Did you buy a shiny new iPhone 6 from AT&T Wireless? You might want to check your next monthly bill for an increased charge.

Some AT&T customers upgrading to the iPhone 6 received a surprising text alert this morning saying the carrier has hiked the monthly “smartphone access charge” to $40 for anyone renewing a two-year Mobile Share Value plan agreement. Naturally, the carrier waited until it was swamped with an unprecedented amount of iPhone 6 pre-orders before telling customers they’d be paying an extra $600 over two years — nearly enough to buy an unlocked iPhone 6 outright.

UPDATED: We got some comments from Dave Rahimi in Sydney. Blogger Dave Rahimi figured out a clever way to be the first person in the world to buy an iPhone 6.

Rahimi and his girlfriend, Jasmine Juan, flew thousands of miles from California to Sydney, Australia, to purchase the first two iPhone 6s to go on sale worldwide.

The couple just emerged from the Apple Store in Sydney, which was mobbed by a monster crowd of about 2,500 people. Some had camped outside the store for more than a week.

But Rahimi and Juan avoided the crowds and more or less walked right into the store.

Here’s how they did it.

Today Twitter rolled out an update to its iPhone app that brings interactive notifications for iOS 8 users. That means you can retweet, favorite, and follow directly from notifications the app sends you.

Profiles have been given a facelift as well with a focus on bios, photos, and favorites.

Sure, folks have been lining up for several days now, causing equal parts consternation and praise, but with pre-orders selling out in hours – leading to record breaking pre-sales – it’s no wonder that the lines at Apple retail stores around the globe are beginning to super size themselves as well.

Reports of scarce supplies of the iPhone 6 Plus are only adding to the madness and we’re only going to see even crazier lines the countdown nears zero. It can only get more wild from here.

One Apple fan in Arizona told Cult of Mac he wants an iPhone 6 Plus so bad he actually paid a teen for their top spot in line at a local Apple Store. She charged him $80. Half up front as a down payment to hold the spot until 4AM, when he’ll come back and maybe get to buy a gold iPhone 6 Plus.

“Doing an after work drive-by to make sure.” he told us. “They seemed cool, and I grilled them. So, hopefully we are good.”

Other fans aren’t as nearly hopeful, but the lines are just getting crazy around the world. Take a look:

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Tim Cook prophesied that the iPhone 6 would trigger and avalanche of upgrades, but what he may not have expected was the unfathomable amount of Android users who are trading in their Samsung phones to get a grip on Apple’s large screen beauty.

Samsung phone trade-ins have tripled in the last week alone on Gazelle, reports Bloomberg, and the stream of used Galaxies isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon, as nearly a third of Android users say they’re ready to switch allegiances.

It’s going to be nearly impossible to get your hands on an iPhone 6 Plus this weekend. Carrier sources are saying that there is basically “no chance” of finding the 6 Plus during tomorrow’s big launch.

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus camera sensor didn’t get an increase in megapixels, but it’s still way better than the iPhone 5s.

Need proof? Travel photographer Austin Mann took his iPhone 6 and 6 Plus review units to Iceland, and not only were the landscapes absolutely breathtaking, but his pictures prove that the iPhone 6 has the best camera Apple’s ever made.

Apple Watch’s customization factor is going to be a huge sell to fashion-conscious, but for some would-be Apple Watch wearers wanting to stand out from the herd, Jony Ive’s simplistic design is a little too reserved.

Not satisfied with Apple’s band offerings, the fashion focused crew at High Snobiety has reimagine what the Apple would would look like if some of the most famous fashion brands in the world got a chance to redesign it. Can you match the fashion brand to the luxury Apple Watch concept?

Take a look at the gorgeous mockups below.

It’s a mere 24 hours and change before Apple retail stores open their reservation system and doors to allow the hordes of adoring Apple faithful to pony up a bunch of cash for the privilege of walking out with an opening day iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus.

The lines are already forming, though, with hardy line sitters getting ready for the big event. This is a global phenomenon, as you can see from the images above, gleaned from Instagram and Twitter.

Apple’s fabulous iPhone used to be the number one reason crime was on the rise in New York City, but now that Apple’s added Activation Lock to iOS 7, thieves have given up their iLust and are targeting Samsung phones like never before.

Just look at the sudden change in thefts in the chart below:

[UPDATE: Lots of readers report that the new option to activate iCloud Photo Library isn’t showing up on their devices. I’m looking into it. So far I know that the GM version — the one I used to write this guide —  and the final version are identical, build number 12A365. My guess is that Apple turned off the beta already]

iCloud Photo Library is rad. The idea is that all your full-res photos (including RAW photos) reside on Apple’s servers, and you access them from all your devices.

That’s a change from Photo Stream as it is now, which stores only the last 1,000 photos you took, not your whole collection. Apple has also introduced new tiers of iCloud storage pricing to cope with all your photos (and videos). This is now live, and I signed up for the 200GB option ($4 per month) to test it out.

Let’s take a look.

iOS 8 was released just 24 hours ago in what Apple is calling the biggest iOS release ever, but if early adoption numbers are any indication, customers might not feel the same way.

Users are upgrading to iOS 8 at a much slower rate than iOS 7, according to Tapjoy’s data from its app network of 200 million unique iOS users. Not only is iOS 8 lagging behind iOS 7, it’s being adopted even slower than iOS 6 was.

Following on from its recent Songs of Innocence album giveaway, U2 is apparently working with Apple on a secret new project, according to a TIME article.

While the story doesn’t give too many specifics, it does note that the project relates to “a new digital music format [the band hopes] will prove so irresistibly exciting to music fans that it will tempt them again into buying music –whole albums as well as individual tracks.”

Although this sounds the kind of counterintuitive move that utterly goes against Apple’s most recent promotional music stunt (where it paid U2 and its record label a reported $100 million to put out its album for free), U2 notes that it’s thinking about more than just itself:

If you are like most, you use a home computer, a work computer, a tablet and a smartphone, plus other electronic devices. And, like most, your data – files, emails, and contacts – are spread out over each one. What happens to your data if one of your devices is lost forever?

Stop take chances with your information with a 1-year subscription to IDrive, available for only $19 at Cult of Mac Deals.

For a certain subset of Apple fans, the only thing more exciting than Cupertino unleashing a new device upon the world is the box they choose to unleash it in. Apple is famous for its sexy, minimalist packaging design, and when the Apple Watch hits the market in 2015, we are expecting it to come in a box worthy of its luxury watch status.

Of course, what that box will actually look like is anyone’s guess. But Evelio Mattos of Design Packaging has released a stunning Apple Watch concept that isn’t just sexy, but has a killer hidden feature: the box doubles as an iPhone dock!

Apple may be halfway there when it comes to receiving the necessary regulatory approval for the iPhone 6 to go on sale in China.

As per China’s official Xinhua news agency, Apple has now received regulatory approval for the iPhone 6’s use on domestic frequencies, although it requires one other “critical license” before it is able to go on sale.

According to a recent Bloomberg report, Apple’s delayed entry into China with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is the result of a disagreement with the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, which tests all new phones before they may enter national telecom networks.

Updated security measures in iOS 8 make it impossible for Apple to give your data to the cops — even if the company wanted to.

Previously Apple could access a significant amount of data on any iOS device, which it would do if law enforcement approached the company with a seized device and a valid search warrant. Apple’s stronger encryption and updated privacy policy now mean it can no longer pull data from devices that have the latest version of the mobile OS installed.

“On devices running iOS 8, your personal data such as photos, messages (including attachments), email, contacts, call history, iTunes content, notes, and reminders is placed under the protection of your passcode,” Apple notes on its website. “Unlike our competitors, Apple cannot bypass your passcode and therefore cannot access this data. So it’s not technically feasible for us to respond to government warrants for the extraction of this data from devices in their possession running iOS 8.”

The release of a new version of iOS, and especially a major release like iOS 8, poses quite the dilemma to jailbreakers. Do you stick with your jailbroken iPhone or iPad and miss out on iOS 8’s exciting new features, or do you cave to temptation, install iOS 8, and lose your jailbreak indefinitely?

Sadly, we don’t know when an iOS 8 jailbreak will be released. It could be a while. But rest assured, if you’re tempted by iOS 8’s new features, the jailbreak community is already hard at work cracking it open.

Back at this year’s WWDC, Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney got up and demoed Epic Zen Garden, an impressive upcoming iOS 8 game which used Apple’s new Metal technology to great effect.

Leap forward a few months, and the free game has finally arrived on iOS — bringing console-quality graphics to users with the latest iPhones, courtesy of Metal and the Unreal Engine 4.

Did we mention it might be the most impressive zen garden game yet?

CUPERTINO, California — I’m a sports photographer, not a tech blogger, so I felt out of place shooting Apple’s big iPhone 6 press event with my iPhone 5s.

Baseball is what I do — I’ve shot nine Sports Illustrated covers — but I swear it was easier getting field access to shoot a World Series game at Fenway Park than dealing with all the people and security at Apple’s event.

This thing was a free-for-all. It was crazy. The place was flooded with media types from all over the world, all standing in line to get into the Flint Center for the Performing Arts, where the event was held.

I love my iPad mini, but the “tablet” I love reading on most isn’t an iPad, it’s my Amazon Kindle Paperwhite e-reader. It’s just a fantastically pure device that strips away everything that gets in the way of its major purpose: to read digital books as comfortably as possible.

So I was excited when Amazon announced it’s next-generation Kindle e-reader today. Called the Kindle Voyage, it’s a higher resolution Kindle with 300 pixels per inch, a new pressure sensitive bezel for page turning, and intelligent front lighting.

But that’s not why I’m excited about it: I’m excited because it has an awesome new glass panel on the front that boasts technology my iPad could use.

Photos on iOS 8 are so good that you will be able to ditch a whole home-screen folder’s worth of editing and organizing apps. That’s not an exaggeration: Apple’s new mobile OS packs in so many great new features that – even without the extending abilities of iOS 8’s new plug-ins – you can do pretty much any edit right there in the photos app.

The camera, too, has gotten an upgrade, and – maybe the most important for some – so has the iCloud Photo Stream, which will now give access to all your photos, from any device, whenever you want.

Sounds pretty good huh?

Massive iPhone 6 and 6 Plus preorders mean that Apple fans in India are going to have to wait a bit longer to get their hands on the company’s next generation handsets.

Originally Apple said that the iPhone 6 family of devices would go on sale September 26, only for that date to quickly slip to October 17, and now again back to mid-November.