Apple’s great at hopping into new markets just as they’re set to explode, and it seems that the upcoming Apple Watch is no different.

Despite mixed reports about consumer interest, research firm IHS thinks demand for sensor-equipped wearable tech devices is going to see a major acceleration starting next year — largely thanks to Cupertino. Just how much of an increase are we talking about? Try 7x the size of the existing market by 2019, according to analysts.

“Similar to the iPhone and iPad, IHS expects the Apple Watch will set a de facto standard for sensor specifications in smartwatches,” says Jeremie Bouchaud, director and senior principal analyst, MEMS & Sensors. “Most other wearable [original equipment manufacturers] will follow Apple’s lead in [incorporating multiple sensors into devices] — or will add even more sensors to differentiate.”

The iPad Air 2 is starting to hit doorsteps for preorders today, and already, the benchmarks are blowing us away, with an early Geekmark score showing that the iPad Air 2 is the fastest, most powerful tablet out there. Period.

But that’s not the surprising thing about the iPad Air 2.

Tim Cook has met with a top Chinese government official in Beijing, to discuss the reported “man-in-the-middle” phishing attack on iCloud users in China, reportedly being carried out by authorities.

While very few details of the meeting have been made public, it is reported by the Chinese media that it took place on Wednesday in Zhongnanhai, the Beijing complex which houses China’s central government.

Cook and Vice Premier Ma Kai discussed user privacy and “strengthening cooperation” going forward.

If you’ve been holding out on upgrading to iOS 8 until a jailbreak is available, your wait is over — courtesy of Team Pangu.

Currently available for Windows only, the promised iOS 8 and 8.1 jailbreak works on devices up to and including the iPhone 6, 6 Plus and iPad Air 2, as well as earlier devices.

Apple may be out-earning its rivals, but there’s one place it’s lagging behind: political lobbying.

While companies like Google and Facebook continued to pour millions of dollars into influencing U.S. lawmakers during Q3, Apple spent a fraction of this sum.

According to recently published data, between July and September Google spent $3.94 million on lobbying, while Facebook spent $2.45 million. Apple, for its part, spent just over $1 million — mainly pushing issues related to consumer health legislation, transportation of lithium ion batteries, international taxes, e-books, medical devices, and copyright.

If you’ve got a business that Apple Maps just keeps on getting wrong, great news. Apple has just launched a new portal for U.S. businesses to add or edit their listings within Apple Maps.

SAN FRANCISCO — Twenty-five years ago, a bike messenger sat in his garage and used an old-school Singer sewing machine to stitch his mark on the world.

That bike messenger was Rob Honeycutt, and the bags he made in 1989 were called Scumbags. They were designed for use by the city’s notorious two-wheeled delivery riders, whose fashion sense tended toward crude cutoffs, T-shirts and hoodies.

A year later, Honeycutt changed his operation’s name to Timbuk2, and the company’s been crafting an increasingly ambitious line of bags ever since, expanding far beyond the world of tattooed dudes on fixies.

“Timbuk2 wasn’t going to the office 25 years ago,” CEO Patti Cazzato told Cult of Mac during a recent tour of the company’s Mission district factory, where all of Timbuk2’s custom bags are made.

Preorders for the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3 will start arriving on doorsteps as soon as tomorrow, and now a flood of early reviews has hit the web.

There’s a general theme throughout these dozen or so reviews of Apple’s newest tablets: boring. While these are unequivocally the best iPads every (like every year since the original), that’s not quite enough anymore.

Apple is in the market for a new sapphire supplier.

GT Advanced Technologies and Apple have reached an agreement that will see the two companies amicably parting ways, after the sapphire supplier filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month.

I typically try out a new product for review without reading any of the documentation or media relations stuff that the folks who send us such things want us to look at. I want to have as pristine an experience as possible. Sometimes that leads to little surprises.

I put these new Astro Gaming A38 Bluetooth headphones on my head last week, and paired them with my iPhone to play a little music. After a few songs of various genres, I stopped the tunes and took these off my noggin. I suddenly realized that my girlfriend had been blending up a protein shake in the nearby kitchen. It was surprising because I honestly could not hear it with the headphones on my head and playing music at a relatively low volume – and our blender is really loud.

While they’re great for music, these are also fantastic sounding headphones that help you immerse yourself into any game on your iPad or iPhone, cutting down on the auditory distractions from the outside world when they’re powered up.

Recent reports of iCloud phishing attempts in China illustrate just how important it is always verify that you’re logging into legitimate websites before you enter your precious passwords.

To help, Apple today outlined how users can protect themselves from phishing attacks, in which bad guys pose as legitimate entities in an attempt to gain sensitive data on the web. Apple’s simple PSA page shows how web surfers can verify the authenticity of any website.

Apple Pay is set to completely change the way we pay for things at the register, and to reward early adopters’ use of the new mobile payments system, Apple is planning to launch a new Apple Pay loyalty program in time for the holidays.

The rumored Apple Pay loyalty program supposedly wasn’t slated to launch until 2015  (to go with the launch of Apple Pay 2.0), but after market demand was stronger than expected, Bank Innovation reports the program could be here in time to help you with your Christmas Shopping.

Wondering how many solar eclipses there have been since the day you were born? How about when your next birthday on Mercury is? Perhaps you want to know how much Earth’s population has changed since your very special day.

You can answer these questions and more at BBC Earth with this interactive tool — you just plug in your birthdate, height, and gender, and you’ll get all sorts of interesting facts about our planet, as it relates to your lifespan.

“Find out how,” says the BBC site, “since the date of your birth, your life has progressed; including how many times your heart has beaten, and how far you have travelled through space.”

Heady stuff, indeed.

Apple mysteriously didn’t mention an exact launch date for the iPad Air 2 or the iPad mini 3, but if you pre-ordered your new tablet last week, it could be on your doorstep as soon as tomorrow.

This morning I woke up and slide my finger down my iPhone’s lockscreen to see the weather. With a single line of text, Dark Sky told me what it felt like outside and that it would be overcast for at least the next hour. No need for sunglasses then.

There are a lot of weather apps out there to choose from, and I’ve tried a lot of them. But in terms of features, design, and actual usefulness, none comes close to being as good as Dark Sky.

If you’re looking to get your hands on a brand new iPad Air 2 or iPad mini 3 ASAP for no money down, you may want to check out T-Mobile’s offers.

Announcing the opening up of its preorders ahead of the new tablets hitting shelves, the cellular service provider is giving would-be tablet owners the chance to pick up a 16GB iPad Air 2 or iPad mini for an upfront cost of zero dollars — so long as they’re willing to sign up for 24 monthly instalment payments.

The price plans break down as below:

The Pokémon Company International just took another step towards iOS domination with its free-to-play game, Camp Pokémon, now available on the App Store for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. This new game will let children of all ages explore Camp Pokémon, learning to become a Pokémon trainer.

This is a big step in the right direction for Pokémon video game players, since Nintendo has as yet refused to put it’s incredibly lucrative Pokémon RPG games on any platform besides its own. However, The Pokemon Company owns the rights to the card game; they can put it on any platform they choose.

“Kids will have a blast exploring Camp Pokémon as they immerse themselves in the Pokémon universe in a fun, interactive setting,” said The Pokémon Company’s J.C. Smith. “Parents will love watching their little campers participate in fun activities and create memories at the virtual Pokémon island.”

Apple Pay launched yesterday with dozens of official partners supporting Apple’s mobile payments solution out of the gate, but even though participating stores are listed on Apple’s website, there are tons of other contactless payment vendors in your city that can use Apply Pay, and you don’t even know it.

Many of the 200,000 contactless NFC payment terminals across the U.S. can accept Apple Pay, whether it’s a Coca-Cola vending machine, or your local car shop. Finding those business using contactless payments is the biggest challenge, but thanks to a couple of websites and apps, you can locate your next Apple Pay destination in seconds.

Here’s how to find Apple Pay merchants near you:

Do you love yourself some video games? Like brain teasing science fiction tales? Do you fearlessly wear your Starfleet uniform to the grocery store like it was Comic Con?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then Loot Crate was designed for you. Right now, you can get 3 months of Loot Crate at the discounted price of just $47.99 for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

While Apple Pay is technically limited to the United States, iPhone owners around the world are having luck using the service with cards issued in the U.S. Reports out of Australia show Apple Pay working like normal at NFC terminals down under.

Cupertino is once again shifting supply ratios of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus due to higher-than-expected demand for the larger handset, according to a new report.

The source of the increased demand this time? China, where the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus recently went on sale following a massive 20 million reported preorders.

iPhone 6 owners who happen to also be fans of Major League Baseball have a treat on their hands, courtesy of a new deal that will see Apple Pay added at several stadiums in time for the 2014 World Series.

San Francisco’s AT&T Park and Kansas City’s Kauffman Stadium support the contactless NFC payment system, which will allow World Series ticket holders to pay for food and beverages using their iPhone 6 and 6 Plus devices.

iOS 8 has only been out a short amount of time, but Apple’s already keen that it takes over as the company’s go-to mobile OS.

In a new posting on its developer portal, Apple announced that starting February 1, 2015, all new iOS apps uploaded to the App Store must include 64-bit support, and be built using the iOS 8 SDK, included in Xcode 6 or later.

Your iPhone can make payments, control your smart home, and track your health — and soon it might be able to control your car, as well.

A new patent published Thursday describes a way of using the iPhone’s geo-location capabilities to intelligently monitor and control certain car functions, based on “geofences.”

Likely pairing with Apple’s vehicle-based OS, CarPlay, the patent notes how your car could be tracked in relation to your iPhone — with appropriate signals, sent using Bluetooth LE, to execute functions like locking your car and arming its alarm when you are a certain distance from the vehicle.

Apple surpassed analysts’ expectations with $42.1 billion in revenue in the back-to-school season, buoyed by unprecedented iPhone sales and surprisingly strong demand for Macs.

While breaking down the Q4 2014 numbers during today’s earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri offered insights into the company’s Q4 performance in China, the struggling iPad and hints of new product categories coming down the pipeline.

Here are the biggest takeaways.