Apple hasn’t exactly confirmed the exact time yet, but iPhone 6 and 6 Plus preorders will likely begin tomorrow morning at 12:01AM PT, exactly… the same time iPhone 5S preorders started last year, and every other year.

Tim Cook thinks the iPhone 6 will trigger an avalanche of upgrades, making it Apple’s most wildly in-demand phone yet, and while Apple is attempting to balance the crush on their website by starting preorders in the middle of the night, it will, in all likelihood, still be a madhouse when Apple starts selling iPhones later tonight.

Hence this guide. We’re going to walk you through the best ways to make absolutely sure you get your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus pre-ordered right at the stroke of midnight and in your hands next Friday when it officially launches in the minimum amount of time, so you can go right back to sleep.

Know which iPhone you want

Big or bigger? The choice between iPhones this year isn’t as easy as just picking a color and storage option. The iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus have a number of differing features when it comes to the screen, battery, camera and even software. You better have your mind made up before pre-orders start.

For those who are still undecided, Killian is ready to guide you through the pros and cons of both the 6 and 6 Plus, but if you need a little extra convincing to go bigger, I’ve got 8 reasons why the 6 Plus is the best iPhone for your pocket, or fanny pack.

From books to phones, Apple’s named everything with the same “i” moniker since 1998. With the Apple Watch and Apple Pay, however, it looks like that convention is set to change. 

Cult of Mac reached out to Ken Segall — the former Apple employee who started the tradition with the original iMac — for his surprising reaction to Apple ditching his naming convention for new product categories.

When Google announced Android Wear back in July, the company showed the world what a great smartwatch platform should be like. With a simple user interface and all the right features, it highlighted the flaws in almost every other wearable we had already seen from Samsung and Sony and others.

But now Android Wear has a new competitor. Apple Watch, announced on Tuesday alongside the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, delivers a new operating system packed with useful features that’s more than capable of competing with Google’s. So how can the search giant fight back and ensure a successful future for Android Wear?

Its first step should be to beat Apple Watch on its own turf by making Android Wear compatible with iOS.

‘A keyboard, how quaint,’ said Star Trek’s Chief Engineer, when it was suggested he should use a keyboard to enter data into a computer instead of voicing commands. How quaint indeed.

Now, with Dragon Dictate for Mac 4, you can give your ‘quaint’ keyboard a well deserved rest. Get this revolutionary software for your Mac at a low price point, just $99.99, for a limited time at Cult of Mac Deals.

Decision time: Which iPhone 6 is right for you? We’ll walk you though the features of both new iPhones to help you make that very decision in time for the Sept. 12th pre-order. Plus, will Apple Pay be replacing our wallets? We’ll tell you our thoughts and musings. And of course, the Apple Watch—we’ll review its features and reveal our initial impressions. And finally… he did it… Tim Cook brought back the One. More. Thing. Some of us are thrilled. Some of us aren’t. Hit play for all that and more.

Titter 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.

Ever since the Lightning Connector was first announced two years ago, we’ve known it could do more than just sync-and-charge: it could also play music. So when Apple bought Beats earlier this year, many assumed that it would be Apple’s new in-house headphone brand who would release the first Lightning-connected cans to market.

But nope. As it turns out, the first headphones to connect via a Lightning port to an iPhone, iPod, or iPad won’t come from Beats. It’ll come from Philips, who have just introduced their Fidelio M2L headphones featuring the funtionality.

Hey, at least give Samsung credit for being quick off the mark.

Apple’s Tuesday keynote is only days old and already professional Apple spoofer Samsung has released a new series of ads skewering Cupertino’s latest developments — from its Apple Watch to its problematic live feed.

There are six ads in total, all designed to advertize the Galaxy Note 4, although barely any time is given to talking up Samsung’s own products, since the company clearly feels it’s better off trying to tear down its leading competitor.

According to sources in the Taiwan-based iPhone supply chain, Apple is preparing the parts and components to manufacture up to 80 million iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus devices before the end of 2014.

Barring unexpected component shortages or low yield rates (thought to have been responsible for Apple abandoning its use of sapphire for the iPhone 6-series devices), sources estimated that shipments of the iPhone 6 family will reach 10 million units by the end of September, with the remaining units shipping over the subsequent three months.

We’ve had a couple of days to let the massive announcements of Apple’s September 9 keynote sink in, but if you want to relive the event you might want to check out this new video from Jonathan Mann.

Who is Jonathan Mann, you may ask? The brilliant YouTube musician who created the celebrated Mario Opera close to a decade ago is the answer. An unabashed Apple fan, Mann was previously responsible for composing the iPhone Antenna song which Steve Jobs publicly danced to, and earlier this year composed a great WWDC ear worm which is still rattling around my brain months later.

Following Apple’s Tuesday keynote Mann is back in Apple territory with a new musical tour-de-force entitled “Apple Watch: The Musical,” which somehow manages to compress Apple’s entire Tuesday event into just 3 minutes and 13 seconds.

For the last 2,078 days, musician Jonathan Mann has been composing a song a day.

For his latest ditty, Mann summed up Apple’s entire iPhone 6/Apple Watch event in song form, covering everything from the rather underwhelming iPhone 6 debut to the excitement of Apple announcing its first new product category in years. There’s even a funny chorus about the bizarre Chinese voice-over in the livestream.

More and more retailers are already using NFC terminals, but there is an additional reason why those without them might want to hurry up and get onboard: because Apple Pay could lead to more impulse purchases.

That at least seems to be the rationale of Walt Disney World, according to a new report.

A partnership with Walt Disney World was announced on Tuesday, and as per About.com theme park expert Arthur Levine, Disney is convinced it’s going to prove a great way of upping the amount customers will spend.

“It is surely hoping that by giving visitors the ability to use its cash-less system anywhere across the Disney World campus, they will increase spending, especially on impulse purchases,” Levine says.

While the rest of us were celebrating the unveiling of Apple’s much-anticipated smart watch on Tuesday, Apple’s European legal team was busy rushing to file six trademark applications for the name “Apple Watch.”

Of these applications, four featured the Apple logo in front of the word “Watch,” while the other two referred to the two words “Apple Watch.”

Apple’s legal firm filed the trademarks under a total of 11 International Classes for protection and clarification, covering areas including financial transactions, fitness and wellness sensors, and more.

Being Steve Jobs’ son or daughter would surely mean a never-ending supply of new high-tech devices to play around with, right?

Not according to a New York Times article by Nick Bilton, who claims that Jobs set out to purposely limit the amount of time his kids spent using their iPhones and other gadgets — even going so far as to stop them using Apple’s latest must have-devices altogether.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Apple’s reveal on Tuesday of their first smartwatch was that it was square.

Many of us were expecting something that was at least curved, if not round: a more traditional watch form factor that represented an evolutionary step away from the square displays Apple has embraced since the original Apple I.

Of course, as we all know, the Apple Watch is boxy, at least for now. But as these renders show, the Apple Watch design and UI would work just as well, if not more so, in a round casing, with a round display.

Two things strike me about the camera in the new iPhone 6 models. One is that you can take better pictures; the other is that the iPhone is now a much better place for viewing those pictures.

With their bigger, brighter screens — and iCloud’s new Photo Albums feature (which stores all your photos, ready to view, in iCloud) — the iPhone 6 and its larger sibling, the iPhone 6 Plus, are looking to be the best smartphones yet, from a photographic point of view.

With its latest iOS 8 beta, Apple added a bunch of gorgeous new wallpapers. Some of them appeared on stage during the company’s special event on Tuesday, and others can be seen on the its website decorating the home screens of the iPhone 6 and the iPhone 6 Plus.

But you don’t need to wait until iOS 8 goes public next week to get your hands on them, because they’re all available to download right here.

One of the biggest disappointments from Apple’s announcements yesterday was the lack of a sapphire screen for the iPhone 6. A seemingly-neverending string of part leaks and rumors indicated that 2014 would be the year the iPhone got a nearly indestructible sapphire display cover.

And while sapphire is used for the Apple Watch’s display, Apple made no mention of sapphire for the iPhone 6 or 6 Plus.

What happened?

With all the livestream trouble Apple had during its iPhone 6 and Apple Watch unveiling, it’s likely you missed at least part of the big reveals.

Cult of Mac is here to help with this 90-second version of the Apple keynote that will show you all the most important highlights.

There’s tons more that Tim Cook and Co. announced but it’s impossible to cram it all into a minute and a half. Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to keep up-to-date with all the latest Apple news, reviews and more.

Apple is officially a watchmaker. And like all fancy watchmakers, the company has created a trove of gorgeous marketing close ups of its timepieces, only Apple has hidden a subtle to diss to competitors that its way ahead of their analog challengers.

Most watchmakers set their watch faces to 10 past 10 o’clock in advertisements. Rolex is anal about using 10:10:31, TAG Heuer uses 10:10:37, and Bell & Ross are dedicated to 10:10:10, but Apple’s so far ahead, it set the clock of its watch to nine minutes past 10 o’clock.

There are a lot of Apple skeptics out there. CNBC thinks the new iPhone 6 models are nothing special, and dis the Apple Watch because it doesn’t work with Android. Watch Cult of Mac editor and publisher Leander Kahney set them straight in the video above. See also our report card for Tim Cook’s first three years as CEO.

Apple’s first wearable is heading full-stream down the product pipeline ahead of its early 2015 release, and to aid with the launch of its first fashion accessory, Apple has recruited the talents of Gap Inc’s second top marketing executive.

Marcela Aguilar joins Apple with a deep background in fashion and ad agencies after serving as Gaps senior global director of marketing and communications, and has plenty of global expertise that will come in hand as Apple tries to convince fashion forward women and men to slap an Apple Watch on their wrists.

Apple is growing like wildfire in China, and Tim Cook expects the country to eventually overtake the US as his company’s largest market.

That’s why it’s a big deal that Apple has delayed the launch of its new iPhones in China. No explanation has been provided to carriers, although it’s suspected that there are still hurdles to overcome in gaining regulatory approval from the government.

The Apple Watch and iPhone 6 event yesterday in Cupertino may have been Apple’s most fashion-forward event ever. In addition to the usual schlubby tech journalists, there was Vogue editrix Anna Wintour leading a pack of fashionable scribes into the squat Flint Center as if it were a runway show in Paris or Milan.

It was Tommy Krul, however, who stole the show. He took the stage during the glitchy keynote to demo his company’s latest game Vainglory. Standing off to one side of the stage, his role was just to play the game on an iPhone 6 while co-founder Stephan Sherman of Super Evil Megacorp talked it up behind a huge video screen showing the action.

But Krul, the company’s CTO — sporting a chunky purple infinity scarf that brushed against a collar-length pageboy haircut — quickly became all anyone talked about.

The closing of Macworld is the end of an era. Thirty years ago, the publication was the midwife to the launch of the Macintosh.

Cult of Mac has a series of exclusive recollections by the magazine’s founder Dave Bunnell, which chronicle the journalist’s close encounters with a young and volatile Steve Jobs, the Mac’s difficult gestation and the birth of modern desktop computing. It’s a great trip down memory lane — with plenty of outbursts, last-minute changes and even a cameo by Ella Fitzgerald.

Read on for the full series.