I was all set to pull the trigger on Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography plan, which gives subscribers access to Lightroom and Photoshop as well as Lightroom Mobile for the iPad and iPhone.

After all, it’s just $10 per month, right? (or €12.29/$16.71 in the EU). That’s about what I spend on Rdio, or Dropbox, and I get Lightroom on my frickin’ camera.

But I decided to hold off and see if one huge doozy of a design problem is fixed before my 30-day trial of the service finishes up. This will also give me time to check out the amazing new Adobe Photoshop Mix, which is what Photoshop for iPad should have been all along.

And the little problem that could be a deal-breaker? You’re gonna love it…

Amazon’s new Fire Phone boasts plenty of unique features; flashy stuff like 3-D effects, the intriguing scan-to-buy app Firefly, and 24/7 tech support via Mayday. But should the Fire Phone be your next smartphone?

Here are five possibly fatal flaws you need to be aware of before you place an order for Amazon’s first smartphone.

Apple didn’t tell anyone during WWDC, but it wants iOS 8 to be the ultimate city tour guide.

Cupertino is adding a new Flyover City Tours feature to its Maps app. And even though the code has been hidden, developer Pierre Blazquez managed to unearth it from the latest iOS 8 beta release to give us a preview of the new feature that’s still in development.

Flyover tours are currently only available for Rome, Stockholm, Barcelona, New York, Paris and a few other cities, but in a video posted by Mac4Ever, we’ve been given our first glimpse of the tours in action.

Chances are you’ve heard of Tamagotchi, the little handheld virtual pets that took over the world during the first decade of the 2000s, selling more than 76 million little egg-shaped devices as of 2010.

Hatch is one of the many virtual pet apps out there, but it’s an adorable one. You may even recognize the little Fugu creature from its own Facebook Messenger sticker series.

Virtual pets aren’t anything new to the iOS ecosystem, but this new collaboration between Hatch and super-popular video game Pocket God is something new. If you’ve ever thought about doing more with that little digital pal in your pocket, now might be the time. Check out the launch video below for more.

If you’ve been searching for a means to prevent data loss and hard drive failure, then Cult of Mac Deals has an offer on a great combination of apps that will make that possible.

Techtool Pro 7 is widely considered to be the most advanced Mac repair utility ever, and Checkmate spots the small problems on your Mac before they become big problems. And for a limited time you can both of these killer pieces of software at 60% off the regular price – just $49.99 – courtesy of Cult of Mac Deals.

After years of work on its first mobile phone, Amazon has finally revealed the Fire Phone. Boasting an extensive recognition system known as Firefly and 3-D features powered by something called Dynamic Perspective, the device is now available for pre-order.

In today’s video we give you an overview of the flashy new device, which was unveiled Wednesday by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, and compare Fire Phone to Apple’s mobile offerings (both the current iPhone 5s and the upcoming iPhone 6).

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If you plan on buying one of Apple’s new 21.5-inch iMacs for $1,099 and then upgrading internal components yourself later on, then listen up. Upgrade experts OWC have torn down the new entry-level all-in-one and discovered that its memory is soldered to the motherboard and cannot be upgraded.

Based on the massive number of hires they’ve made in the field as of late, it’s no mystery that Apple is interested in biometrics and biosensors. However three new patent applications published Thursday shed a bit more light on what Apple has up its sleeve, and make us feel even more excited about the possibility of an iWatch (and future iPhones) later this year.

I’ve tried a lot of cases for my Mac notebooks over the years, from a dorky aluminum briefcase for my white “icebook” iBook through cheap, zip-up neoprene sleeves and on to bulky, custom-fitted, shock-absorbing monsters. But the elegant, simple and beautiful Castello Davarg York, cut from a single piece of leather, is the only one that makes any sense for my MacBook Air.

Like the MacBook Air inside, you can’t help but finger and fiddle with the York case. It’s cut from 5-ounce, full-grain leather that’s folded and then hand-stitched along two sides before finishing the edges and … well, that’s almost it. The case has no fastening or closure, and lacks a lining or padded interior, but it is shaped perfectly to fit the MacBook Air. (I tested the 13-inch size, but it also comes for the 11-incher.) It even has a little cutout on the top edge that mimics the one found on the lid of the MacBook itself.

Who’s the baddest of the bad?

Got your own favorite underappreciated supervillain? Let us know in the comments below.

With iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite, Apple is finally showing us its idea of how we’ll compute in the future. Perhaps not surprisingly, this pristine vision of our computing destiny — unveiled after years of secret, patient and painstaking development — aligns perfectly with how we currently use our computers and mobile devices.

The keynote at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference earlier this month not only showed off a new way to think about computing, based on data not devices, but also silenced pretty much every criticism leveled at the company over the past few years.

Let’s take a look at Apple’s new way of doing things, which fulfills Steve Jobs’ post-PC plan by minimizing the importance of the Mac.

You know those ideas that are so simple you feel like you really could have come up with them yourself? Yo is one of those apps.

Launched on April Fools’ Day, it has recently become inexplicably popular — with 2 million messages sent over just the past month. If you haven’t used it, the idea behind it is simple: like Snapchat, you establish a username inside the app and can then send push notifications to friends reading “Yo” and featuring audio of a voice saying the same thing. Oh, and did I mention that it’s creator has just raised $1.2 million in funding?

Cult animated faves the Powerpuff Girls are back in a new iOS game, published by Cartoon Network in association with JoyJoy and Fluid SE developers RadianGames.

Called Powerpuff Girls: Defenders of Townsville, the game sees the Powerpuff Girls blasted with evil simian nemesis Mojo Jojo’s Disremember Gun, which leads to them forgetting how to use their superpowers. In a Metroidvania/Castleroid-style adventure shooter, you start out playing as Buttercup, before rescuing Blossom and Bubbles. Once the heroic trio is united, you get to use each of their superpowers to battle Mojo Jojo’s evil robots, and unlock and discover new areas.

There are plenty of stories about iPhone thefts causing spikes in crime statistics, but according to New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman Apple’s introduction of an iPhone kill switch may be starting to turn around.

Measuring crime after the iPhone’s Activation Lock was first introduced in iOS 7, police in  San Francisco, London, and New York claim that San Francisco robberies fell by 38 percent, London robberies by 24 percent, and New York robberies by 19 percent — while grand larcenies in NYC including the iPhone dropped 29 percent in the first five months of 2014, compared to the same time period last year.

Looking for a little extra summer cash? It might be time to dust off your old iPhone.

Some hopeful eBay seller is hawking their “rare” mint-condition, first-generation iPhone with only 4GB of storage — and all they’re asking for is enough money for a down payment on a house.

Amazon introduced its first smartphone to the world this morning and while the jury is still out on whether its incredible Dynamic Perspective feature is a UI revolution or just another 3-D gimmick, Jeff Bezos and the Amazon team have pumped Fire Phone full of features that could make it more than just the world’s best buying machine.

From Firefly’s compulsive-purchasing features to Mayday’s instant tech-support tether, Fire Phone has a few tricks up its sleeve that we weren’t expecting. But will that be enough to convince consumers to buy one of the AT&T-exclusive phones?

Check out these six things your iPhone and Android can’t do, but Fire Phone can:

The second beta of iOS 8 upgrades Apple’s mobile platform visually as well as functionally. Along with plenty of bug fixes, iOS 8 Beta 2 delivers a number of neat tweaks that make the upcoming mobile OS even better than before. See some of the new enhancements in action in today’s quick-look video.

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Years of speculation are finally over: Amazon is taking on the iPhone with a handset of its own that offers advanced features and a tight integration with Amazon Prime.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos triumphantly pulled the new Fire Phone from his pocket this morning in front of a Seattle crowd of 300 reporters and Prime fanatics, revealing a new handset that looks like an iPhone but houses tons of Amazon special features to set it apart from Apple’s and Samsung’s top wares.

To do battle with the iPhone and Apple’s enormous ecosystem, Bezos says Amazon chose a 4.7-inch screen for the device after testing models between 4.3 inches and 5.5 inches. Like the iPhone 5s, the Fire Phone uses Gorilla Glass 3 for the front display, but Amazon has wrapped the enclosure in an injection-molded rubber frame.

I’ve been using a USB 3 external hard drive to backup my Macbook Pro for a while now, and have been pleased with its reliability and fast data transfer speed. I also love that it powers itself via the USB port, letting me live a little more power cord free.

When I received the LaCie Rugged Thunderbolt SSD drive for review, I thought, “well, it’s pretty, but how much better can it be?” It’s just as small, powers itself via Thunderbolt (or USB) and has plenty of space on it, just like my current drive.

Then I ran a few tests and pulled up a drive speed test app on my Mac. I was blown away by the speed difference. This is one blazing fast hard drive. And, yeah, it still looks great.

Apple is on a price-slashing spree this morning after taking down its online store for a few hours last night. Not only did Cupertino just release a cheaper low-end iMac, but it’s also dropping prices on the Apple TV and Mac mini across the UK and Europe.

Apple’s new headphone company has been spewing its love for the World Cup all over the internet with huge cinematic ads and exclusive Jay Z tracks, but there’s one place you won’t see a pair of Beats headphones – inside the actual stadiums.

FIFA has banned Beats headphones from the football pitch and official media events thanks to a licensing agreement with rival Sony.

Ben Heine is a magician.

Like David Blaine and Criss Angel before him, he has a special talent for blurring the line between reality and fiction. But instead of utilizing sleight of hand or his indomitable will to delight his audience, Heine keeps it simple by using just a pencil and camera to create his illusions.

Heine’s incredible art series Pencil vs Camera combines gorgeous landscapes and city scenes with hand-sketched drawings. The otherworldly images that result are both whimsical and intriguing, with a bit of mind-bending magic thrown in for perspective.

“I always try to express what I’m feeling,” Heine told Cult of Mac, noting that most of his inspiration for drawings come “mainly from people around me — friends, family, even strangers — and from every experience I live.”

As a gamer, I want a controller with buttons. I lust after this new product category like I do any new gadget that I think will improve my gaming experience. I think that if you play games with any frequency, you’ll want them too.

Unfortunately, I also think the majority of mobile gamers are making do just fine with touch interfaces, thank you very much, and that these lust-worthy devices will soon find their way to the dustbin for most who buy them. Not because the controllers, including one that straps to the sides of your iPad mini like the loving embrace of an alien face-hugger, aren’t any good. On the contrary, these are solid, high-quality gaming peripherals that will make certain types of console-like games (platformers, open-world sandbox games, first-person shooters) much easier to play.

Like warring divorcees who are trying to make it work “for the kids” Apple and Samsung are reportedly attempting to find “common ground” that will let them end their ongoing legal battles.

The report comes from the Korea Times, which cites sources “familiar with the negotiations.” According to the newspaper, both sides are trying to be “more practical” about finding a solution, since Apple would ideally like to continue using Samsung as one of its main parts suppliers — possibly for the long-awaited iWatch.

Cult of Mac readers came through again: after our nominees, here are your semi-serious and sometimes outrageous picks for who should be coming up with the next big ideas at Apple.

One small footnote: Apple tweaked the job title on us. Now they are looking for a “business intelligence thought leader” rather than just a plain old “thought leader,” but the party game is still a fun one.