Almost everyone is happy about iOS 8’s recent privacy upgrade, which means that Apple can’t unlock your phone as part of an investigation. Almost everyone, that is, except for the FBI.

Speaking with reporters Thursday, FBI director James Comey described himself as “very concerned” by steps tech companies like Apple are taking to strengthen privacy on mobile devices.

“I am a huge believer in the rule of law, but I am also a believer that no one in this country is beyond the law,” Comey said. “What concerns me about this is companies marketing something expressly to allow people to place themselves above the law.”

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is the new owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. No surprise, then, that our favorite sweaty iOS hater is banning iPhones and iPads on the court.

From Need for Speed Most Wanted to Real Racing 3, there are some great driving-based games for iOS. None are quite like Torque Burnout, though.

Promising to combine the most fun bits of every racing game ever into a standalone title, the forthcoming mobile game from developer League of Monkeys is basically an excuse to just do donuts… over and over again.

Unless you’re talking about critically endangered species, using up a sizable percentage of the world’s anything is an impressive benchmark. When that’s 25 percent of the world’s RAM, though — a critical component of every smartphone, tablet and ultrabook on Earth — only Apple is capable of placing those kinds of orders.

This week on The CultCast: Bendgate! Some say it’s Antennagate 2.0, but is there a legitimate issue happening here? We’ll tell you what we think about these “bent” iPhones… Then, we’ve used it for a whole week—catch our updated impressions of iPhone 6. Plus, why you should hold off on installing iOS 8.0.1, and what you can do if you already have. And finally, it’s not just the big screen, there might be another reason the iPhone 6 has been impossible to buy. We’ll tell you our stories from launch day…

Heartily guffaw 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 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.

While customers in the U.S. have been playing with (and bending) their iPhone 6 devices for a week now, today marks the sales debut of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in 22 secondary markets.

These include Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

Due to time zone differences, New Zealand customers have had their handsets for a full day already, while Twitter’s now buzzing with reports from plenty more excited customers in Europe and elsewhere.

The iPhone 6 originally launched in the U.S., Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK on September 19, racking up a massive 10 million+ sales during its first weekend.

We’ll have to wait and see how it does in today’s 22 new markets, but judging from the below pictures there’s no shortage of enthusiasm.

When you need to move files quickly between two Apple devices, AirDrop is an incredibly useful tool. It started out as a Mac-to-Mac thing, and then iPhone-to-iPhone, but with iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, AirDrop becomes even more powerful: Now you can share files from Mac to iPhone (or iPad) and vice versa.

Here’s how.

Brands were quick to pile on the iPhone 6 Plus Bendgate controversy this week with a heavy serving of scathing tweets and jokes, except in LG’s case, it can’t get enough iPhone either.

LG – makers of the curved LG G Flex smartphone – bragged on Twitter that its phone “doesn’t bend, it flexes… on purpose,” but like countless of ignorant celebrities and brands before them,  their social media mavens didn’t know we can all see their belly busting joke was crafted on an iPhone.

Using an app like Tweetdeck or Tweetbot you can see that the joke was posted using Twitter for iPhone. Which iPhone they were using is anyone’s guess, but I hope they’re taking a few design lessons from it so they can finally start using their own phones someday.

Via: DailyDot

If you were one of the 40,000 unfortunate souls affected by yesterday’s buggy iOS 8.0.1 update that killed cell service and broke Touch ID, the fix is finally here.

Apple has released iOS 8.0.2 to the public and along with fixing any iPhone 6 and 6 Pluses affected by yesterday’s release, it also contains bug fixes for HealthKit, third-party keyboards, and Safari, as well as improvements to the Reachability feature on iPhones 6 and 6 Plus.

The new update can be downloaded straight to your iPhone by going to Settings >> General >> Software Update. You can also grab it from iTunes.

Today Apple spoke out on Bendgate, the international scandal that has set the world ablaze with questions about the iPhone 6 Plus like, “Will it bend?”

“With normal use a bend in iPhone is extremely rare and through our first six days of sale, a total of nine customers have contacted Apple with a bent iPhone 6 Plus,” said Apple in a statement. To further solidify its stance on not making bendy hardware, the company has laid out the five methods it uses to test iPhone durability.

AAPL shares values tanked 3.8% today as PR problems continue to stack up for Apple this week.

The disastrous release of iOS 8.0.1, along with the Bendgate controversy that has left the Internet LOLing has shaken investors’ confidence in AAPL this week, and they’re taking the rest of the stock market down with them.

Kyle Wiens has seen the insides of just about every gadget under the sun, and he’s not surprised that the iPhone 6 Plus is susceptible to bending.

Wiens is CEO of iFixit, which is famous for its insightful teardowns of Apple products, and he says there’s nothing wrong with the design of the iPhone 6 Plus.

It’s long and thin. Duh — it’ll bend.

“I’m not surprised that it’s happening,” he told Cult of Mac in an email. “It’s thinner than other phones and metal bends.”

One of the hottest iPhone games in Russia right now isn’t Angry Birds or Candy Crush, but an app that lets you collect bottles as a homeless person.

Homeless: Life Simulator, which just launched in the United States, recently hit the No. 1 spot in the Russian App Store’s role-playing games category.

“Begin your life as an unknown homeless to become a president of your country!” says the marketing copy on the App Store.

The app itself looks really basic — screen-spanning buttons, a couple of casino mini-games and that’s about it. Apparently, being homeless is fun in Russia, because you can gamble your way to success!

The weirdest thing? It’s not the only “homeless” simulator going.

Bendgate has taken over the Internet the last three days with reports claiming the iPhone 6 Plus bends in users’ pockets during normal everyday use, but after staying silent on the issue all week, Apple is finally speaking out against Bendgate, claiming the issue is ‘extremely rare.’

We are three days into the Bendgate controversy, and while Apple says they’re seriously investigating why iPhone 6 Pluses are bending in users’ pockets, the company’s competitors and other brands are piling onto the controversy with a steady stream of bending jokes for the social media masses.

Everyone from Coca-Cola to Whattaburger are joining Samsung, LG, and Nokia in making fun of Apple’s flexible iPhone problem, and the results are absolutely hilarious.

Check out today’s funniest Bendgate brand jokes:

Today Instagram updated Hyperlapse with a feature it’s calling “selfielapse.” While the app was previously restricted to the rear shooter, the iPhone’s front facing camera can now be used to take time lapse videos.

Hyperlapse’s design has also been updated to be at home on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Apple’s new A8 processor in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is the fastest, most powerful processor born from the Mothership, but when it comes time to power Apple’s 12.9-inch iPad early next year, Apple reportedly plans to give it a power boost in the form of a modified A8X processor reports TechNewsTW.

“It just works.”

Those three words are synonymous with Apple. It’s the slogan Apple fanboys use when trying to convince their Android-loving friends that iOS is a better option. And it was used over and over by Steve Jobs as he unveiled new products at Apple keynotes.

That makes it even more embarrassing for the Cupertino company when things don’t “just work.” Especially when it royally screws things up — as it did with the hideously half-baked iOS 8.0.1 update that rolled out to millions of users Wednesday morning.

Microsoft’s $400 million plan to flood the NFL with Surface tablets hasn’t caught on too well this season. The hardware fumbled out the gate during preseason and even coaches and players have admitted the tablets are too complex to figure out, so in its latest ad for the Surface Pro 3, Microsoft has taken a page out of Beats’ marketing playbook.

The ad feels more like an commercial for NFL Stars than a tablet promotion and it’s got all the elements that have made Beats’ cinematic ads great: Pre-game preparations, close ups of super-star athletes, touchdowns, and some heavy rock music.

Beats launched a similar ad for its Studio Wireless headphones, only instead of starring super-star cornerback Richard Sherman from the Seattle Seahawks, Microsoft’s ad features super-star quarterback Russell Wilson from the Seattle Seahawks.

Watch Microsoft’s NFL ad below and see how it compares:

The internet offers users a wealth of applications. From social media, to shopping, to banking, you can do pretty much anything online. With every website you join, however, you need to have a login name and password and, with passwords becoming necessarily complex, it can be difficult to remember all of your login information. Now, you can use Dashlane Premium to take care of your passwords for you.

Dashlane Premium remembers your password data and more so that you don’t have to. Three years of service is offered for a limited time only at half price, $49.99, at Cult of Mac Deals.

It turns out that things made out of thin pieces of aluminum will bend under enough force. Who’d have thought it? But fortunately for those who are experiencing the well-documented “Bendgate” issue with a new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, Apple is not ignoring the problem: The company will replace devices under warranty so long as they pass a visual inspection.

Apple was aware of the iCloud vulnerability which resulted in dozens of nude celebrity images being leaked earlier this month.

According to emails between Apple and noted security expert Ibrahim Balic, Cupertino was given information of a similar security flaw as early as March of this year. In an email from that month, Balic informed an Apple official that he had successfully bypassed the feature designed to stop a so-called “brute-force” attack taking place.

Five top Apple execs — including Tim Cook and Phil Schiller — unloaded $143 million AAPL shares as part of a 10b5-1 planned sale, according to a new report from Barron’s.

Cook sold 348,425 Apple shares for $35,250,297, while Schiller dropped 348,846 shares for $35,256,000.

Other Apple higher-ups who did the same include CFO Luca Maestri, who sold his entire direct holdings for $1,631,286; Jeffrey E. Williams, senior vice president of operations, who raked in $35,233,446; and Bruce D. Sewell, general counsel and senior vice president of legal and government affairs, who made $35,393,915 on the deal.

In the business world, Apple entering your product category is a little bit like a tsunami crashing into a home aquarium. What had previously seemed like a nice, small and self-contained ecosystem suddenly runs the risk of being obliterated by a giant wave-maker.

When Tim Cook announced the Apple Watch at Apple’s recent media event, the crowd went wild. But exciting as it was for consumers, it represents a seismic shift for the currently $330 million wearable tech industry.

Devices that can serve up smartphone notifications, track fitness goals and even advise us on health matters have the potential to be huge — but they’re not yet. That’s about to change, according to Juniper Research, which forecasts that wearable devices like smartwatches could hit sales of $19 billion by 2018.

What happens to Apple’s marketplace rivals as this sea change takes place? Cult of Mac did some digging to find out how companies like Jawbone and Fitbit plan to survive Apple’s smartwatch revolution.