Regulators are set to break down the reason tax deals given to Apple in Ireland violate EU laws, according to people familiar with the matter.

The European Commission began formal investigations into the tax avoidance issue back in June, and plans to publish its findings as early as today — with the claim that tax deals between Apple and the Irish government could fall under the heading of illegal state aid.

While Apple has yet to make a comment on the matter, the Irish government has spoken up; describing its position as “confident” that the Apple deal represents “no breach of state-aid rules.” It claims that it has already submitted a formal response to the European Commission, in which it addresses in detail “the concerns and some misunderstandings.”

Woody Allen famously called pigeons flying rats. Photographer David Stephenson calls them thoroughbreds of the sky.

He also realizes the common perception of the pigeon skews more toward Allen’s view. But Stephenson has a growing body of work that could make people reconsider the much-maligned bird.

Stephenson, aka The Pigeon Photographer, runs a website and Instagram feed where his photos attempt to show the intelligence, strength and iridescent beauty of homing pigeons, which he raises in his backyard near Lexington, Kentucky.

“When we see them circling in the air, they move so fast our eye can’t comprehend the beautiful details, the way the feathers curve, the upstroke or downstroke of the wings,” Stephenson told Cult of Mac. “I just want people to appreciate them more. They are beautiful, insanely tough and intelligent.”

Apple has given Foxconn record revenues thanks to “unprecedented” orders for its iPhone 6 devices, but Foxconn is trying to spread its wings away from Cupertino.

According to a new report from Digitimes, citing upstream supply chain sources, Foxconn Electronics has been aggressively aiding China-based smartphone clients such as Xiaomi, Meitu, Oppo and Meizu with boosting their sales.

Due to challenges receiving regulatory approval, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus has yet to make it into China through official channels.

That’s not enough to stop the New York Times running a story claiming that scalpers have already exhausted demand for Apple’s next gen handsets in the country that may one day overtake the U.S. in terms of iPhone sales, however.

The article notes that, despite the fact that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will not officially go on sale for a few weeks (October 10, according to a leaked memo), the gray market has “already dried up” — with wholesalers who smuggled tens of thousands of iPhones into the country being forced to “[slash] prices to move inventory.”

Apple’s 32-foot Fifth Avenue Apple Store is its most iconic retail outlet– and one which Steve Jobs dearly loved. But did you know that Jobs’ originally wanted to have the building substantially bigger?

A new book entitled The Liar’s Ball: The Extraordinary Saga of How One Building Broke the World’s Toughest Tycoons recounts the story of how real estate guru George Macklowe sold Steve Jobs on the more compact design. After pestering former Apple VP Real Estate George Blankenship for a meeting with Jobs, Macklowe clashed with the late CEO over what size the cube should be.

Samsung is all too willing to leap down Apple’s throat at any perceived error on Cupertino’s part, but apparently that same degree of quality control is not turned inwardly on Samsung’s own industrial design department.

Having brought forward its release date to try and beat the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus into South Korea and China, the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 has been met with negative customer reviews since its September 26 launch — on the basis that there is a sizeable gap between the smartphone’s display and its casing.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus may have been available to buy for a week now in the U.S. and other primary markets, but it’s still a hot enough ticket that it’s causing major lines this weekend, as eager shoppers try to grab Apple’s next-gen handsets.

In various cities around the world, a constant queue could be seen for much of the weekend, with many customers having to wait well over an hour.

Like a person with a new gym membership, Apple’s been on a health kick all year.

First we had the announcement of HealthKit at WWDC, then a fitness-oriented iPhone 5s ad in June, followed by Apple’s entry into the fitness-tracking market with the Apple Watch unveiling, and now the App Store’s been updated with a new “Apps for Health” section.

This section continues Apple’s trend for using human curation in the App Store by highlighting 14 apps which take advantage of iOS 8’s Health app by bringing health and fitness data into one centralized apps for access by users.

Every week, Cult of Mac Deals presents the best gizmos, software, and services at prices that are extremely discounted.

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If you hate iOS 8 -— whether because it runs like crap on your device, you miss your jailbreak, or because it’s significantly more buggy — you’ve previously had the option to downgrade back to iOS 7.1.2 if you wanted to.

But bad news. That ship has sailed. Apple has stopped signing iOS 7.1.2, making iOS 8 the only version of iOS that can be installed on any device capable of supporting it.

Of all the carriers you could possibly get your iPhone 6 through, AT&T is one of the worst. But starting on Sunday, signing a new two-year contract with AT&T is going to get a little more attractive, especially if you use a lot of data: for a limited time, Ma Bell is offering double the data for Mobile Share Value Plans.

Apple is still supporting the iPhone 4s when it comes to new software, despite the fact that it is now outdated by several generations. But while iOS 8 is technically usable by iPhone 4s owners, just how fast can it run compared to iOS 7?

Finding the answer to this question is the basis of a new video by YouTube user kabriolett, who staged a speed comparison between an iPhone 4s running iOS 7.1.2 and one running iOS 8.0.2.

The results are surprising.

A massive new Apple Store planned for downtown San Francisco is being held up by… tulip trees?

The site in question overlooks Union Square, with Apple planning to demolish a large existing building and replace it with a giant, two-storey glass structure reminiscent of the iconic New York Apple Store on Fifth Avenue. However, in order for work to commence on the building Apple needs to bring in the right equipment, which necessitates the removal of seven tulip trees currently blocking the path.

Trouble is, things aren’t as straightforward as they might seem.

With Bendgate causing some worrywarts to question the structural integrity of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Consumer Reports set out to answer the question: “How much force does it take for a phone to bend — and not bend back?”

The independent consumer-testing outfit took six smartphones — including both iPhone 6 models and an iPhone 5s — into the lab and subjected them to experiments using an Instron compression testing machine. The results are surprising.

Here’s what they found (along with a video showing Consumer Reports’ torture testing).

The good people at Cult of Mac Deals are dedicated to bringing its users the coolest gadgets, productive software, and useful services at rock bottom prices. As new deals emerge, though, other deals that have been around a while must sail off into the sunset.

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Bendgate is the latest in a long line of minor Apple problems that get blown out of proportion by the Internet’s echo chamber and the media jackals that inevitably swoop in and howl about the latest “crisis.”

The same sort of over-the-top backlash happened with the iPhone 4’s reception issue (Antennagate) and the iPad’s trickle-charge feature (Batterygate). It’s a familiar cycle: Apple’s fantastic new device captures the world’s attention, a glitch arises and suddenly the world is coming to an end — at least until it’s not.

“Apple’s ability to trigger consumer demand is probably without rival across the globe — that’s no small feat,” says Larry Barton, a pioneer in corporate crisis management who studies the causes of and responses to incidents like these. “Their core, loyal customer has proven to be forgiving across several minor incidents, and Bendgate is just that — a relatively minor snafu that’s not uncommon with a first-generation design.”

Although the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus chalked up record-breaking sales, Apple’s week has been far from a celebration. A YouTube video showing the iPhone 6 Plus bending under seemingly normal amounts of pressure sent the Internet to crazyville, and Bendgate was born.

Watch Cult of Mac’s news roundup to see the latest regarding the Bendgate frenzy, why some iPads are being banned, and how one person surprised the world with her iPhone 6 impressions more than others.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.

Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn is notorious for its empire of iPhone-assembling employees and robots, but the electronics manufacturer is looking to shift gears, by building a dirt cheap electric car, and it’s already investing $811 million to speed up the process.

Hit the sweet spot on YouTube with a well-timed video, and you could be rolling in the dough.

Lewis Hilsenteger may have done just that with his iPhone 6 Plus bending video, which has now gathered a jaw-dropping number of hits.

The Ontario-based video blogger has racked up a staggering 36 million views (and climbing!) on his video (posted above), becoming somewhat of a touchstone for the continuing Bendgate saga.

He’s not the only one, however, with folks from around the globe getting tons of traffic (and, we hope, ad revenue) via their gadgety video postings.

Here, then, are a few of the most popular videos that feature Apple’s new products.

The iPhone 6 Plus bends because it’s thin and aluminium, right? Wrong, according to a poster on Imgur, who has analysed photos of the contorting iPhone phablet and places the blame instead on a badly-designed metal reinforcement.

Apple added a new feature to iOS 8 that makes it harder for retailers to track your location by snooping info broadcast over WiFi, but after digging into the MAC randomization feature, a security researcher has found some bad news: it only works if you’ve got cellular data turned off.

The Mac randomization feature which debuted at WWDC, promises to limit retailers’ abilities to track your iPhone when you go to the mall, by sending a random MAC address, instead of the code can be used to grab your iPhone’s unique device ID and location, but users will have to turn off their cellular data connection to start broadcasting random MAC addresses.

You already know that Cult of Mac Deals brings you top level gadgets, software, and services at low prices. Did you also know that some stuff at Cult of Mac Deals is available for free?

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Security researchers recently uncovered a bug in Bash, a core shell tool used in Linux and Unix computers for the last couple of decades. OS X is built on Unix, so concern arose about the Mac’s vulnerability to hackers exploiting Bash to remotely run code without the user’s consent.

Dubbed “Shellshock,” the exploit has been compared to the Heartbleed hack from earlier this year. Apple has quelled everyone’s fears by saying that the “vast majority of OS X users” are not vulnerable to Shellshock.

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