One of the biggest unknowns about the Apple Watch — and something we’re hopefully just an hour away from learning — is just how Apple plans to sell its first ever wearables device.

Is the Apple Watch going to be an Apple Store exclusive, giving more of a reason to visit your local store than ever, or will it be like the iPhone and therefore available for sale in a number of third-party retailers?

According to Reuters, retailers Best Buy, Macy’s, Saks 5th Avenue, Bloomingdales and Barney’s all have no plans to carry Apple smartwatch — although upscale fashion retailer Nordstrom is reportedly in discussions to be an Apple Watch purveyor.

As the artist responsible for the famous icons used for the original Macintosh, Susan Kare played an immensely important role in personal computer history. A new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York pays homage to the queen of pixel art — while giving Mac fans a chance to see Kare’s original graph paper designs in the process.

Called “This is for Everyone: Design Experiments For The Common Good” (the name comes from a phrase from World Wide Web creator Tim Berners-Lee), the exhibition also features other classic bits of computer iconography, including @ symbol, Google Maps Pin and the Creative Commons logo.

Apple is hosting a big media event today in San Fransisco for the hotly anticipated Apple Watch. It’s been about six months since the Watch was first shown off to world, but plenty of questions still need answering, like pricing beyond the $349 base model and when the wearable will go on sale. App demos should also be a big part of today’s presentation, because killer software will be instrumental in convincing people to buy an Apple Watch.

And who knows, there could always be some surprise Mac news.

The event starts at 10 a.m. Pacific, and Apple will provide a (hopefully working) live stream on its website. We’ll be breaking down all the news you need to know, with expert analysis and the usual pinch of sass. We invite you to follow along with us below. No need to refresh the page; the liveblog updates on its own!

Samsung’s smartphone sales may have dipped in recent months, but its new Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge are already off to an excellent start. Since their unveiling at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this month, more than 20 million handsets have been pre-ordered.

Whether it’s watching it via Apple’s website, or joining us here on Cult of Mac for our live blog, there are plenty of ways to keep abreast of today’s “Spring Forward” Apple keynote.

If you’ve got an Apple TV, you can also tune in to watch the event — courtesy of the newly-added Apple Events channel.

As expected, the Apple Online Store has gone down hours ahead of today’s special event. When it returns later today (likely shortly after the conclusion of Apple’s keynote), we expect to see new details about the Apple Watch, and whatever else Apple announces at today’s event.

We’re hours away from one of Apple’s most important special events in years, so what better time than to check in on the progress the company has made on its forthcoming Campus 2, courtesy of a new drone flyover video.

The video shows the extent to which the futuristic “spaceship” campus is taking shape, with much of the landscaping done. Earthwork is set to continue until the middle of this year, and overall construction is set to be completed by late 2016.

Check out the video below.

Samsung is rightfully envious of Apple’s mobile payment service Apple Pay, which has swept the mobile payments world since being introduced at the end of 2014. With that in mind, it’s introduced its own “Samsung Pay” rival service, which it hopes will sway customers back in the South Korea tech giant’s direction.

But with Apple having both a lead-time advantage and the “halo effect” of a beloved brand behind it, Samsung’s trying to appeal to something a bit more base when it comes to swaying people in favor of its mobile payment service: cold, hard cash.

According to new reports coming out of Korea, the company has decided not to collect fees on Samsung Pay, rather than the 0.0015 percent demanded by other mobile payment services. Samsung allegedly won’t charge partnered credit card companies either, or from service providers for online payments.

Here’s a weird setting for an Apple Watch interview: CNET caught up with Eddy Cue, Apple’s head of Internet software and services, at a Golden State Warriors basketball game Friday. And Cue actually walked CNET through how Apple Pay will work on your Apple Watch, as well as how it will prevent thieves from stealing your watch and draining your bank account with it.

One of the big questions we’re looking forward to Apple answering at tomorrow’s Apple Watch event is actually a relatively simple one: Can Apple Watch users add their own custom watch faces to the device?

The answer to that question might seem obvious, but Apple has not gone on record saying you can add new faces to the Apple Watch. Instead, the official website details just nine faces for the Apple Watch.

But if we had to bet on whether the Apple Watch will allow you to add custom faces, we’d guess yes. In fact, I bet we’ll see a lot more about this tomorrow. Here’s why.

For the 18 karat gold Apple Watch Edition, Jony Ive told The Financial Times on Friday that Apple had created a process to place molecules in Apple gold closer together, consequently making it harder than standard gold.

But there’s more to it than that, with a metallurgist now explaining that Apple’s more densely packed gold atoms could reduce the amount of gold it needs to use per watch by a lot.

Who doesn’t love going to the carnival? It has something for everyone: Rides, games, performers, all kinds of food. It’s a veritable smorgasbord of fun.

Perusing Cult of Mac Deals is just like going to the carnival. There’s a wide variety of products and services available to satisfy every need and, best of all, they can all be had at extremely low prices. Read on for some of what we think are the best values available right now.

It’s time… for our Apple Watch desires to be fulfilled. With the big day coming March 9th, catch our Spring Forward event expectations, all that we know about the Apple Watch thus far, and our expectations for other Apple hardware announcements. Plus: why Apple watch will replace your keys; Apple adds cars to its list of products; and since the new Photos app for Mac just hit public beta, we’ll tell you what we like and don’t about Apple’s iPhoto replacement.

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Full show notes ahead!

The iPhone is kind of like Inspector Gadget: It’s always got some new fangled feature that’s sure to save the day.

Cult of Mac Deals has all kind of goodies that’ll make your iPhone even better than it already is. You’ll find cases, cables, organizers, and more at prices that are pretty hard to beat and usually with free shipping. What are you waiting for? Go Go iPhone Accessories!

Apple Watch is entering the race to become the leader in wearable tech. And dedicated fitness trackers like the Nike+ FuelBand, Fitbit and Jawbone Up may struggle to keep up with Cupertino’s pace.

Few people remember the MP3 players that iPod left in its wake. Smartphones overtaken by iPhone shared a similar dismal fate. Could fitness wearables be next on the endangered list?

Apple has been very quiet about the Apple Watch’s battery life since the device’s unveiling in September. Reports that the wearable might run out of juice after just 2.5 hours of heavy use have worried many Apple fans, but according to TechCrunch, battery life will be better than expected.

Tim Cook has said Apple Watch owners will need to recharge their devices every night. That doesn’t mean the battery will run dry midway through the workday, though. People who have used the Apple Watch say you should still have around 25 percent of your battery left after a long day.

Apple will supposedly unveil a big redesign of Beats Music in June, but if you are hoping it will come with a free, ad-supported tier, you’re going to be out of luck.

Apple wants to help music labels kill free music streaming by inking deals that will give subscribers exclusive access to albums before they hit rival players like Spotify, Rdio and Pandora.

With more than 70 million iPhones sold in the last quarter alone, Apple has quickly become one of the world’s largest display buyers. To meet the increasing demand for iPhones, Apple has reportedly struck a deal with Japan Display to build a $1.4 billion factory dedicated solely to smartphone displays.

Professional front end web development is important today and it’ll be even more important in the future. That’s why Cult of Mac Deals is pleased to offer the Pay What You Want: Front End Developer Bundle, 7 elite web design courses in one neat and tidy package. This is your last chance to get this amazing offer so act quickly!

Jony Ive’s new interview with The Financial Times is packed with nerdy details on the Apple Watch and the designer’s life. Slipped in among the juicy design bits, Sir Jonathan also hints that Apple invented an entirely new form of gold just for the timepiece.

“The molecules in Apple gold are closer together, making it twice as hard as standard gold,” Ive says.

Wait. Gold is a metal. Does Apple’s design studio exist in another dimension?

On March 19, the world’s most valuable company will join the world’s top stock index.

In a feat of great irony, Apple is replacing none other than AT&T on the Dow Jones Industrial Average this month. And even if you don’t care about the stock market, for Apple it’s a big deal.

Google has already confirmed plans to experiment with its own wireless services to “show what’s possible,” and we know it’s going to be limited in its reach. So limited, in fact, that you might need Google’s own Nexus 6 smartphone to connect to it.

If Jony Ive sometimes missed out on getting his rightful credit while Steve Jobs was steering the ship at Apple, that same accusation can’t be made today. Following on from the recent superb New Yorker profile about Ive and the Apple Watch, Apple’s superstar design guru is the recipient of another profile (complete with interview), this time with the Financial Times.

The story’s not nearly as in-depth as the 10,000-word New Yorker piece, but it still has a few interesting observations about Ive’s approach to technology and the unique design challenges of working on the Apple Watch — including why the Apple Watch was a very different prospect for Ive than working on the iPhone.

Highlights can be found after the jump.

Blood makes Sherwood Forlee squeamish, it really does. So imagine the surprise of friends who know his weakness when he created a type of bandage for the everyday boo-boo that creates the illusion of a stomach-churning wound that would make most people call 911.

Forlee’s sense of humor is sicker than the images on his Boo-Boos bandages, though. He says he was in a “jovial spirit” when he began drawing up plans for the morbid adhesive strips.

“They look disgusting, but they also look funny,” Forlee told Cult of Mac. “While I was doing the research, I was at the point of quitting. I would google search ‘terrible wounds’ and I could only handle like five minutes at a time.”