a span of time.

It’s already possible to order Google to erase everything it stores about your search history, but this new feature will allow for on-going deletion.

Apple paying Qualcomm $4.5 billion to end legal war

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Qualcomm headquarters
Apple's giant payoff leaves Qualcomm sitting pretty.
Photo: Qualcomm

Apple will pay Qualcomm a lump sum of $4.5 billion to $4.7 billion as part of as legal settlement the two companies recently reached.

This is almost as much as Qualcomm’s entire revenue for its current quarter, showing Apple’s importance to the chipmaker.

Apple Music apparently isn’t as ‘intimate’ as Spotify

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Apple Music brand intimacy
How does Apple Music make you feel?
Photo: Apple

We make choices based on emotion and feelings can change on a whim. The best brands understand this as a science and if bonded closely with its customer base, can successfully influence its purchasing choices.

So the marketing team in charge of Apple Music may want to huddle up after a report on brand intimacy released today saw the music streaming service drop from its No. 1 spot from last year to No. 5.

Force Apple Music to play all songs at the same volume with Sound Check

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Sound Check evens out the volume of Apple Music songs.
Sound Check evens out the volume of Apple Music songs.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The song you’re listening to on your iPhone is a bit too quiet, so you adjust the volume. Perfect. Then the song ends, and the next one blasts your ears. You fumble your iPhone from your pocket and tap the volume down a notch or two.

Thanks, Apple Music. Why can’t you just play all the songs at the same volume? Obviously that’s what everyone wants.

Wait, what’s that? You can? How?

How to score $4 Apple Watch bands that beat Apple’s $50 bands

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apple watch bands
Can you spot the differences?
Photo: Erfon Elijah

Accessorizing your Apple Watch with a slew of bands can be an expensive undertaking. But if you know where to look, you can find some high-quality bands that seem just as good as Apple’s — but only cost a fraction of the price.

The CultCast host Erfon Elijah is out with a new video today that will show you how you can pimp out your Apple Watch with multiple colorful bands without breaking the bank. The trick is knowing where to look on eBay and Amazon.

Take a look at some of these gorgeous bands!

iPhone shipments dropped a ‘staggering’ 30% last quarter

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iPhone XR Spectrum ad
Those iPhones aren’t floating upward.
Photo: Apple

Although Apple no longer reports the number of iPhone units it sells, the company did admit there was a steep decline in handset revenue in the first three months of this year. Analysts are out with their exact estimates, and the number of iPhones shipped last quarter could have dipped as much as 30 percent.

Rumor roundup: What to expect in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15 [Video]

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holding iPhone with
iOS 13 could offer tons of huge improvements to Apple's mobile operating system.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

The last few weeks have been packed with rumors and leaks about what Apple may have in store for us with iOS 13 and macOS 10.15. With so much information coming out day after day, it’s hard to keep track of all the possible rumors.

Fortunately for you, we’ve compiled the full list of expected features coming this year to iOS and macOS. From dark mode to iPad updates, and new Mac apps to Siri improvements, here’s everything we are expecting (so far) in iOS 13 and macOS 10.15.

Ridiculous modern offices fueled AirPods’ success

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AirPods in ear
“Don’t talk to me, I’m wearing AirPods” said just about everyone who’s ever worked in an open office.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Open offices were supposed to get employees to interact with each other more, but a recent study shows it hasn’t worked out that way. Instead, workers have turned to AirPods to give themselves some privacy.

This has helped fuel the rise of wireless hearables, especially Apple’s.

Apple is valued at $1 trillion once more

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Cash app with cash money
That sound you hear is glasses clinking in Cupertino!
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

Apple has won back its hard-fought $1 trillion market cap, after share prices rose following yesterday’s earnings triumph.

AAPL is currently trading at $213.20, giving it a market cap of just over $1 trillion. Shares rose 6% in early morning trading. This is a particularly triumphant moment for Apple after its stock price temporarily tanked at the end of last year.

This Pro Camera app is a master of both stills and video

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Moment Pro Camera app
The Moment Pro Camera app lets you have command of how your stills and videos look.
Photo: Moment

You’re a gifted content creator, shooting great stills and compelling video with your iPhone. But for complete creative control, some rely on separate camera apps for each discipline.

Moment, the maker of premium quality lens attachment for both, now has an all-in-one program app making switching from stills to video quick and seamless.

A beefed up Pro Camera app hits the App Store today, offering full manual control and with features making it difficult to have a bad shoot.

Apple spends millions lobbying lawmakers about tax

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Apple is worth more than the entire US energy sector combined
Here's what Apple spends money on when it lobbies Congress.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

When it comes to lobbying Congress, Apple’s biggest focus by far is on tax laws. Out of 236 lobbying reports since 2005, tax is mentioned in a massive 76%.

This is one takeaway from a new report, analyzing lobbying spend from the big five tech giants, Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft. Between them, they have spent $582 million on lobbying since 2005. According to the report, Apple spent $9.6 million on lobbying last year, and $59.9 million since 2005.

Apple Pay prepares to go live in the Netherlands

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Apple Pay Netherlands
Soon you'll be able to pay for your smoke and a pancake using your iPhone.
Screenshot: ING

Shortly after going live in Austria, Apple Pay is also set to commence operations in the Netherlands.

The information was shared by Dutch bank ING on its website. While it doesn’t give an exact date, it does note that Apple Pay is coming “soon.” That suggests that all the necessary negotiations have been completed, and it’s just a matter of flicking the switch to send it live.

Apple’s second ever iPad is officially obsolete

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iPad 2 ad
We can't hate on that price, though!
Photo: Apple

As we noted earlier this month, one of Apple’s earliest tablets is now officially classified “obsolete” by the company.

Apple’s iPad 2, released in 2011, packed a dual-core A5 processor, thinner form factor, and VGA front-facing and 720p rear-facing cameras. However, what was state-of-the-art almost a decade is ago is now considered so old that Apple Stores will no longer service it.

People could hurt themselves fixing their own iPhones, lobbyists warn

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Right to Repair
Apple doesn't want you opening up your devices.
Photo: iFixit

An Apple representative reportedly met with California legislators in an effort to kill a law that would make it easier for people to repair their own smartphones.

With initiatives like its battery replacement program, Apple helped extend the life of million of iPhones. But moves like this won’t please “right to repair” advocates.

Another Apple industrial designer is leaving the company

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Airbnb logo 1
Miklu Silvanto, who joined Apple in October 2011, is leaving the company to join Airbnb.
Photo: Airbnb

Another Apple industrial designer is leaving Jony Ive’s iconic design team. Miklu Silvanto, who joined Apple in October 2011, is joining Airbnb’s new offshoot design studio Samara.

In his new role, Silvanto will help design future house prototypes. Samara has hired a number of experts in disciplines ranging from industrial design to roboticists and urban planners.

Apple’s earning report by the numbers

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Apple financial results on an iPad Pro
A dive into Apple’s most recent financial results shows what’s really happening with the company.
Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac

Taking a close look at Apple’s financial results during the first three months of this year in hard numbers shows how the company is changing. Services are getting more important to its bottom line, and so are iPads. While iPhone is still a big part of Apple’s business, it’s not as significant as it used to be.

Check out these charts that demonstrate with a glance how the changes play out.

What we learned from Apple’s surprising earnings report

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European Commission could get even tougher on tech in 2020
European Commission could get even tougher on tech in 2020
Image: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

Wall Street received surprisingly better-than-expected news from Apple’s Q2 2019 earnings report today — and the stock is soaring in after-hours trading.

iPhone sales remain down, but pretty much every other facet of the company’s business is firing on all cylinders. Customers are falling in love with the iPad all over again. Services are booming. And Apple’s wearables business is now the size of a Fortune 200 company.

Despite plenty of doom and gloom from analysts over the last 12 months, Apple’s future is looking bright again.

4 key reasons Apple’s China problem is going away

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Activist shareholders push Apple on why it booted Hong Kong protest app
Activist shareholders push Apple on why it booted Hong Kong protest app
Photo: Fredrik Rubensson/Flickr CC

Apple’s business in China is finally turning around, according to execs who say Cupertino’s troubles in the country might be a thing of the past.

“We feel positive about our trajectory,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during Tuesday’s earnings call, noting that the company’s “year-over-year revenue performance in Greater China improved relative to the December quarter.”

Then Cook laid out four reasons why Apple’s “China problem” is going away.