Want to read an impartial, in-depth review of Samsung’s latest Gear S smartwatch? Why not read one from your old trusty friends at Samsung itself.

In an hilarious titled “unofficial” review, Samsung’s official blog takes a few minutes out of its busy Samsung-promoting day to, well, promote Samsung.

Describing what sounds like the world’s best ever gadget, Samsung’s Corporate Communications team try their damndest to turn out a 1,000-word review which doesn’t make the Gear S sound like Samsung just threw everything smartwatch-related at the wall and hoped something would stick.

Read on to find out what they concluded. (Spoiler: they really, really liked it.)

Cult of Mac Deals makes it their priority to offer awesome products at heavily discounted prices. Sometimes, though, they have the opportunity to present a chance for a lucky person to win something particularly breathtaking.

Today, we are featuring two such opportunities. Cult of Mac Deals presents The Golden Apple Giveaway and The Mega Dropbox Pro Giveaway.

Apple’s gigantic 12.9-inch ‘iPad Pro’ could be facing serious production issues, according to top Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who believes the tablet won’t enter mass production until the second quarter of 2015.

In a note to investors this afternoon, the KGI Securities analyst revealed that his sources say Apple will use an oxide display panel on the iPad Pro for a higher resolution, better color saturation, and quicker response, but putting that type of screen on the iPad Pro will take more time.

Apple is looking to open a flagship store in downtown Los Angeles’ historic Broadway Trade Center, reports the Downtown LA Examiner, which claims its heard whispers that Cupertino plans to invade the massive building that nearly occupies an entire city block.

The Broadway Trade Center building was recently purchased by New York real estate firm Waterbridge Capitol earlier this year for around $130 million, but it the company may have already scored its first tenant.

Apple’s introduction of widgets in iOS 8 has already created some great new tools for iPhone users, but if you’d like to add a little fun to your Notification Center, Overglide has a widget adds a widget to the boring place where you usually just get calendar and email notifications.

Overglide for iOS 8 turns your Notification Center into a game by embedding its simple paper airplane game into the Today pane, giving you instant gaming access no matter what app you’re in.

The YouTube music streaming service you’ve been hearing about for months is finally here. It’s called YouTube Music Key, and it lets subscribers stream and save high-quality music and music videos on the web and on Android and iOS devices. For now, however, you’ll need an invite to use it.

Things get weird when Samsung stops copying Apple and tries to do its own thing, and as if to remind us of that salient fact, the company tapped famed Korean rapper Mad Clown, to blast out rap on its new corporate sustainability animated rap video.

The Samsung rap video highlights the company’s positive stats on diversity on work-life, but fails to mention some of the grimmer facts that were discovered in its sustainability report that was published earlier this year.

Samsung posted its bizarre rap video this morning, boasting sick statistic-laced rhymes like “Samsung, we 280,000 humans, 40 percent 112,000 women. You don’t have to worry after giving birth.” If that sick line doesn’t make you want to sign up to build the next Galaxy S6, just listen to the rest of the catchy raps in the video above.

Beats Electronics today announced it’s releasing its first new headphones since officially Apple-owned company earlier this year. The new headphones are an updated version of the Solo2 headphones, that brings wireless capabilities to the popular headphones, so you’re no longer tethered to your iPhone when kicking out the jams.

No pun intended, but coffee is hot stuff in Silicon Valley, where overworked engineers rely on cup after cup of the black stuff to keep them focused on building amazing products.

If you too are a bit of a tech-loving caffeine fiend, you may be interested in the new Mr. Coffee Smart Coffeemaker, a gorgeous new smart coffee-making device programmed and controlled remotely from your iPhone.

Using the dedicated iOS app, users can schedule up to a week’s worth of coffee brew times — meaning that your morning pot of joe can start being brewed while you’re still asleep, so that it’s all ready for sipping the moment you arrive in your kitchen.

If you got one of those amazing new iMacs with the crazy 5K pixel resolution, you’d be crazy not to watch this stunning animation of the sun by YouTuber James Tyrwhitt-Drake. You can gaze at the star at the heart of our solar system for a full eight minutes, using YouTube’s new 4K resolution setting and that killer new Mac.

This timelapse covers about 16 days of solar activity, focusing on the largest sunspot in the last 22 years (about two solar cycles), which is cleverly named AR 2192.

Check it out and enjoy.

Thanks to Pangu, we have all been able to jailbreak our iPhone 6’s far earlier than most of us thought possible. Unfortunately, though, Apple has been moving to close the loophole that makes the iOS 8 jailbreak possible with the iOS 8.1.1 beta, which is currently snaking through developer channels. When it arrives, poof, no more jailbreak.

Unfortunately, it seems like the iOS 8.1.1 update could arrive soon, perhaps as early as today. Better jailbreak now, people

How big of a success is Apple Pay? Just three weeks after its launch, Apple’s mobile payment system is already a player at Whole Foods, where it represents almost 1 percent of all transactions.

Apple could find itself facing a class action lawsuit over the loss of “countless” text messages, courtesy of its iMessage service.

California resident Adrienne Moore filed a case against Apple back in May this year, saying that she missed out on receiving text messages after giving up her iPhone 4 and moving to a Samsung Galaxy S5.

Moore’s victory in court means that she now has the ability to pursue a class action lawsuit against Apple. She is also seeking unspecified damages.

Having not worn a watch regularly since my high school days, I recently took the plunge and bought my first “adult” watch, a self-winding automatic Swiss timepiece.

I had several criteria I wanted to meet. Firstly I wanted a self-winding automatic, because I liked the idea of owning a Swiss watch and I wanted one that, at least in theory, has a longer lifespan than a battery-powered quartz timepiece. Secondly, I wanted to keep my purchase sub-$2,000. Thirdly, as a watch novice, I was looking for something that would be as multipurpose as possible.

After some research, I settled on a watch from the Longines Master Collection — buying it in a dedicated brick-and-mortar store rather than online, so that I could try it out in person before buying.

Of the many podcasting apps available for iOS, Overcast on iOS is one of our favorites. Programmed by Instapaper and The Magazine founder Marco Arment, it’s a slick podcasting app with some unique tricks up its sleeves, like smart speed, voice boost, and variable playback speed. We love it. There’s only one problem. It’s been iPhone-only. At least until now.

iOS 8 adoption rates have been a bit of a disappointment for Apple up until now. Things may be starting to turn around, however, with the company’s latest figures showing that its latest mobile operating system is now running on 56% of active iOS devices.

True, that’s still less than the adoption rate of last year’s iOS 7, but the gap is narrowing.

iOS 7, meanwhile, is running on a reported 40% of devices, while earlier iOS versions account for just 5%.

If you’ve got an iPhone or an iPad, there are a fair number of apps you can download for free: Pages, Numbers, iMovie, GarageBand and so on.

But did you know there’s a secret cache of Apple apps that no one but Geniuses can download? There is, and they range from a basic flight sim game to a tank battler to an internal newspaper only Apple employees can read!

The excellent strategy game, XCOM: Enemy Within, is out now for mobile devices as an entirely new standalone game for $12.99. If you haven’t played an XCOM game yet, this is a fantastic place to jump in – the graphics are stunning and the gameplay is addictive; like Civilization, you’ll battle it out with alien invaders in turn-based, tactical maps that offer some thrilling alien-busting fun.

In the new game from developer Firaxis and publisher 2K Games you’ll manage the XCOM global headquarters and send your troops out to fight, dealing with both battle mechanics as well as resource allocation and research into new weapons and gear for your soldiers. The new game adds a “rogue” human faction, EXALT, that will offer even more battles and maps.

“XCOM: Enemy Unknown for Mobile proved that turn-based strategy games are a natural fit for touch interfaces,” said lead designer, Firaxis Games’ Ananda Gupta in a statement. “In XCOM: Enemy Within, players can return to the XCOM universe, where they’ll encounter an assortment of new content including powerful new weapons, abilities and strategies, and confront a host of dangerous new alien threats.”

Winter is just around the corner. When the weather gets cold and stormy, there’s nothing quite like staying in with a hot drink, some buttered popcorn, and a good movie.

Today you can add 4 hit flicks to your personal movie library to keep you entertained all season long. The Ultimate Cult Comedy Classics Movie Bundle is half price, just $29.99, at Cult of Mac Deals for a limited time.

You’ve got a brand-spanking new iPhone 6, and boy is it beautiful. You love looking at it and holding its tender, curved edges, but you’re terrified that you’ll drop it and scratch it up. Or worse: shatter the screen into a million tiny pieces.

You need a case that’s protective, functional, and most importantly, good looking. Something minimal and preferably made of quality material. OtterBoxes are great if you’re worried about your iPhone getting run over by a tractor, but most of us want something sleeker for everyday use.

The good news is that there’s already a handful of sexy iPhone 6 and 6 Plus cases worth checking out. We’ve collected the very best:

OS X Yosemite is packed with new features. Unfortunately, not everybody knows every single trick to squeeze the latest, greatest functionality out of Apple’s new system software.

In today’s instructional Cult of Mac video, we share five basic OS X Yosemite tricks that everyone needs to know. We’ll show you how to make phone calls from your Mac, switch to Yosemite’s “dark mode,” use Spotlight like a pro, easily record video from your iOS device screen, and let other people control your Mac (and vice versa).

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV for all our latest videos.

Apple’s tax tactics in Ireland have landed the company in Congress’ hot seat this year, but another European nation has also helped Apple wiggle its way out of paying massive taxes on its iTunes revenues.

Apple reportedly took advantage of Luxembourg’s complex and corporation-friendly taxation system to get out of paying taxes on its iTunes revenue in Europe. The country has a 29% corporate tax rate, but after negotiating a deal, Apple paid only $25 million in taxes out of the $2.05 billion in iTunes revenue. Apple’s not the only American company exploiting Luxembourg’s tax laws either, with some companies paying less than 1% of revenue.

Here’s how Apple avoids paying nearly all taxes in Europe:

Apple is talking to Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba about bringing Apple Pay to China, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

“Right now, I think what we can say is that this is focused on the China market for Apple,” senior Alibaba executive Joseph Tsai is quoted as saying. “We are positive about the potential cooperation, but it depends on the details being worked out.”

The iPhone 6 is the best smartphone Apple’s ever created, but for those that think iOS is starting to look a little old and dated, a Chinese programmer has figured out how to install an entirely new operating system over iOS. Unfortunately, it’s Windows 95.

Chinese programmer xyq058775 posted the picture above as proof that he finagled Microsoft’s ancient OS onto the enormous display of the iPhone 6. To pull off the trick, the programmer used a tool called iDos, which simulates the 16-bit DOS environment.

Everything worked great, he says, except he discovered he couldn’t upgrade to Windows XP. If you’d like to take the plunge on your iPhone, you can grab the full instructions from his post (as long as you can read Chinese).

Via: Techcrunch

With working specimens of the original 1976 model routinely selling at auction for as much as $905,000, chances are, even the most die-hard Apple fans will never be able to own a vintage Apple 1 for themselves.

But don’t despair: If you have the know-how, you can build one yourself for a fraction of the cost.