The massive success of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus has pushed app downloads into overdrive, according to a new report from mobile marketers Fiksu.

In the month of November, the combination of time off for Thanksgiving and new iPhones resulted in daily app download volume surpassing the 8 million mark for the first time ever. Not only is this is a significant leap from the 7.8 million daily downloads seen in October, but also a massive increase of 42 percent year-over-year, compared to November 2013.

The good news doesn’t stop there, either.

The Apple blogosphere was ablaze yesterday with reports that the ripoff artists at Xiaomi had come up with the Chinese company’s most brazen copycat product yet. A supposedly leaked image showed a MacBook Air lookalike that was virtually indistinguishable from Cupertino’s offering with the exception of a Xiaomi logo.

Well, the picture is a fake, according to a Xiaomi representative.

While it’s great to hear that Apple’s intellectual property is upheld in this instance, however, it’s still less than ideal for Xiaomi for one very simple reason: just how believable the rumor was.

We love GIFs here at Cult of Mac and 2014 did not disappoint in providing us with twelve months worth of hypnotic images that deserve to be watched, over and over and over.

We already highlighted the most GIF-able moments of 2014, but in our final GIF roundup of the year we’re busting out the best images of the year that came out of Cult of Mac’s GIF making factory (also known as Buster’s underpowered MacBook Air). We GIF’d everything from Tim Cook’s ice bucket challenge, to the hilarious Bendgate controversy that was the Internet’s joke du jour for weeks.

Here are the best Cult of Mac GIFs of 2014:

VLC, the much beloved cross platform video player, hasn’t historically had much luck on iOS. But that looks about to change, with the app reportedly coming back to the App Store early in 2015… and possibly as early as today.

It’s come a long way in recent years, but even so, Internet Explorer may be Microsoft’s most reviled product: a web browser so bad it held web standards back for years. From a Mac fan’s perspective, the best that can be said about Internet Explorer is that, for the most part, you never have to use it at all: the most up-to-date versions only run on Windows.

But that could soon change. A new report suggests that Microsoft could be rebranding Internet Explorer while giving it a radical overhaul… while simultaneously releasing it on non-Windows systems like Mac and iOS.

Samsung has taken a bit of a beating as of late, thanks to the decline of its mobile division, but that doesn’t stop us from noticing that these new pill-shaped speakers from being absolutely gorgeous.

Scheduled to be properly unveiled at CES 2015 in Las Vegas, the speakers are designed to project sound in a 360-degree radius, using Samsung’s proprietary “Ring Radiator” technology.

There are two speakers set to be introduced in the range: a larger model called the WA7500, which is described as a “stand type” and the lantern-style WA6500, which features a built-in battery and is more easily movable. Both speakers are wireless, utilizing Bluetooth technology.

We’ll have full details when we get a closer look at CES (along with the other gadgets on display at the much-anticipated tech show), but for now this is a great sneak peak at a line of speakers that is already filling us with envy. Check out more images after the jump:

There were more viral videos in 2014 than you can shake a stick at, and you could spend weeks watching them all. From John Oliver to the Ice Bucket Challenge, we were absolutely inundated with stuff to watch throughout the year, and that’s a great thing.

Wishing you could relive some of the best viral video moments of 2014? We’ve collected some of the best for your enjoyment:

Apple hasn’t built a device requiring a stylus since the heyday of the Newton in the 1990s, largely because Steve Jobs hated them. But a new patent published today suggests that Apple could be changing its mind — or is making a conscious effort to lead rivals and copycats astray.

Described as a “communicating stylus,” the patent describes a stylus featuring built-in accelerometers, wireless transmission, and storage — with the aim of sending hand-written notes and drawings from one device to another.

2015 is nearly upon us, but before you pop the bubbly, listen up for the tech, apps, movies and TV shows that delighted us in 2014. You’ll get it all in this very special, far too long, last-episode-of-the-2014 … CultCast.

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Click on for the show notes.

Xiaomi just rode Apple’s coattails to the biggest startup valuation in world, but it appears the Chinese smartphone maker is ready to take its copying to new heights by getting into the laptop game with, you guessed it, a MacBook Air knockoff.

This year has been an amazing one at Cult of Mac Deals, where we have offered dozens of training opportunities that will make you a better developer.

Start 2015 off right by learning a new skill or upgrading the skills you already have. Grab one of these powerful eLearning programs now while you still can.

Apple’s new spaceship headquarters is poised to be one of the most futuristic corporate buildings in California once it touches down, but to help the campus stay connected to its roots, the company is painstakingly preserving a 100-year-old barn built by pioneers who settled the area.

Visitors at Apple Campus 2 will notice the bright red barn sitting next to the new fitness center as part of Apple’s effort to transform the land surrounding the campus from 80 percent asphalt and concrete, to 80 percent greenery and open space.

Pumping your gas is about to get a touch quicker, now that Chevron says it’s planning to bring Apple Pay to its gas pumps next year.

Chevron was the only gas station to officially support Apple Pay when it launched in October, but the bad news was you had to go into the store if you wanted to use your iPhone 6 to pay for petrol.  However, according to Chevron’s Twitter account, the gas giant is working alongside Cupertino to bring Apple Pay to the pump by early 2015.

The buff and beautiful lifeguard runs in slow motion down the beach, unseen winds blowing their hair in a Hollywood-made rescue fantasy. But hey, you’re drowning, there’s no time for that.

Your savior could be a group of Connecticut high school students who have developed a drone accessory that deploys an automatically inflating life ring to a swimmer in distress in under 30 seconds.

Most of my work day is spent at a 27-inch iMac, circa 2009. It’s admittedly getting a bit long in the tooth, but buffed up with as much RAM as it can take and a homemade Fusion Drive, it still gets the job done.

One complaint I have about the iMac, though, is that the screen is actually a little too low by default. Resting on my desk, the center of the iMac’s screen doesn’t exactly line up with my line of sight. Over an entire day, that can result in neck pain and bad posture.

And so, over the past few years, I’ve experimented with a lot of stands to lift the iMac up a couple inches to more naturally line up with my line-of-sight. Of all the ones I have ever tried, though, the Walnut Monitor Stand by Portland’s Grovemade is my favorite. After using it for the last few months, I can comfortably say it’s a perfect fusion of design and functionality.

What’s cuter than a boxer puppy named Indiana Bones fighting the forces of evil (cats)? Not much, for sure.

Directors Zach King and Jadon Gauthier have created a five-minute “remake” of Indiana Jones, and it’s completely adorable. Take a look below.

Apple’s partnership with Disney goes back way further than the latter company’s recent decision to accept Apple Pay at Disney World. At the time of his death in 2011, Steve Jobs was the single biggest shareholder of Disney stock as a result of it acquiring his company, Pixar, in 2006.

Jobs got on particularly well with Disney CEO Bob Iger, who called Jobs in 2005 and asked if he could repair the damage that had been done to the Apple/Disney relationship under former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

That relationship is examined in a new Fortune profile of Iger, which describes his six-year friendship with Jobs as the “relationship that has most shaped his thinking.”

Apple has introduced a new 14-day return window for digital purchases made in several European countries. App Store, iTunes, and iBookstore items purchased in the U.K., Germany, Italy, and France are now eligible for complete refunds, and users are not required to give a reason for returning their order.

Europe’s largest collective of hackers, the Chaos Computer Club, claims to have come up with a way of reproducing fingerprints using only a handful of photos (no pun intended) showing your fingers.

Speaking at the 31st annual Chaos Computer Club convention in Hamburg, Germany, hacker Jan Krissler, a.k.a. “Starbug,” said he had managed to copy the thumbprint of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.

This was apparently done using the commercially available software VeriFinger, using a close-up picture of von der Leyen’s thumb, taken from a news conference in October, as well as some other photos showing different angles of the fingerprint.

Never able to find an open Wi-Fi signal when you need one? Maybe you should carry around this sword. Modeled after Frodo’s weapon in The Lord of the Rings, it glows when it’s within range of open Wi-Fi.

Xiaomi is known for “borrowing” many aspects of Apple’s identity, and here’s one more to add to the list: its sky high valuation.

Having just announced the raising of an extra $1.1 billion in funding, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi announced on Monday that it is now valued at a whopping $46 billion — making it worth more than any other tech startup.

“This round of funding is an affirmation of Xiaomi’s achievements in more than four years of business and a prelude to a new stage of development,” founder Lei Jun wrote on Monday.

Apple Pay is set to arrive in the U.K. during the first half of 2015, according to a recent report from The Telegraph newspaper, which states that Apple is in talks with top banks in the country.

If true, this report backs up what Cult of Mac wrote recently, noting that Apple recently advertised for a new employee to help “drive the roll-out” of mobile payments in Europe and elsewhere.

But there are likely to be a few teething problems along the way.

When people opened up their brand new iPhones and iPads for Christmas, what was the first app they were most likely to download?

Well, the data’s in, and it looks like Minecraft: Pocket Edition had a pretty great Christmas, raking in more money in holiday sales than any other game in the world.

Aaron Sorkin and Danny Boyle’s troubled Steve Jobs movie has had difficulty holding onto its cast members, but there’s a way you can help change that: by putting yourself forward for a role.

Beau Bonneau Casting is looking for San Francisco-based extras to appear in the movie when it starts shooting in late January 2015.

Here’s everything you’ll need to do to stand a chance at making the movie, just in case you ever wanted to be in the audience for one of Apple’s product launches (and, frankly, who wouldn’t?).