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.

Apple announced its financial results for Q4 2014 this afternoon and the numbers were big.

Backed by strong iPhone and Mac sales, Apple posted $42.1 billion in quarterly revenue, with $8.5 billion net profits, or $1.42 per diluted share. Both profit and revenue for the quarter bested Apple’s previous record in the year ago quarter.

Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri are getting ready to follow up the launch of Apple Pay by revealing Apple’s Q4 earnings with investors this afternoon. The results are expected to be record breaking, anchored by the unprecedented demand of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Apple’s earnings call will reveal just how much money the company raked in over the past three months and we’ll be here to liveblog whole thing. AAPL shares are up 1.60% this afternoon, with the earnings expected to arrive shortly after the market closes, so keep this page open for the full scoop on how ridiculously profitable Apple was last quarter.

OS X Yosemite has changed the way your Mac deals with your privacy. On the one hand, Apple has decided to enable hard drive encryption by default, despite the FBI requests not to.

On the other hand, every time you type in Spotlight, your location and local search terms are sent to Apple, and, according to developer Landon Fuller, other third parties like Microsoft.

Fuller’s created a website, Fix Mac OS X Yosemite, where he’s posted up a way to stop Yosemite from sending such private data out. He’s also been contributing to a developer project on GitHub to find out and fix other ways that OS X phones home.

Yosemite’s new Dark Mode is one of my favorite new features in OS X 10.10, but toggling it on and off can be a pain.

Apple didn’t include a hotkey combo that lets you switch from Light to Dark mode, but with after digging through Yosemite’s code, someone has discovered a single line of code you can paste into Terminal that will allow you to dynamically switch to dark mode without digging through your System Preferences each time.

Here’s how to do it:

The first iOS app to receive Apple Pay integration is of course one of Apple’s very own. The official Apple Store app has been updated with “easy one-touch checkout with Apple Pay” on Touch ID-equipped iOS devices.

Using Apple Pay requires iOS 8.1 and a credit or debit card on file in Passbook. While NFC in the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is required for making Apple Pay transactions at physical stores, online payments only require Touch ID. That means you can use Apple Pay through apps on the iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini 3.

Several other apps should be updated with Apple Pay support any minute now, including Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Groupon, Instacart, OpenTable, MLB.com, Panera Bread, Target, and the Disney Store app.

Source: App Store

Apple Pay is finally here and now that retailers are letting us use iPhones instead of credit cards, the Cult of Mac team is heading out into the real world to put Apple’s mobile payment solution to the test.

Leander will be shopping around San Francisco. Alex is testing Apple Pay in the backwoods of Kentucky. And I plan to sputter around Phoenix in search of a burrito shop with Apple Pay.

How easy will it be to use? Do retail staff even know what is? We expect there will be some bumps along the way on the first day, but we can’t wait to be able to burn our wallets. Keep an eye on this page throughout the day as we test whether the wallet-less future of buying stuff with your iPhone is truly here.

iOS 8.1 is now available to the public. Along with bringing Apple Pay into the wild, this major update is packed with new features that bring harmony to your iPhone and Mac workflow. Instant Hotspot and SMS Relay connect your iPhone like never before, and there are a few other sweet new features you probably haven’t heard about yet.

Here are the biggest features in iOS 8.1 you need to know:

Apple Pay is finally here, and while Eddie Cue says in-app purchases will make up most of the purchases during launch, there are tons of things that you can buy in the real world right now.

iPhone 6 and 6 Plus owners looking to toss their wallets in favor of Apple Pay can go into hundreds of stores today and purchase everything from clothes, toys, gas, or even furniture. Not all stores are supporting Apple’s mobile payments platform, so knowing which retailers accept Apple Pay will be half  the battle toward replacing your wallet. Luckily, we’ve compiled this list of everything you can buy today with Apple Pay.

Here’s what you can buy starting day:

Apple just released iOS 8.1, bringing Apple Pay, iCloud Photo Library and other new features to the mobile operating system.

Available now via Software Update, iOS 8.1 will let you quickly set up Apple Pay on compatible devices. Upgraders running OS X Yosemite will also notice additional Continuity features that let iOS 8 work with the latest version of the Mac operating system.