Reports about a Microsoft wearable device have been circulating for a while, and now the good folks from Redmond, WA have finally made it official: a Microsoft fitness band is here, and it works on both Android and iOS.

Like the Apple Watch and Galaxy Gear, the appropriately-named Microsoft Band tracks steps and heart rate, as well as showing you phone notifications in the form of text, email, and Twitter alerts.

“It’s the most advanced band we’ve seen in terms of technology on the wrist,” Yusuf Mehdi, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President of Devices and Services told The Verge. “[I]t’s really designed to do two things: have people live healthier, and be more productive, by having a band that can serve on the opposite side of your watch, worn 24 hours a day, and get some of the most accurate data that you can possibly get.”

That’s not the end of Microsoft’s fitness-tracking ambitions, though.

With China, India and Korea all representing growing markets, Apple’s expanding into more countries than ever here in 2014. One place you’d be forgiven for not expecting Tim Cook and co. to show up in, however, is Iran.

It seems that this assumption may be wrong, though, as according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple is in preliminary contact with U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, as well as Iranian distributors, about possibly entering the country should Western sanctions ease sufficiently.

Buoyed by expectation-defying earnings, Apple Pay, and an apparently insatiable demand for the iPhone 6, AAPL stock closed Wednesday at a new all-time split-adjusted high of $107.3.

Apple was trading at $92 at the time of the 7-to-1 split, which means that its current value is up by more than 10% since the division earlier this year. According to Google Finance, Apple ended the day with a market cap of $626 billion, and $629.67 billion as per Yahoo Finance.

The iPhone 6 is obliterating Samsung’s Note 4 in sales, and could even outsell it 10x according to a Korean analyst.

In a note to clients, Shinhan Investment’s Kim Young-chan wrote that the iPhone “will outsell the Galaxy Note 4 by tenfold, with 80 million units shipped worldwide in the October-December period.” Young-chan adds that, “Other market watchers also are expressing doubts about the performance of Korean tech giants.”

Apple has kept quiet on why its sapphire supplier suddenly went bankrupt, but after weeks of court wrangling, GT Advanced Technology’s COO has filed a revised declaration that reveals why Apple’s dream of sapphire iPhones went up in smoke in less than a year.

GTAT COO Daniel Squiller, says that the original plan was for Apple to buy 2,600 sapphire furnaces and other equipment that GTAT would then operate. However, after months of negotiations, the deal was changed so that GTAT would borrow up to $578 million from Apple to purchase furnace components and assemble furnaces that would be used to grow sapphire for Apple.

The company admits the deal came with huge risk for GTAT while shielding Apple, but because it had the potential to be revolutionary to GTAT’s business, they went ahead with it. Then everything went horrible wrong.

When you live in Apple’s world as a third-party developer, you are required to play by Apple’s rules. And sometimes those rules are subject to sudden change.

James Thomson, the developer behind the scientific calculator app PCalc, was notified today by Apple that his iOS 8 widget must be removed. The reason? A new stipulation that iOS widgets cannot perform calculations.

The reasoning behind Apple’s decision may never be known by Thomson or anyone outside the company, and that’s just the point. The App Store is Apple’s kingdom to rule, for better or worse.

Marvel Studios’ Kevin Feige took to the stage at a special event at the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood Tuesday to talk about the next slate of blockbuster films the company is planning to release over the next few years. The full docket, with projected dates, is as follows:

· 5/1/15 – Avengers: Age of Ultron
· 7/17/15 – Ant-Man
· 5/6/16 – Captain America: Civil War
· 11/4/16 – Doctor Strange
· 5/5/17 – Guardians of the Galaxy 2
· 7/28/17 – Thor: Ragnarok
· 11/3/17 – Black Panther
· 5/4/18 – Avengers: Infinity War Part I
· 7/6/18 – Captain Marvel
· 11/2/18 – Inhumans
· 5/3/19 – Avengers: Infinity War Part II

While most of us are clear on who The Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy are, there are some lesser-known characters getting the full movie spotlight that you may not be aware of. Here’s how they fit into the larger Marvel cinematic universe.

By far the biggest downside of the modern smartwatch is their lousy battery life. If you’re lucky, you’ll get around two days of use in between charges from an Android Wear device, but the vast majority require top-ups every night. There is one, however, that promises to last a week, thanks to its clever use of not one but two displays.

Every one loves free stuff, just like the free stuff you can find every day at Cult of Mac Deals.

There’s some seriously awesome stuff available to you right now. Learn how to make a game for iPhone. Listen to an audiobook of a New York Times Bestseller. Get Mac apps that will make you a better developer. Plus more, and all for zero cash.

Apple Pay’s biggest competitor backed by major retailers has been hacked before it even launched.
Retailers like Walmart, BestBuy, Gap, and CVS are waging a war against Apple Pay with their own mobile wallet solution, CurrentC, but the pending doom of their QR-code solution is looking even more obvious now, as the company just alerted customers that they’ve been hacked.

Customers who signed up to use CurrentC were notified today via email that hackers have “obtained the email addresses of some of you.”

Email addresses were the only information the hackers stole (because CurrentC isn’t even out yet), but we doubt this is going to make shoppers eager to share their social security number and bank account info with MCX’s partners, once the app launches next year.

Here’s the email:

Android has yet again increased its lead in U.S. market share as its rivals give up precious points, according to the latest data from Kantar WorldPanel. Google’s popular platform now commands an impressive 61.8 percent share of the smartphone market, which is close to double the 32.6 percent now held by iOS.

WhatsApp, one of the most popular messaging services on mobile, has long had plans to step up its assault against the likes of Skype and Viber with a free voice calling feature that was initially promised for the second quarter of 2014. Now the company’s CEO has confirmed that the launch is planned for early 2015 instead.

Whether you call them anthologies, omnibuses or portmanteaus, the idea is the same: These are films composed of a series of shorter plots with a “frame” connecting them (usually somebody telling the stories to an incredulous audience). This is one of my all-time favorite subgenres for its variety and wealth of content.

This is the third installment in Cult of Mac’s week-long festival of horror movies for Halloween. If you’ve already seen all of those horror classics from Monday, and Tuesday’s monster movies don’t do much for you, check out some of these anthology flicks. They contain a combined total of 28 stories, including the frames, so odds are you’ll find something to get your teeth chattering with fear.

One of my favorite games for the iPhone is Game Dev Story, an adorable and addictive game by Kairosoft that puts the player in the role of managing a team of video game developers.

Something about Noodlecake Games’s upcoming title, Bitcoin Billionaire, reminds me a lot of Game Dev Story. But befitting a game by the creators of Super Stickman Golf, it looks a lot funnier.

To paraphrase Pontius Pilate, I can find no fault with the iPad mini 3. Having said that, I can wash my hands of a proper review and allow Apple’s new half-pint tablet to be crucified in the budget-conscious court of public opinion.

Nice as it is, the iPad mini 3 truly is a gigantic ripoff when compared to its predecessor. It’s got the same specs, the same basic form factor, the same functionality and battery life.

If we were to write a review, it would read something like this: “Touch ID is a swell addition. Please read our review of the iPad mini 2 for more info. That is all.”

Following our report yesterday revealing several leaked shots for the next version of Microsoft Office for Mac, we’re hearing confirmation that not only are the shots legitimate, but that Office for Mac could be here sooner than you think.

Pity Jony Ive. The poor bastard just can’t catch a break.

Ive and his design team at Apple have just released a pair of exquisite iPads — the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 — and yet are getting grief because the iPads offer nothing “new.”

“New” being things like face-tracking cameras, heart-rate monitors or — god forbid — a stylus. These are the kinds of things that get called “innovation.”

Instead, the new iPads look a lot like last year’s models, and those from every year before. This makes many tech reviewers yawn.

“Largely unnecessary,” says The New York Times’ lukewarm review. “More of the same,” writes Business Insider. “You might think I’d be pretty excited about them — but I’m not,” says Walt Mossberg at Re/Code.

Indeed, instead of adding new hardware features, Ive’s team has even removed them. The mute/lock button is gone on the iPad Air 2. Who removes features?

Well, Jony Ive does.

iPhone owners who can’t wait for the Apple Watch can now change their home screens to a fresh interface inspired by Apple’s wearable UI, thanks to a hack for jailbroken devices.

This new tweak replaces the existing iOS look and feel — which has remained conceptually unchanged since the debut of the iPhone back in 2007 — with circular, bubble-looking icons that users can zoom in and out of to find their apps easier.

While the mod started out as nothing more than a concept, another developer has taken the idea and run with it, constructing a tweak called WatchSpring that replaces a jailbroken iOS 8 device’s SpringBoard with a working Apple Watch-style home screen.

Here’s how you get hold of it.

If there’s one thing Apple knows how to make, it’s money. Even so, the iPad Air 2 is one of the best value tablets Apple has ever made.

Even though it costs Apple roughly the same amount to make an iPad Air 2 as it did to make a first-gen iPad Air, Apple’s margins have actually gone down slightly on the superslim, A8X-powered tablet.

A proposed change in U.S. regulations could have massive implications when it comes to bringing about the kind of integrated Apple television set Steve Jobs talked about producing.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Tom Wheeler has proposed a revision of rules that would afford Internet streaming services the same treatment as traditional cable and satellite television companies when it comes to negotiating with channel operators like HBO.

If the change is made, online providers would gain “access to programming owned by cable operators” and be able to negotiate licensing deals with content providers like HBO or local TV stations. Wheeler says the move would “encourage new video alternatives by opening up access to content previously locked on cable channels,” similar to the way regulatory changes in the ’90s enabled satellite TV to compete with cable operators.

Although iOS 8 got off to a slower start than iOS 7, it’s finally starting to rebound. New numbers suggest that over half of all customers have upgraded to iOS 8. But all’s not well yet. In fact, iOS 8 uptake is pretty much stagnant.

Christian Bale might seem like the perfect actor to play Steve Jobs. Like the Apple founder, Bale is a perfectionist who cares so deeply about his craft that he can come across like a raging lunatic.

Bale, who will star in Danny Boyle’s upcoming biopic about Jobs, might be the best hope yet for a riveting onscreen representation of Apple’s late leader. But for many Apple fans, a 1999 TV movie remains the definitive depiction of Jobs.

That movie is Pirates of Silicon Valley, which tells the story of Apple versus Microsoft during a 20-year stretch starting in the late-1970s. With Pirates of Silicon Valley turning 15 this year, Cult of Mac spoke with its director, Martyn Burke, about Noah Wyle (who plays Jobs in the film), threatened lawsuits, and the miraculous way Jobs spun a potentially disastrous bit of PR into good press.

Particularly as Apple extends its tentacles overseas into new markets like China and India, many pundits have suggested that Cupertino needs to make low-cost iPhones to compete with lower-end Android devices.

So will it? According to Apple’s product marketing executive Greg Joswiak the answer is a resounding, emphatic “hell no!”

For those that like listening to their music while getting ready for the day but have to go without while in the shower, read on.

Introducing The Bluetooth Shower Speaker. All you need is a Bluetooth enabled audio device and you are good to go. The Bluetooth Shower Speaker is 60% off for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.