Cult of Mac

It’s December 24th, and there’s no sign of Apple’s annual iTunes 12 Days Of Gifts. We’re calling it: it’s not happening this year. But why not?

While Apple Stores go from strength to strength, the so-called Samsung Experience Stores sadly aren’t faring so well.

Would-be shoppers at Samsung’s flagship store in London, England, were today greeted by a message telling them about the permanent closure of the outlet.

The store was located in the Westfield Stratford shopping center, and followed an Apple-inspired layout, with an open plan design, staff in blue shirts, and plenty of space to try out new Samsung products — many of which arrived there first, before going on general release.

Apple turned down the opportunity to distribute the controversial movie The Interview on iTunes, despite a plea from Sony to the White House aimed at getting Cupertino on board.

Sony hoped Apple would step up as its sole “technology partner” to distribute the film, according to The New York Times.

Well, that didn’t last long: Floppy Cloud, the NES and SNES emulator for iOS we wrote about yesterday, has been pulled from the App Store.

The holidays are upon us, and that means you’re probably about to spend a lot of time with your family. Your family is probably great, but some people aren’t so lucky. And for those rare cases of people who dread all of the “quality time” they’re about to be exposed to, we’ve collected an assortment of movies to make them appreciate what they have a little more.

Because things could almost always be worse. For example:

When it comes to Asia, Apple’s increasing foothold in China has been the big Cupertino-related story of the year. However, mainland China’s far from the only Asian country that’s big into Apple devices.

According to a new report published today, Apple stormed the smartphone market in Taiwan for the month of November, capturing a 24.6 percent share in sales volume, and a massive 48.9 percent in sales value.

Of the 10 top-selling phone models sold in Taiwan last month, different configurations of the iPhone 6 represented four of them, with the most popular models being the 64GB iPhone 6 Plus, the 64GB iPhone 6, and the 16GB variants of both devices.

I’m really digging the Microsoft Band. I’ve worn various fitness trackers for a couple of years now, starting with the original Jawbone UP and most recently the new Fitbit Charge.

I’ve had mixed results with them, and none have became indispensable. The Microsoft Band, on the other hand, is rapidly becoming a fixture on my wrist. It’s a great omen for the Apple Watch, which is due in early 2015. The Apple Watch will be like the Microsoft Band on steroids, and if it works as well, it’s going to be awesome.

Internet security is an ever-present topic, especially so because of recent events. For those who have been living under a rock, this month Sony was the victim of a horrendous cyber attack that compromised private emails and forced them to cancel the release of a film that cost tens of millions of dollars to make.

These kinds of attacks can happen to anyone, threaten reputations, and cause irreparable damage to businesses. Help protect yourself from a similar fate with these products available at low prices from Cult of Mac Deals.

If your idea of high comedy is waggling your hind parts at people with a smarmy smirk, Jib Jab’s new funny video is right up your, well, alley.

“2014, You Are History” is a celebrity character-filled musical video in which the biggest names of the year sing a parody song set to the melody of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9.

Watch the video below and remind yourself of this silly year, including ice bucket challenges, hacked celebrity nudes and Kim Kardashian’s shiny hindquarters.

Features like Handoff demonstrate just how useful it is to be able to chop and change tasks between different Apple devices, perhaps starting an email on your iPad and continuing it on your Mac.

A similar thing may soon be possible with your Apple TV, as a patent published today shows how Apple has invented a way of carrying out a sort-of reverse AirPlay: sending content from your Apple TV to your iOS device, rather than the other way around.

The big advantage of the concept is that it would allow remote viewing of Apple TV, whether this means having a TV show follow you from room-to-room, or tuning into your Apple TV while you’re away from home.

Tim Cook has been named “CEO of the year” by CNN Money, beating other contenders including T-Mobile’s John Legere, BlackBerry’s John Chen, other singled out as leading executives for 2014.

CNN Money notes that Cook performed an “amazing job,” and points readers toward the fact that the AAPL stock price is up 40 percent, while Apple hit new all-time high valuation levels.

This is credited to the launch of the iPhone 6, the debut of Apple Pay, and excitement about the Apple Watch, which is set to be the first major new product line launched at Apple under Tim Cook’s stewardship.

Kids everywhere are looking to Santa to bring them the hottest tech toys around, including iPhones, iPads, Nintendo 3DSes and Sony PlayStations, but these types of gifts can certainly strain a lowly elf’s meager paycheck.

If you’re looking for engaging and interesting gifts that won’t burst Santa’s money sack, take a look at the list we’ve put together for you below. It’s full of fun stuff that won’t leave you unable to afford a plate of cookies for that big red jolly fellow.

It’s easy to list off classic songs of the season, isn’t it? Even now, the hit holiday tunes we all know by heart rush up the music charts every year, gracing radio and streaming options for the happiest season of them all.

Of course Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas to You)” — written in 1944 by Mel Torme — is currently No. 5 on the Billboard charts, while “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” by Brenda Lee (1958) tops even that chestnut at No. 3 of the top hot holiday songs as well.

But what about all those other holiday songs that never had a chance to be on a chart anywhere, except perhaps the chord charts these bands use to play live gigs? How will the odd songs, the weird ones — the tunes that just “think different” — ever get heard?

That’s why we’re here, with a bunch of weird tunes you just have to hear. Happy holidays!

Facebook has just released yet another in its seeming interminable series of single serving apps of dubious utility. It’s called Stickers for Messenger, and surprise! It lets you slap virtual stickers on your photos before sending them to your friends through Messenger.

Every once and a while, someone slips a cool emulator past Apple’s App Store guardians in the guise of a seemingly inoffensive app. Well, just in time for Christmas, it’s happened again! Meet Floppy Cloud, an app by developer Kyle Hankinson that is actually a Nintendo and Super Nintendo emulator in disguise.

We’re nearly a week away from ringing in the new year and all the craziness that 2015 is going to bring with it, but before we go into holiday hibernation mode, we wanted to take a look back at the most GIF-worthy events of 2014.

From Ellen’s hilarious Oscar selfie, to ‘the greatest catch ever’, 2014 was filled with incredible moments that captured the Internet’s fascination thanks to the glory of the GIFs.

Without further adieu, these were our favorite GIFs of 2014:

One of the great things about the world of fitness trackers post-Apple Watch (or, at least, post-Apple Watch announcement) is that we’re seeing how different companies are trying to insure themselves against Cupertino’s high-end luxury lifestyle tracker.

Jawbone recently answered this question by launching its UP Move: It’s an entry-level fitness wearable that may lack the bells and whistles of the Apple Watch, but is also, at $49.99, shy a couple of zeroes in the price tag department.

There’s a line of thought which suggests that Apple’s CarPlay technology essentially turns your car into one giant iPhone add-on. A new trademark application, however, suggests that Apple is planning to lend its approval to some other, likely smaller third-party CarPlay accessories — coming soon to a vehicle near you.

Similar to the “Works With iPhone” developer program for accessories designed to connect specifically with the iPhone, Apple’s “Works with CarPlay” trademark will certify that a particular third-party product has been approved as meeting Apple’s performance standards for its in-car iOS interface.

If you liked the iPhone 5c’s colorful design but were put off by its tiny screen and aging specifications, then Meizu’s latest smartphone could be right up your street. It’s called the M1 Note, and it looks just like an iPhone 5c, only it’s much bigger, has more impressive specifications, and costs under $200 off-contract.

Xiaomi has caught a lot of flack for copying what Apple has done previously, which is why it’s apparently gone back to the drawing board and come back with a new plan: do the things Apple thought about, but didn’t do.

With that in mind, a new report today claims that Xiaomi is set to adopt sapphire displays for its upcoming 5.7-inch Xiaomi 5, to be showcased at the upcoming 2015 Consumer Electronics Show.

The company has reportedly approached the China-based Lens Technology and Biel Crystal Manufactory about expanding their sapphire processing capacities for the job.

Apple pushed out a critical security update for Mac users today, and if your Mac is running Yosemite, Mavericks, or Mountain Lion, you’ll want to install it immediately.

OS X NTP Security Update was released to users via the Mac App Store today and fixes a critical security issue with the software that provides the Network Time Protocol service on OS X.

Cult of Mac Deals offers the best prices on products that empower you to be your best every day. Sometimes, though, we offer products just simply provide power.

Today, we put a spotlight on 5 such products that will make sure you have power to spare for all of your devices.  Check out the PowerCube, the 10 Ft. MFi-Certified iOS Lightning Cable, the Limefuel LP200X, the Afterburner iPhone 6 Battery Case, and an amazing bundle of 152 Duracell Batteries.

The first wave of Apple Watch apps will probably be pretty limited in functionality, but even with the WatchKit restrictions Apple has in place, the design gurus at JBS Labs have created an Instagram for Apple Watch concept that we can’t wait get on our wrists.

The Hungary-based design firm pared down the Instagram UI to just the bare essentials. No, you can’t upload pictures or comment on your friends’ latte photos, but the simplified app does let you view and like pictures, as well as read comments and find new people to follow.

Check it out:

Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak made his first big step toward becoming an official citizen of Australia this week when he was granted ‘permanent resident’ status for being a distinguished person

Woz is currently teaching as an adjunct professor at the University of Technology in Sydney and says he plans to become full fledged citizen and buy a house in Sydney.

There’s nothing better than a snowball fight, unless its a snowball fight you can watch from the comfort of your couch and Macbook Pro.

Even better is a snowball (or two!) in the face of a bunch of adorable hipsters from Exit 10, a design studio in Baltimore that put together this ultra-slow-mo snowball massacre for you to enjoy.