Tim Cook, Phil Schiller and others who knew him have made public comments commemorating Steve Jobs, who passed away three years ago today.

Cook sent out two tweets, quoting Jobs from his 2005 Stanford Commencement Address as saying, “You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.” In the second message he said that he was in Grand Canyon National Park, backpacking and “thinking of SJ and his many gifts to the world.”

You can talk about stress testing and Apple’s potential liability until you’re blue in the face, but sometimes you need to just speak about overblown subjects like the Bendgate controversy using a shred of common sense.

Happily taking up that baton is T-Mobile CEO John Legere, who responded to questions about Apple’s allegedly bendable iPhone 6 Plus at this year’s GeekWire Summit 2014 with a distinctly non-corporate-sounding statement. Simply put: try bending that brand new super computer handset you’ve paid good money for and you’re a f****ing idiot.

Well, someone had to say it.

There are hot deals on all kinds of software, services, and electronic gadgets available every day at Cult of Mac Deals.

Today we put the spotlight on a few of the best. Go to the Cult of Mac Deals page to check out all of the special, limited time offers.

Apple co-founder and visionary CEO Steve Jobs passed away three years ago today, at the age of 56.

In addition to co-creating the company with Steve Wozniak in 1976, Jobs personally oversaw the creation of the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and OS X — as well as funding Pixar during its rise to prominence.

While there are plenty of great videos featuring Jobs to mark the occcasion (anyone with the slightest bit of interest in working in tech should make a point of viewing all of his Apple keynotes) the below is one of my personal favorites. It features Jobs, less than three months into his 1997 return, talking at an internal meeting about his vision for taking the company forward.

Want to own a super-rare prototype iPhone 6, as accidentally sent out to a Verizon customer? You’d better have six-figures to spare.

The alleged prototype in question has appeared on eBay, running the internal Apple applications the company uses to test new devices as opposed to the consumer version of iOS.

There are no FCC markings or any other text on the handset’s body, other than the word “iPhone.” There is also a red lightning port, which seller kimberlyk1018 claims “is a sure sign of a prototype.”

The full listing reads:

Andy Rooney once quipped that anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.

With that sentiment in mind, a new Kickstarter campaign is in the process of raising funds for a fantastic project: a fully reversible, nigh-unbreakable USB Lightning charging cord for your iPhone. Check out the video after the jump.

China may be getting the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus a little later than many parts of the world, but that doesn’t seem to have slowed down demand any.

Ever since being made available for preorder late last week, upwards of 4.85 million iPhone 6 family handsets have reportedly been ordered, according to the Chinese live tracking website JD.com.

Bose just laid a major smackdown on Beats, courtesy of a new deal with the NFL which bars any non-Bose headphones from being shown during interviews on NFL broadcasts.

The wide-ranging agreement covers TV interviews during training camps, practice sessions and, of course, game day — extending from prior to kickoff through 90 minutes after play has finished.

Beats has already responded with a statement, noting that, “Over the last few years athletes have written Beats into their DNA as part of the pre-game ritual. Music can have a significant positive effect on an athlete’s focus and mental preparedness and has become as important to performance as any other piece of equipment.”

Awesome stuff is offered every day at Cult of Mac Deals. Things like exciting electronic gadgets and toys, software that will turn you into a productivity dynamo, and services that will give you more free time. Deals like these can’t hang around forever, though.

Today we put the spotlight on three incredible deals that will soon be riding off into the sunset. Many have already taken advantage of these bargains. Don’t get left out. Check out Dragon Dictate for Mac 4, the Karma Go mobile LTE hotspot, and the LithiumCard mobile power bank today.

It’s no coincidence—your love for Apple and their pretty little gadgets was Steve Jobs’ master plan, and on our newest CultCast, we’ll tell you how did it. Plus: Bendgate might be overblown, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire; we love our iPhone 6 Pluses, but dear lord, they’re huge… And finally, Jony Ive gains a counterpart in Apple’s newest Industrial Designer.

Chuckle your way through each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the chuckles begin.

Our thanks to Backblaze for supporting this episode! Backblaze online backup is Mac Native, unlmited, unthrottled, uncomplicated, and only 5 bucks a month. Try it totally free for two weeks at backblaze.com/cultcast.

This Sunday will mark three years since the death of Apple co-founder and former CEO Steve Jobs at the age of 56. Although many Apple employees will doubtless be working over the weekend, Tim Cook took today as the opportunity to send out a note to Apple employees, sharing some of his thoughts on Jobs’ legacy at Apple.

The note can be read in full below:

Deciding to buy a new iPhone is always easier than figuring out what to do with the old smartphone its replacing. 280 million used smartphones are expected to be shoved back into closest and drawers by the end of 2014 rather than being recycled, but the folks at MindHelix have come up with a novel solution: turn it into a smart-home security robot named Rico.

Rico – a smarthome security device that tracks changes in your home – gives your old iClunker a second life by putting it’s processing power and sensors back to work, so that you can track all the data from various sources in your home, and make changes remotely.

The Rico Kickstarter project just launched this week, and while the little security bot can do a number of things on its own, like monitoring temperature, carbon monoxide, smoke, humidity and motion detection, the device becomes more powerful when you feed it your old smartphone eWaste.

Check out Rico in action in the video below:

In the timeless game of hating on Apple, Bill Gates is an O.G. When his kids ask for iPads and MacBooks, he shoves a Microsoft Surface in their stockings. But when it comes to Apple Pay, even the former CEO of Microsoft thinks his old rivals’ mobile payments solution is absolutely fantastic.

In an interview discussing his latest philanthropic endeavor – leveraging cellphones to make banking more affordable for the world’s poorest countries – Gates told Bloomberg TV that he sees Apple Pay bringing NFC payments to a critical mass for all devices in the near future.

“The fact that in any application I can buy something, that’s fantastic,” Gates gushed.  “The fact I don’t need a physical card anymore… and you’re going to be quite sure about who it is on the other end, that is a real contribution.”

Yeah, Bill. We’re impressed too. Check out the full interview below:

Apple went bigger than big for its unveiling of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch, but when it hits the stage with a new iPad later this month the event will reportedly be much more low key.

Apple is planning to unveil its latest update on Thursday, October 16, reports John Paczkowski at Recode, only instead of hosting an encore at the Flint Center, the event will be held at Apple’s Town Hall Auditorium in Cupertino.

Cult of Mac Deals is all about bringing you killer gadgets, software, and services at deeply discounted prices. Sometimes, though, Cult of Mac Deals gives you an opportunity to get something awesome for absolutely nothing.

Today, you can enter to win an iPhone 6, a Canon DSLR, or a Multi-Sync Keyboard at Cult of Mac Deals. Don’t risk missing out on these. Entering is easy peasy.

Facebook is set to follow Apple into the mobile health field according to a new report from Reuters.

Citing three people familiar with the matter, the report states that Facebook has been discussing the move with medical industry experts, and is currently in the early stages of assembling an R&D team for the creation of health-related mobile apps.

Samsung might be a company that likes to jump in early when it comes to attacking rival Apple, but it’s also more than happy to hang around to get the last laugh.

With the heat from Bendgate now dissipating, Samsung has released one more video trying to fan critics’ flames in the direction of Cupertino by showing just how strong the Galaxy Note 4 allegedly is.

Entitled “Galaxy Note 4 Endures the Gluteus Maximus,” the video demonstrates Samsung’s new flagship taking part in the kind of controlled bend tests seen in the recent Consumer Reports video — including taking the repeated weight of a 100kg person sitting on it several hundred times.

Apple is reportedly in early talks with music labels about “a new set of rights and features,” prior to the company’s Beats Music refresh next year.

No concrete details were provided about what these rights and features might involve, but Re/code claims Apple is gunning for lower content licensing fees, that would enable the company to charge under its current $10 price point.

A recent survey suggested that just 25% of music streamers spent more than $10 on music every three months.

Even with the recent improvements to iOS 8’s handling of photos you take with your iPhone, it’s still kind of a pain in the butt to sort through and delete the ones you don’t want to keep.

The developers behind Flic, a fantastic new photo app, decided they’d had enough and built a better app. This one works a lot like Tinder, a dating app that uses a swipe to sort potential dates.

If you’ve ever had to sort through a ton of photos on your iPhone, you’re going to love Flic. Getting through all your photos is speedy and efficient.

“I just went on my honeymoon,” developer Brandon Evans told Cult of Mac, “and I think I had 400 pictures to go through. It only took me, like two minutes to go through using Flic.”

Apple’s 5.5-inch “phablet” iPhone 6 Plus may still be in short supply, but according to supply chain sources it’s likely to wind up accounting for a whopping 60% of total iPhone 6 family shipments.

Prior to the iPhone 6 Plus’ official announcement, analysts were predicting the plus-sized iPhone 6 would make up a tiny fraction of the sales of its smaller sibling. Taiwan’s Topology Research Institute predicted that of the 80 million iPhone 6 family units it forecast would sell by the end of 2014, the iPhone 6 would account for 70 million, while the 6 Plus would sell only between 8 and 10 million units during that same timeframe.

I was pretty sure I would never need to look any further than my trusty Chrome bag when it came time to be out and about with my electronics. It was a simple system, really: Just chuck everything into the bag’s cavernous pocket, buckle it in and go. It was quick, and it worked — until I needed to actually get anything out of there.

See, for all its style and the novelty of its seat-belt strap, Chromes are really only meant to transport one or two larger packages. Because they’re messenger bags. You know, for messengers.

The MixBag takes a different approach: It’s smaller, but it has a pocket for everything you might possibly need to carry around.

Eric Schmidt has hit back at Tim Cook’s recent jibes at Google, claiming that “someone didn’t brief him correctly on Google’s policies.”

Schmidt was speaking as part of a CNN Money interview to promote his new book How Google Works. The Tim Cook comments in question concern Apple’s focus on keeping user data private.

During his recent two-part interview with Charlie Rose, Cook said that, “I think everyone has to ask, ‘How do companies make their money?’ Follow the money. And if they’re making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried and you should really understand what’s happening with that data.”

All Cult of Mac’s top news stories and features, compiled in one place to peruse easily on your iPad or iPhone. This week we’ve got all you need to know about iOS 8’s widgets and Family Sharing, some neat ways to stream movies and TV shows to your iOS device, and some great features on high-end wrappers for your Apple gadgets as well as the 12 best games on all important gaming platforms.

Dig into Cult of Mac Magazine October 3 Edition, Free on iTunes

Naturally, you hope your new iPhone will stay in mint condition until you’re ready to upgrade or resell. But the fact is, if you cringe at the possibility of a $200 repair bill for a broken screen, it’s time to think about getting an extended warranty.

You’ve got several options: AppleCare+ is available for purchase with new hardware, and mobile carriers and third-party warranty providers sell plans with different perks. You should also check out your personal insurance provider if you’ve got one. Some homeowner’s and renter’s policies offer protection plans for personal belongings, and you might already be covered. The deductibles tend to be steep, but it’s still worth giving your insurer a call to know your options.

Deciding on a warranty can be tricky, so we’ve done the hard work for you.