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It’s the year 2020 and absolutely everyone is making a streaming service, including TikTok.

The budding social network is hard at work inking licensing deals for its upcoming music streaming service, Resso, that will compete against Spotify and Apple Music. TikTok owner ByteDance reportedly struck a deal with the agency Merlin, which represents tens of thousands of artists, paving the way for the company to launch its music app globally.

Shifting focus from being a video-sharing app to creating a music platform may seem like an odd move for TikTok. But after months of binging on TikTok videos, I’m convinced it could become the biggest threat to Apple Music and Spotify.

Apple today argued against the European Union’s demands for standardized charging cables for smartphones and other devices.

New regulations being considered by the EU could force Apple to ditch the iPhone’s familiar Lightning connector for an industry-wide alternative. Apple said the move “stifles innovation” and hurt smartphone buyers.

“Apple stands for innovation and deeply cares about the customer experience,” Apple said in a statement to Cult of Mac. “We believe regulation that forces conformity across the type of connector built into all smartphones stifles innovation rather than encouraging it, and would harm consumers in Europe and the economy as a whole.”

A brand-new Tetris game today landed on iOS — just a day after EA confirmed it is retiring its own lineup of Tetris titles.

The game promises to deliver the traditional Tetris gameplay experience millions of fans around the world already know and love. But this is not the Tetris Royale title that was announced last year.

If you’re not using a VPN when you go online, what are you even doing? On public or private networks, it’s one of the best ways to stay secure and anonymous online, along with other benefits. So if you’re dragging your feet with a VPN, now’s the time to get on board.

Few of us know what it’s like to have our music played at an Apple keynote, but 37-year-old Apple fan Jonathan Mann does. Way back in the days of the iPhone 4, he composed a song about Apple’s Antennagate PR disaster. Not only did it get played at an Apple event, it actually made Steve Jobs dance.

For the past 11 years, Mann has recorded a new song every day, using his trusty Mac setup. That’s more than 4,000 songs in total. Now he’s launched a new podcast revealing his creative process. And, true to form, the latest episode features a song about the Mac Pro.

“My first computer, when I was just a toddler, was an Apple IIe,” Mann told Cult of Mac. “My mom used it for work, and my favorite activity was just to hold down different keys on the boot screen and watch the letters go and go.”

Did you know that your boss might be tracking when you open and read her emails? Or that anyone who operates a mailing list can see when you open their emails, thanks to read receipts?

But did you also know that it’s trivially easy to block read receipts? You can make your overreaching boss think that you never read her emails, or at least make her a bit more paranoid. Email tracking uses something called tracking pixels. Let’s see how to block them, and disable email read receipts on Mac and iOS.

A growing number of iPhone 11 owners are reporting audio issues and other strange glitches with wireless CarPlay.

All say the feature worked fine with previous devices, but after upgrading to the latest Apple handsets, they’ve been unable to avoid CarPlay problems. And Apple’s latest iOS updates don’t help.

Driving is risky, so anything you can do to improve situational awareness is a good thing. Backup cameras are a great tool, and they’re not just for new vehicle models. If you’ve got a smartphone, this easy add-on easily adds rear-view vision.

Apple has been forced to increase A13 chip orders to meet higher-than-anticipated demand for iPhone 11, according to a new report.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Apple’s primary chip supplier, has been asked to churn out more chips this quarter as iPhone outperforms market and Apple expectations.

Transferring your Apple Card statement to a spreadsheet application just became a simple process. No third-party software is required — Apple today added the ability to export your transactions in a format that software like Microsoft Excel and Apple Numbers can easily import.

iOS 13 and iPadOS added official support for adding fonts to your iPhone and iPad. You’ve been able to do it for a while, using third-party apps that hack their way around the problem using software configuration profiles to install typefaces on your system. If you’d like to learn how to download fonts on iPad, check out this detailed guide.

And you can still use those. In fact, you may have to, as we’ll see in a moment. But now you can also install fonts from the App Store, as well as previewing them in a new built-in panel. Let’s take a look.

One of the easiest ways to make any photo pop is to process it with High Dynamic Range, or HDR. Basically, it combines high and low exposures so that your photo represents a wide spectrum of light and color. HDR gives you a ton of creative options, which you can easily explore with the three Mac apps and plugins in the Photomatix Pro Plus Bundle, which we’re currently offering at an unbelievable discount.

iPhone 11 Pro’s midnight green color option seems to have proven popular since its introduction last fall. But it might not stick around. A new rumor suggests Apple will swap it for navy blue later this year.

If you and a friend both have AirPods or Beats headphones, you can share audio coming from a single iPhone or iPad. This is great for listening to the same music track or podcast, or — most useful I reckon — watching a movie together. Apple makes it really easy for you to share your audio stream with someone else. In fact, you could say it’s easier than doing it the old way, because A) there are no wires to get tangled and B) there’s no splitter adapter to lose.

Here’s how to set up audio sharing on AirPods.

Whether you need ample power or exceptional portability, it’s a great time to bag a new MacBook, with discounts of up to $300 on the latest Apple notebooks. And Cult of Mac can help make yours even more affordable.

Sell your old machine to us and we’ll give you a great price. We will also cough up real cash, so you can spend it wherever you like.

The budget iPhone 11 version was Apple’s biggest seller by a very wide margin last quarter, according to a market-research firm. It has the lion’s share of all iOS sales.

Still, the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max also sold fairly well in Q4 2019, making up a higher proportion of Apple’s total sales than the iPhone XS series did in the same period the year before.

Apple CEO Tim Cook called for worldwide corporate tax reform Monday, saying the tech giant “desperately” wants the system to be fair.

Speaking in Ireland at an awards event, Cook said he thinks “logically everybody knows it needs to be rehauled. I would certainly be the last person to say that the current system or the past system was the perfect system.”

AirPods Pro’s brilliant noise cancellation feature gives them a huge advantage over regular AirPods. Except when that noise cancellation feature doesn’t work properly.

A growing number of users say their buds aren’t blocking out background noise as effectively as they once did. And testing confirms that to be the case.

Apple doesn’t want iPhone 11 owners to forget they can record slofies: slow-motion video of themselves taken with the front-facing camera. As a reminder, the company posted a pair of selfie videos of professional snowboarders captured while they’re doing tricks.

Watch them now:

No less than seven new shows will debut on Apple TV+ before the middle of this year. There’s Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories reboot, a thriller starring Chris Evans, a mystery, two comedies and a pair of multipart documentaries.

And Apple says an animated comedy by the creator of Bob’s Burgers will launch this summer. Here’s a rundown of the other new Apple TV+ shows coming in early 2020.

This week we trim our SSDs, make PDF statements from our Apple Cards, and drown everything in delicious, springy reverb. These are the apps that got us buzzing this week.

Learning a language takes consistency and daily practice. That’s why language apps are so great, they’re with you wherever you go and available whenever you’re ready to study. With this deal from Babble, you can study 14 languages across more than 10,000 hours of high-quality online language lessons, for life.

Don’t expect Apple to go easy on you if you get delinquent on payments to your Apple Card. Because that is not in Apple’s control.

The credit card is underwritten by Goldman Sachs. And the bank made it clear this week that it alone makes the decisions about collections from delinquent cardholders.

Luke Miani isn’t afraid to take a header when it comes to buying used Macs on eBay. He’ll scoop up piles of Apple laptops in various states of disrepair, then swap out parts or fix them up as needed. His ultimate goal? Scoring a sweet deal — and dishing out some serious knowledge.

Miani dutifully documents his eBay adventures, then shares the fruits of his labor with a growing audience on YouTube. We talked with Miani about his operation, and you can get the scoop in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine. Also inside: All the latest Apple news, plus helpful how-tos for iPhone, iPad and AirPods Pro owners.

Upgrading your Mac doesn’t have to mean downgrading your bank account. These four Mac utility apps are among the best you can get, and right now you can grab each one for less than $20. Whether you want powerful dictation software, a superior iTunes alternative, an iPhone ringtone creator or a YouTube video downloader/converter, these great Mac apps deliver the goods — at big discounts!