A House committee approved antitrust legislation Thursday that threatens many big tech companies — Apple included. In a 24 to 20 vote early this morning, the committee approved the American Choice and Innovation Online Act.

The bill, which still needs to pass the full House, seeks to stop big platforms from advantaging their own products or services over those made by others. That could affect Apple, which not only owns and operates the App Store distribution platform, but also makes products that compete with some of the apps distributed through said store.

This week we listen to Apple Music in the browser, live on the edge with The Most Dangerous Writing App, lock up our notes in Bear, and schedule our messages to send later in Telegram. And more, etc.

Get the scoop on this week’s best new (or freshly updated) apps for iOS and Mac.

Overcast, the podcast app of choice for lovers of good design, powerful-yet-straightforward features, and the color orange, just added a brand-new recommendations feature.

Previously, Overcast used a Twitter-based recommendation engine. But developer Marco Arment says almost nobody used it. Now, he’s replaced it with recommendations based on users’ personal listening habits, and the result is amazing. I already added a few new podcast subscriptions based on its suggestions.

Apple will close down Texture in May following the recent launch of Apple News+.

Texture, another magazine subscription service, was acquired by Apple for an undisclosed sum last spring. Cupertino encourages existing subscribers to migrate to its new platform. But those who don’t use Mac or iOS will have to find their magazines elsewhere.

Apple has been accused of violating its own App Store guidelines within the new Apple News app.

The Apple News+ signup page is missing a number of important elements that would lead the app to be rejected if it was made by a third-party developer. A former Apple developer says he is surprised the company hasn’t been hit with an “an extremely public lawsuit” for its double standards.

Apple will hold its next special event on Monday, March 25, in the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino.

The “It’s show time” event is expected to bring a number of new services, including new TV content and a paid Apple News service. Fans have been eagerly anticipating confirmation of Apple’s next keynote, with rumors surrounding new subscription services circulating. The tagline for this one suggests it will focus on Apple’s upcoming video service, with hardware taking a backseat.

This is Teenage Engineering’s amazing OP-Z, a tiny, TV-remote-size synthesizer and sequencer that has no screen, and yet manages to pack in a range of features that make users of “real” music hardware and software jealous. And if you do prefer working on a screen, you can hook it up to your iPhone via Bluetooth and use that.

This week we blur the background in Skype, edit Photos on the iPad in Obscura, clean up our TV shows and movies with iFlicks 3, and check the forecast on our Apple Watches with Carrot Weather.

The Mac may be way older than the iPhone and iPad, but it still has some tricks. 2018 saw some fine updates to some of our favorite Mac apps, as well as some amazing new apps that migrated across from iOS.

Also, Apple injected so much new life into a tired old macOS staple in Mojave that it’s made our top 5 list this year. Can you guess which one it is?

Christmas time means packing up your daily troubles, forgetting work for a week, and heading home to … troubleshoot your parents’ broken computers and gadgets? Oh man, is it that time of year again already? That’s the problem with being the family’s only geek — you get handed all the geek jobs. However, you can turn this to your advantage, and make it a lot easier, by going in prepared.

Find out how to be the family tech support in the latest free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Get it now on iTunes, or keep reading for the week’s best Apple news, reviews and how-tos.