Whether you’re getting a new iPhone or not, chances are you’ll want to upgrade to iOS 8 to take advantage of all it has to offer.

Exciting, isn’t it? A whole new operating system, ready to revolutionize your mobile life.

There are a few things you should do before upgrading to iOS 8, though. First you’ll want to clean up your existing iOS 8-compatible device. Then you need to make a good backup using iTunes, iCloud or a combination of the two. (Bonus: If you do end up getting an iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus, you’ll have a nice, clean, ready-to-rock iOS device to migrate from.)

Here’s how to get your iPhone (or iPad) ready for iOS 8 – the right way.

Call alerts are all well and good but — even on the Apple Watch, when they’re being delivered directly to your wrist — it’s likely that there will be situations when users won’t be aware of them, and could miss important calls or alerts as a result.

Apple’s trying to crack that problem with a new patent published Tuesday, describing a “Self adapting alert device” that would vary the volume or style of user notifications to your iPhone or Apple Watch depending on where you are at the time.

Apple finally added NFC to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but if you were hoping that the company’s new NFC chip will allow you to pair speakers or integrate NFC tags into your favorite apps, you’ll have to keep waiting. Apple has put its NFC chip on lockdown, at least for now.

Sources at Apple have confirmed to Cult of Mac that the NFC chip on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will only be used for Apple Pay when it launches this week.

The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus are wildly popular, with more than 4 million confirmed preorders. Though many people have picked their preferred version of the next-generation Apple phone, many undoubtedly remain on the fence.

With a 4.7-inch phone on one side and a massive 5.5-inch display on the other, this can be quite the decision to make prior to the Sept. 19 launch date. In today’s video we take a look at some factors that can help you decide which iPhone to purchase. Take a look at in-depth specs, features and more to help figure out which iPhone 6 model makes sense for you.

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The second part of Tim Cook’s interview with Charlie Rose is scheduled to air tonight on PBS, and as a teaser the show has released a short video of the CEO explaining that Apple’s stance on user privacy and company transparency is basically to never become like Google.

“You are not our product,” says Cook. “I think everyone has to ask, ‘How do companies make their money?’ Follow the money. And if they’re making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried and you should really understand what’s happening with that data.”

Watch the three-minute clip below:

Apple had to give users a tool to permanently remove U2’s freebie album from their iTunes account, but according to Eddie Cue the album is a colossal hit and has been ‘experienced’ by 33 million iTunes account holders since its release six days ago.

Apple Watch has been in development at Apple for over three years according to Tim Cook, but a New York Times report says the project got a leg up by using the sixth generation iPod Nano as an origin point.

In fact, the Apple Watch still looks fairly similar to the smallest iPod nano Apple ever created, which inspired the company to make Apple Watch after people starting strapping wristbands to the tiny MP3 player to use while jogging.

This year’s iTunes Festival lineup is fantastic. It’s got everything, with veterans like Tony Bennett and Robert Plant sharing a festival stage with relative newcomers Sam Smith and Deadmau5.

All those taking the stage at London’s Roundhouse as part of the free shows are consummate performers but — as with any large concert program — there are always some standout acts. We’ve rounded up some of the best moments from the first half of this month-long concert series.

iOS 8’s HealthKit is already starting to change the way health researchers track patients’ wellness even though it hasn’t been released, as two of the country’s top research hospitals have launched HealthKit trials to track diabetics and patients with cancer and chronic disease.

Doctors at Stanford University Hospital say they’ve been working with Apple to track blood sugar levels for children with diabetes, while Reuters reports that Duke University developed a pilot program that uses HealthKit to track fitness measurements for patients with cancer or heart disease.

Apple might have tried to kill read-it-later services by adding Reading List to Safari, but iOS 8’s new Extensibility feature is bringing new life to bookmarking services like Pocket, which said today that its updated app will make it faster than ever to save everything to Pocket.

Apple has made the third public preview of its upcoming OS X Yosemite operating system available to the one million beta testers via its AppleSeed program.

OS X Yosemite Preview 8 Build 14A361c has also been seeded to developers and is available for download in the Mac App Store or from the Mac Dev Center along with a new version of Xxode 6.1 beta 2 and Apple Configurator 1.7 beta 6.

Apple’s note to developers doesn’t mention the addition of new features, but does state that SMS Continuity has been removed from testing, but it will be available again in October via a free update to iOS 8. The note also states that only iPhoto 9.5.1 and Aperture 3.5.1 will run on OS X Yosemite Preview 8. We’ll update you with any new features we find once we get the new preview installed.

Microsoft’s $2.5 billion purchase of Minecraft maker Mojang might read like another “corporate behemoth swallows a beloved indie” story, but in reality this could be the best thing that ever happened to the game.

The inevitable snarky reactions on Twitter called out the deal as yet another reason to hate on Microsoft. While those might be valid points when it comes to some of Redmond’s more egregious enterprise software tactics, there’s simply no reason for worrying about the fate of Minecraft. When it comes to gaming acquisitions, Microsoft has shown itself to be anything but a harsh master.

Apple’s historic launch of U2’s new album Songs of Innocence to 500 million iTunes users hasn’t exactly been well-received. After less than 1 percent of iTunes users downloaded the freebie album on the first day, Apple shoved it down users’ throats by automatically downloading to devices withdisastrous results.

Now, after everyone’s had a weekend to cool off, Apple’s offering users an innovative solution in the form of a support site dedicated to teaching iTunes users how to pry U2’s spam album off their Mac or iPhone for good.

Here are the steps Apple recommends:

Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus shattered Apple’s previous records and the 4 million customers ready to caress every square inch of the big and bigger screens will be happy to know that the first planes from China have already touched down in the U.S. with iPhone 6 cargo.

A China Southern Airlines Boeing 777 was spotted by China Daily as 93 tons of Apple iPhone 6s were being loaded onto the plane in Central China’s Henan province before it headed for Chicago, Illinois, and other American pilots have even posted pictures of their iPhone 6 payloads from inside the fuselage.

Apple Watch and its revolutionary UI were in the making for three years, and even though it was revealed less than a week ago, it only took Android Wear four days to copy it.

Android Wear users who don’t want to wait until early 2015 to try Apple’s UI can get a taste of neutered version of it via a copycat watchface called Pear from UhrArt that imitates the bubbly homescreen of Apple Watch.

It’s time for Mac App Madness, where we bring you great deals on popular Mac apps to increase your productivity and make your life easier.

Today we feature deals for DSP-Quattro 4, CleanMyMac 2, TuneUp, FlipPDF for Mac, and your last chance to pick up the immense time saver, TextExpander 4.

With Apple now accepting iOS 8 apps in the App Store, more third-party developers are starting to show off their use of Extensibility and Touch ID integration.

Day One, an app that won a coveted Apple Design Award at WWDC in June, is readying its iOS 8 update with a Notification Center widget, Share extension, and Touch ID support.

We don’t usually post infographics on Cult of Mac — far too many of them are just poorly designed info dumps, without any real focus or design chops — but we’re making an exception for this one showing the evolution of iOS over the last seven years.

Created by the folks at 7 Day Shop, this infographic doesn’t just examine the evolution of the iOS home screen (something we here at Cult of Mac have been known to chart from time to time), but the evolution of individual icons, and the addition of features to Apple’s mobile operating system.

It’s very thorough, and a great primer on how far we’ve come since 2007. Check it out in full after the jump.

The iPhone 6 is the first iPhone with a camera lens that protrudes slightly instead of being flush with the back of the device. It was a necessary design trade-off, allowing Jony Ive’s team of designers to cram the advanced optics into the iPhone 6 necessary to make it the best smartphone camera ever.

But that doesn’t change the fact that Apple usually likes clean lines in its product designs. And that protruding camera lens, when viewing the iPhone 6 in profile, turns an otherwise clean line into an unsightly bulge. Apple can’t stand that bulge, so the company is going to the unprecedented length of using clever lighting and photography to hide it in its marketing materials.

We’d heard that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were receiving record preorders, but what exactly does this mean in terms of numbers?

According to a new press release from Apple, the total number of pre-orders for the iPhone 6 family of devices is in excess of a whopping 4 million units — twice the number of pre-orders of the iPhone 5.

“iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are better in every way, and we are thrilled customers love them as much as we do,” Tim Cook is quoted as saying. “Pre-orders for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus set a new record for Apple, and we can’t wait to get our best iPhones yet into the hands of customers starting this Friday.”

Apple is copying Samsung — and Samsung’s none too happy about it.

No, this isn’t some alternate universe timeline, but the narrative according to Samsung’s latest ad for the Galaxy Note 4.

TAG Heuer is not the only watchmaker taking notice of the Apple Watch.

Cindy Livingston, CEO of Guess Watches, has written an open letter to Tim Cook about the Apple Watch. And like TAG Heuer, it appears that Livingston is more interested in the excitement and creativity that Apple brings to the watch world than scared and defensive, saying that Guess is looking forward to the “new challenge to remain relevant” that the Apple Watch presents them.

Particularly on the back of the recent iCloud account hacking scandal, smartphone security is something a lot of people are paying more attention to.

With that in mind, a London-based designer recently launched an intriguing Kickstarter campaign, to create a clothing label aimed at raising awareness about high-tech security.

The clothes are all cleverly constructed around a removable waterproof stealth pocket, made from police-grade shielding fabrics, designed to securely block all Cell, WiFi, GPS and RFID signals to ~100 dB.

Now that Apple has entered the watch game, even the horological old guard is starting to take notice. Just a few days after Apple unveiled the Apple Watch, Swiss luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer has announced that it’s planning on making a smartwatch too … although they say they don’t just want to copy the Apple Watch.

Not even Apple’s new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus support super-sharp 4K video recording out of the box, but they do have the necessary hardware to support it. Vizzywig 4K, a new iOS app that was just approved by Apple, brings this functionality to the iPhone 5s — but it costs a whopping $999.99.