As battle lines are drawn between China and the U.S. in its burgeoning trade war, China has one big advantage working in its favor. The country is a primary source of “rare earths” used by manufacturers around the world — including Apple.

This category of 17 elements is used in multiple iPhone components. These include cameras, speakers, taptic engines, and receiver components. It’s yet another way Apple could be hurt by a trade war.

Apple has kicked a popular iOS game out of the App Store after a Chinese company stole its name.

Clicker Heroes, which first made its debut on iPhone and iPad back in 2015, is a highly-rated idle RPG from Playsaurus. It’s usually free to download, but it’s no longer available on iOS.

There’s currently no word on if or when it will return, but it doesn’t look good.

The benefits of using a VPN to connect to the internet almost always outweigh the costs. It also helps if the VPN is rated highly on the App Store (4.6 out of 5 stars from over 27,000 reviews). But if price is what’s holding you back, this deal is for you.

This week on The CultCast: Apple releases the MacBook Pro we never thought possible, packed with Intel’s newest 8-core chip! But can a machine this slim handle the heat? Plus: WWDC 2019 is officially on! We talk our keynote predictions. And even more good news, Apple announces two new warranty repair programs to fix MacBook’s most troubling issues… for FREE.

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Worse Than Death, the new game created by horror title Home creator Benjamin Rivers, has a release date in the App Store.

The pixel art action-adventure game, which combines puzzle solving and exploration with plenty of scares will debut on June 26. Check out the trailer below.

The future of Samsung’s first foldable phone looks uncertain again after Best Buy canceled all existing preorders.

The retailer says it wants to put customers first and “ensure they are taken care of in the best possible manner.” It doesn’t want people hanging on for a phone that still has no release date.

A new image posted online shows that Apple is gearing up to open its second Apple Store in Taiwan. The photo shows that Apple has erected its customary white construction barriers around the new store, complete with Apple branding.

The new retail outlet is located at the bottom of the Xinyi A13 shopping mall in Taipei’s commercial hub District. From the look of things, the store has a roof design reminiscent of its Chicago flagship store.

Apple’s got no shortage of celebrity friends — and a few of them just shared their summer playlists to Apple Music.

Apple’s “Summertime Sounds” curated playlist collection contains the tracks hand-picked (well, presumably) by names including Chris Hemsworth, Lizzo, Shawn Mendes, J Balvin, and more. Want to know what Thor is bumping as he heads on the latest Avengers press tour? This might be your best hope of answering that question.

Apple Pay users can now enjoy $1 tacos at Taco Bell.

Apple’s latest promotion, which applies to any regular crunchy or soft-seasoned beef taco, runs through May 29. You’ll need the Taco Bell app on your iPhone to take advantage of it.

Gameloft has confirmed it is working on a brand new role-playing game for mobile that’s set in the Lego universe.

Lego Legacy: Heroes Unboxed will make its debut this fall. It’s the first Lego game in the RPG genre, and it promises to be a lot of fun for fans of the Lego franchise and RPG games.

Check out the first teaser trailer right here.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could take that awesome (and hilarious!) GIF, and use it as an animated wallpaper for your iPhone? You could wake your iPhone, press on the screen, and watch the action unfold. Over and over. And over.

Sadly, GIF wallpapers are impossible. Or are they? Well, you can’t set an actual GIF to run as your lock-screen wallpaper, but you can convert any GIF into a Live Photo, and use that to animate your iPhone’s lock screen.

Here’s how.

All who’ve upgraded their phone or tablet to iOS 12.3 can no longer backtrack to the previous version. This is because Apple has stopped signing iOS 12.2.

It’s not a reflection on that older version, but a standard action for the company to take. It always ends the installation of obsolescent versions shortly after a new one is introduced.

The Apple Smart Keyboard Folio turns an iPad Pro into an ultralight laptop, but it’s so slim it doesn’t do much to shield the tablet inside. We tested a sleeve from Dodocase that goes around Apple’s keyboard to protect both it and the iPad. It also improves the look of the keyboard case.

Be sure to read our hands-on review of the handy Keyboard Folio Sleeve.

Now that Netflix is the 800-lb gorilla of content providers everywhere, accessing and streaming their vast library has improved from its modest beginnings. Yet even despite the enhancements to their service, it can still be a pain to have to open a browser and enter your password to get to your queue.

Apple’s marketing for the recently-announced 2019 MacBook Pro emphasizes how much faster it than last year’s model, and now a benchmark score may confirm that this macOS laptop is almost 30 percent speedier.

Maybe in iOS 13 we’ll be able to add songs to our music iPhone libraries without having to wake up a Mac or PC running iTunes. Until then, there’s no way to listen to songs downloaded from Bandcamp, or exported from GarageBand, alongside the rest of your music collection.

But there’s a workaround. Vox is a slightly confusing music app that combines your built-in Apple Music library with your Soundcloud, Spotify, and other services. And it will also let you import any audio file, and then add it to playlists and so on. Let’s know more about how to achieve this.

10.8% in ’94. Plus, Apple’s software sales were growing more slowly than those of rival companies. Curious about what is an Apple Fellow? This article provides more insights.

A new book compiling the doodles and jotted notes of famous figures includes two from Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, each with a cryptic reference to the bane of his existence, IBM.

Debuting last week, Scrawl: An A to Z of Famous Doodles is filled with the scribbles of more than 100 historically important people, from Queen Victoria and President Dwight Eisenhower to Clara Barton and Albert Einstein.

There’s never been a better time to upgrade your Apple Watch. Series 3 models are now available for under $200 — the lowest price yet — and smaller discounts on the Series 4 are popping up all the time.

Yours could be even more affordable if you turn your old Apple Watch into cash. Cult of Mac buys back your old Apple devices at excellent prices, and we won’t leave you waiting weeks for your cash.

Rising trade tensions have brought calls in China to boycott Apple devices in favor of Huawei handsets, but the iPhone has an unlikely cheerleader: the CEO of Huawei admits he buys iPhones for his family.

“One can’t narrowly think love for Huawei should mean loving Huawei phones,” said CEO and founder Ren Zhengfei.

Korvpressor 2 is an amazing update to what was already one of the best music production apps on iOS — as we’ll see in a moment. But the real reason I’m writing about it today is the beautiful interface. I mean, look at it. Just look at it. Oh, and it also comes on Mac.

Instagram is finally giving up on its mission to make vertical videos the most popular format viewed on phones.

The company revealed today that it will now support landscape video on IGTV, its long form video app that is also baked into the main Instagram app.

A majority of today’s college students are Mac fans. A new study found that 71 percent those in higher education either use or would like to use macOS computers. But there’s an important caveat: many of these students actually use other types because they can’t afford Apple’s offerings.

Samsung will be at least one of the suppliers for future MacBook Pro and iPad Pro upgrades with OLED displays, according to a new report.

The South Korean company, which already supplies OLED screens for the iPhone, has reportedly provided Apple with sample panels ahead of big product refreshes — but there’s no word on when we’ll see them.

We waited two years for AirPower and in the end, Apple could not deliver. Numerous engineering challenges forced Apple to do something it rarely does – give up.

But the hurdles facing the team producing Apple’s first multi-device wireless charger are not insurmountable.

Consider the Source – a wireless charger and first product by tech startup Spansive that goes on sale today for $189. Its multiple charging coils allow a person to simply set their phone on the surface without having to move it around until a precise charging point is engaged.

Apple manufacturer Pegatron is reportedly set to start assembling MacBooks and iPads in Indonesia, starting next month.

The news comes at a time when more and more people are concerned about a burgeoning trade war between the U.S. and China. Because a large number of Apple’s products are manufactured in China, the possibility of new import tariffs could have a detrimental impact on the company.