Opening a new Apple product for the first time is pretty close to a holy experience. Part of that is because Apple spends so much time perfecting product packaging so it’s simple, elegant and secure without compromising on intuitiveness.

However, it’s a mistake to think Apple is the only company that pours thought and care into something as basic as a box. In light of the recent rumor that Apple will be working with third-party accessory makers to co-design packaging for their products in Apple retail stores, it’s clear many other companies care as well. It’s about being eye-catching without straying from uniformity, it’s about being simple yet still adorned.

With this spirit in mind, take a look at some of the other electronic companies out there getting extremely creative with their product packaging. The goal for these seems to be making the boxes as gorgeous as the products themselves – and they succeed.

Get ready to waste entire days of your life as Don’t Starve, an endlessly life-threatening survival game from Klei Entertainment, is headed to your iPad as of July 9.

Don’t Starve: Pocket Edition will only run you a tasty $4.99, and it’ll be worth every penny. I can’t count the number of hours I’ve spent walking my little Edward Gorey-inspired characters around the various environments in game, dodging spiders, avoiding fish-men and collecting tons of resources to make sure I don’t actually starve to death.

To have this sweet time-suck of a game on my iPad? Pure bliss.

The difference in Uli Emanuele’s latest wingsuit flight and a thread going the eye of a needle is that if it misses, the thread gets a do-over.

So to tell you that Emanuele’s shot through a small opening in a rock formation in Switzerland was successful shouldn’t spoil the video. You will cringe and scoot tensely to the edge of your seat.

Emanuele’s jump, filmed with GoPro cameras mounted to his chest and helmet, was posted to YouTube on July 1 and already is approaching 3 million views.

If you’re starting to figure out how you can use HomeKit to make your house less dumb, you can now get started by heading to the Apple Store and picking up the ecobee3, the first thermostat that works with Apple’s smart-appliance platform.

The device retails for $249, and it’s available in North America Apple Stores today.

The first gameplay footage of Star Wars: Uprising was unveiled by publisher Kabam today, and if you weren’t already stoked to take on the remnants of the Empire, this should do the trick.

Blasters, force powers, flamethrowers, and plenty of swordplay brings the action in the developer’s first demo for the real time strategy game that picks up after the destruction of the second Death Star. The game is coming out on iOS and Android in September in anticipation of the release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the end of the year.

Checkout the first gameplay footage:

The Apple Watch went on sale just over two months ago, but it appears that consumer interest in Apple’s wearable has taken a huge dive since launch week.

Apple kicked off launch week in April selling an average of 200,000 watches a day, however a new report from Slice Intelligence claims sales have dropped to fewer than 20,000 a day in the U.S., marking a 90% drop off since the week of April 10th.

You can see how interest has slowly dropped in the chart below:

The iPhone’s standby mode is coming under fire from the state-controlled media in China, which released a new report claiming Apple’s smartphone is stealing data from customers.

While its profits may be falling on the back of weak smartphone sales, it’s not all bad news for Samsung. The South Korean company has been named the most reputable company in the U.S. technology industry in the Reputation Institute’s latest RepTrak report.

Apple TV owners can finally access all of Showtime’s series and movie without a cable subscription starting today.

Following in the path of HBO Now, the company just launched it’s stand-alone streaming package that works on iOS devices and Apple TV, and its cheaper than HBO.

If you’ve got an iOS phone, you’ve got one of the world’s most popular gaming platforms in your pocket. If you want to build the game that inspires others to gleefully smudge up their screens, you don’t have to worry about not having studied video game design in college. MakeSchool’s Free iOS Game Hacking Course will give you everything you need to build your own big hit for the tiny screen.

Be honest. When you got your first flip phone, you flicked your wrist to open it and said “Kirk to Enterprise” or “Beam me up, Scotty!”

It was fun to pretend, but the true Star Trek fan has been clamoring for a more authentic experience, a phone that looks like the real Star Fleet issued communicator.

Come January, you will be over the moon (or moons depending on the planet) when the Wand Company begins shipping a Bluetooth handset that looks identical to an original series communicator.

Tim Cook has been appointed to a six-year term at the Duke University Board of Trustees, the school announced today. Cook joins alongside Coca-Cola Foundation Chairwoman Lisa Borders, PRM Advisors founder Patricia Morton, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and ValueAct Capital CEO Jeff Ubben.

If you live in the Queens area of New York you can welcome your very own Apple Store this Saturday — when the latest brick-and-mortar retail store opens at the Queens Center mall.

The store itself is set to be one of the largest mall-located Apple Stores in New York.

Apple started selling its brand new official Lightning connector dock earlier this year. While it turned out to be a bit less fragile in reality than it looks on first glance, we can’t help but wish Apple had released the Lightning dock shown in a newly-published patent today.

Designed for durability, Apple’s concept connect features a movable Lightning connector that is able to rock back and forth, thereby absorbing what Apple calls “undesirable forces … reducing a likelihood of the connector breaking from misuse.”

It’s such an elegant solution we can’t help wonder — why didn’t Apple use it?

There’s just no getting around it: FBI director James Comey isn’t a fan of encryption.

In an open letter, Comey writes that the kind of security seen on devices like the iPhone do more to hurt us than they do to help — potentially even aiding terrorist groups such as ISIS.

“I really am not a maniac (or at least my family says so),” he claims. “But my job is to try to keep people safe. In universal strong encryption, I see something that is with us already and growing every day that will inexorably affect my ability to do that job.”

If there’s one area Samsung would dearly love to copy Apple it’s not smartwatches or tablets or store design or even smartphones — but profits.

Despite protesting earlier reports that the Galaxy S6 was proving to be a gigantic sales disaster for the stumbling South Korean tech giant, Samsung’s forecast operating profits released today show not only 8.4 percent fewer sales and a 4 percent earnings decrease from this time last year, but the company’s 7th consecutive quarterly earnings decrease in a row.

Someone’s in a Galaxy of trouble right now!

Apple may have banned selfie sticks at WWDC, but the company was today granted a patent revealing how future iPhones could be unlocked by snapping a quick photo of yourself.

Entitled “Low threshold face recognition,” the patent describes a means of “reducing the impact of lighting conditions and biometric distortions” that can negatively affect facial recognition for a solution which “can be implemented on camera-equipped consumer portable appliances” — presumably such as the iPhone and iPad, although the second-generation (camera-equipped) Apple Watch 2 wouldn’t be out of the question, either.

Smug Californians now have proof they’re better than you.

A couple of the most popular fitness apps in the App Store have pooled their data to figure out which U.S. states have the best (and worst) health habits. They examined a combination of workout and nutritional info among their users and concluded that the Golden State has the best habits, and Wyoming has a lot of work to do.

I typically look for two things in a hotel room: Internet included with the room and free breakfast. But a new hotel in London’s Covent Gardens might have me adding some things to that list.

The recently opened Hub hotel from Premier Inn, the U.K.’s largest lodging chain, sports some pretty impressive tech features that involve both smartphones and wearables like the Apple Watch. And while your hotel room shouldn’t be the coolest part of any trip, Premier is really giving the rest of your vacation something to live up to.

If you’ve got the future strapped to your wrist and an iPhone paired with said Apple Watch, you can prank your friends with the lowest form of humor imaginable: the fart sound.

You’ll also need Apple Music, as this trick relies on the sound effect albums therein.

Here’s how to fart at your friends without actually soiling your own shorts.

Minecraft has always let you tell your own story with it’s open-world sandbox game. You can dig, build, fight zombies, and even explore amazing worlds built by other Minecraft fans and find your own way to play.

Now, though, Telltale wants you to immerse yourself in a new authored story that will be released episodically. Titled Minecraft: Story Mode, the upcoming game features a ton of famous voice-over actors to bring the story to life.

Take a listen to the trailer below and see if you can at least figure out who the main character, Jesse, is.

The Apple Watch may not be available in New Zealand yet, but that isn’t stopping some safety-minded organizations from seeking to ban it, and other smartwatches, from use while driving.

“A second’s inattention at the wheel can result in tragedy,” said advocate Caroline Perry of road-safety charity Brake. “Smartwatches and other wearable technology are extremely distracting if used while driving.”

Apple Music is at heart a streaming solution, designed so that you can listen to any of the tens of millions of songs in its library at any time, assuming you have a data connection.

These days, though, unlimited data plans are the exception rather than the rule, so you might want to be a little less profligate with your use of such a data-heavy solution.

Apple Music allows you to save your songs, albums and playlists to your iPhone or Mac for offline listening, which could be a boon if you’re watching your data cap.

Here’s how to make that happen.

If you’ve ever tried to plan a trip using one of the big two digital mapping systems from Apple or Google, you know what a pain it can be to flip back and forth between the different parts of your excursion. A multi-destination walk becomes an exercise in frustration when you add in searching for food, entertainment, and the like in one app.

Microsoft’s Bing has got your back with a redesign of its own navigation system, Bing Maps. This new upgrade will let you search for directions, find locations you need, and offer access to sites like Trip Advisor and Yelp, all on the map itself.

“We heard that people want one experience that brings together the best content in one view, that fully reflects what they are planning, not just their last search,” writes the Bing team on their blog. “Users want a map experience that is fast and easy to use, and makes the most of the visually rich data that maps can bring to life.”

This is not an Onion article, though you may have been fooled into thinking that given the preposterous headline.

NBA forward Matt Bonner has won two championship rings with the San Antonio Spurs, but after suffering his worst shooting percentage since his rookie season, the 35-year old his placing all the blame on Apple.

In a recent interview the basketball player revealed that he believes the iPhone 6’s larger screen contributed to his poor shooting performance, and gave him a season-ending injury in the form of a serious case of tennis elbow.