Apple has been focusing on improving App Store discoverability as of late, and now it has added a “Best New Updates” section for games, which introduces users to notable updates of top-selling titles.

Prior to this addition, Apple included game updates as part of its curated “Best New Games” section, which resulted in a long list that took ages to scroll through. By separating updates from entirely new games, users can now more easily browse through the list to discover games that they might otherwise miss.

Back in August, a new game arrived in the iOS App Store and almost immediately vanished without a trace.

“I received a few great reviews from news sites, but not enough to have an impact,” says Robert Topala, founder of RobTop Games and developer of the disappearing game. “Since I had no marketing budget it quickly dropped in rankings after release.”

For most games that would have been it. And if the story stopped there, it wouldn’t have been a tale of total failure: Topala wasn’t a professional coder, and had only been making mobile games for a couple years at the time. Simply finishing a game, getting it in the App Store and picking up a few accolades would have been nice enough.

But that wasn’t Topala’s story.

With Google showing off Android-powered wearables from Samsung, LG and Motorola at its Google I/O developers conference this week, the smartwatch competition has officially heated up.

The LG G Watch and Samsung Gear Live will ship in early July, so Android Wear smartwatches will definitely beat Apple’s rumored iWatch to the market. In today’s video, Cult of Mac shows how these handy, Android-powered devices — which let users access smartphone features from the convenience of their wrists — set the bar high for the iWatch.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.

Apple has made another interesting hire to augment the already impressive number of biometrics experts the company has snapped up in recent times.

Alex Hsieh, who joins Apple as a new firmware developer, was formerly lead engineer at the weight training-oriented, fitness-tracking company Atlas Wearables.

Launched on Indiegogo back in February, Atlas raised an impressive $629,000 to create the most accurate and social wearable activity tracker yet available on the market. This accuracy was largely the result of an impressive suite of internal sensors, designed in part by Hsieh.

With reports about the iWatch in full swing, this hire confirms once again that Apple has one of the most biosensor impressive teams ever assembled for its long-awaited arrival in the wearables field.

Source: Networkworld

Bad news for those of you who use Apple’s Podcasts app: For the vast majority of users running iOS 7.1.1, the app crashes immediately after launching.

There’s currently no word as to why this is happening, since the Podcasts app was last updated May 29 — adding only minor bug fixes — but the malfunction has just kicked in.

With Apple’s mobile and desktop platforms growing closer in iOS 8 and Yosemite, I started wondering: Is the laptop inherently better for computing than a tablet, or does it just seem that way because we’re so used to the folding form factor?

Could it be that, if the iPad had launched before the Mac and we’d spent the last 30 years using touchscreens, we would balk at using keyboards, mice and dumb screens to do our computing work? Or, in my time-reversed world, if Apple unveiled the Mac in 2010, would we all cling to our iPads and claim Cupertino was nuts for foisting OS X upon us?

“Die, fish. Die! Die, shark!”

That’s what one goggled attendee shouts near the end of Sony’s new video (below) showing people’s reaction to its not-yet-released virtual reality headset, codenamed Project Morpheus, at the Electronic Entertainment Expo a couple weeks back in Los Angeles.

He and many other gamers got the chance to try out Sony’s answer to the Oculus Rift at the expo, and boy is it weird to watch them from the outside.

It’s hard to show what VR is really all about without, you know, actually having you wear the headsets. VR rigs like Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus have an uphill battle to convince the rank and file that VR is going to be compelling enough to shell out even more money for their gaming systems.

Sony opted to show us people from the outside, and I’m not sure it’s any more compelling than a 2D video of the VR games on offer right now.

If you’ve ever wanted to go paperless, then this offer from Cult of Mac Deals is going to make it easier than ever.

Everyone needs a scanner these days, whether it’s for daily use or the occasional random legal document, Doxie One couldn’t be a quicker or easier solution. Doxie One scans everything from bills and receipts to reports, drawings, recipes, notes, business cards, photos, and everything else — wherever you are, no computer required — just charge it up and turn it on. And the best part? Cult of Mac Deals has Doxie One for 33% off for a limited time — just $99!

With so much focus on its iOS devices, it’s easy to forget that Apple is constantly innovating for its Mac product line as well.

On Thursday, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office published a patent application from Apple that reveals the company’s investigations into possible future Mac Keyboards which support gesture controls, as well as in-key pictograms, symbols, and glyphs.

Earlier this week, Bono blasted Apple for “modesty run amok” in regards to the company’s charity work.

Claiming that Apple was like a secretive cult, he said that Apple didn’t do enough to broadcast its work for the Global Fund as part of Product (RED). Apple has raised $75 million for the charity since 2006.

Bono’s tongue was obviously in cheek, but (RED) has now released a statement, clarifying that Bono was expressing “faux outrage” and he was just making a joke.

The Snappgrip is a fantastic idea, with not-too-bad hardware to back it up. It’s an accessory grip for your iPhone that adds a Bluetooth shutter release, zoom buttons and control dial to the phone’s camera, as well as a wrist strap and a handy handgrip.

But in practice, you’ll be better off with the iPhone’s own volume switches if you want a hardware shutter release. Which is a shame, as I was super-excited to try the Snappgrip out.

A couple of months after debuting its new look iPhone app complete with updated iOS 7 design, The Weather Channel has finally given its iPad app the same treatment — with a new look interface that is “closely aligned to the iOS 7 aesthetic.”

While it’s certainly taken its time (apparently weather apps change a whole lot slower than the weather itself), there’s no disputing that the app looks better than ever, with a flat interface and simple menu that makes this particular meteorology app incredibly easy to use.

Jailbreakers got an unexpected present last week when a relatively unknown hacker group released a jailbreak for iOS 7.1.1. Called “Pangu,” the jailbreak package was later determined to be safe besides a shady pirate app store installed alongside the program.

But the Pangu jailbreak isn’t all that it appears. The methods the jailbreak uses to hack your device were stolen.

What did we miss?

Got your own favorite movie or TV franchise that’s just begging for a reboot? Let us know in the comments below.

SAN FRANCISCO — When they learned they were next in line for a cease-and-desist letter from the City Attorney, three young entrepreneurs made haste to City Hall to salvage their dream of making circling the block for parking a thing of the past.

Parking app Sweetch lets you alert prospective parkers that you’ll be moving your car. The person leaving the spot gets $4 in credit and the person arriving pays $5. Positioning itself as a community app, Sweetch lets drivers donate the money to local charities. (If you use the Web app version, like we did when we took it for a test drive, the money is only symbolically exchanged. Your credit card details and hard cash are only required for the iOS app.)

“It was really cool that they were open to talking to us — we clarified that we’re not auctioning parking spots or holding them, we’re not anything like MonkeyParking, and they understood that,” Sweetch co-founder Hamza Ouazzani Chahdi told Cult of Mac by phone, adding that they spoke with two deputies at the San Francisco City Attorney’s office for about an hour. City Attorney spokesman Matt Dorsey confirmed that officials met with Sweetch but didn’t have specifics on whether the cease-and-desist order had been halted as a result of the meeting.

The iPhone 6 is undoubtedly one of the year’s most eagerly anticipated gadgets, but how does this translate into actual sales?

Crunching the numbers, Taiwan’s Topology Research Institute predicts that the iPhone 6 will sell around 80 million units by the end of 2014. With most sources suggesting that Apple plans to release both a 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 6, these devices will likely be going on sale in September — meaning that Apple would be selling an average of 20 million iPhone 6 devices per month, for the final four months of the year.

If you like a bit (a lot!) of wanton carnage in your iOS games, you may want to check out World of Tanks Blitz, which has finally rolled into App Stores around the world.

Based on the massively popular World of Tanks game for PC and Xbox, World of Tanks Blitz is a free-to-play mobile massively multiplayer online game, which lets you battle it out in explosive 7v7 PvP battles, using 90 iconic tanks from Germany, the US, and Soviet Russia.

The iPod touch tends to be a forgotten device compared to the iPhone and iPad, but Apple hasn’t abandoned it. In fact, the 16GB iPod touch just got supercharged, and prices have been slashed on the 16GB, 32GB and 64GB models as well.

Possibly coming with a $100 premium, Apple is going to need some extra reasons to get users to stump up for a 5.5-inch iPhone 6, and according to a new report they may have found them.

While it’s been reported that the 4.7-inch iPhone will be arriving in both 32 GB and 64 GB variants, a rumor from the Chinese website Wei Feng suggests that Apple may introduce a 128 GB version of the phone in the 5.5-inch form factor only.

This would allow users to get the full “phablet” experience from their device, since it would provide plenty of storage space to save various documents and data. It would also blur the line between Apple’s iPad and iPhone models, since iPads currently allow for up to 128 GB of storage, whereas current generation iPhones only allow a maximum of 64 GB of in-built storage.

Having reportedly snagged the bulk of iPhone 6 orders from Apple, Taiwanese manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, a.k.a. Foxconn, has every reason to be happy.

Earlier today it announced record breaking consolidated revenues of $131.82 billion for last year, while company chairman Terry Gou commented that he expects this year’s earnings to be even better.

Interestingly, Gou had some choice words to say about wearables, however — which is slightly surprising given how closely the company’s success is tied to Apple, which is expected to enter the wearables market with its forthcoming iWatch, supposedly coming this October.

The entire future of the Android universe was just laid open for all to see as Google I/O kicked off this morning with a keynote at Moscone West.

Yes, there were juicy bits about the newest version of Android coming soon to a smartphone near you, but this year’s keynote was about so much more than mobile phones, as Google took aim at every “smart” category imaginable, from smartwatches to automobiles, cheap handsets to the biggest screen in your living room.

We just sat through the marathon keynote, and while we didn’t get a free Moto 360, we’ve digested, regurgitated, and spit out the hot mess of new Android features, APIs, cloud tools and wearable goodness, so you don’t have to.

Here’s everything you need to know about what Google revealed at I/O:

Samsung isn’t expected to announce its earnings for Q4 2014 until early July, but the company is already trying to manage expectations with investors weeks before the bad news comes that it bombed.

Samsung’s CFO Lee Sang-hoon made a rare public statement to a group of reporters at the company’s Seocho headquarters, saying “it doesn’t look too good” when pressed for info on Q2 performance.

Forget Android L, Android Wear, AndroidOne and every other new “android” variant Sundar Pichai stumbled through during Google’s 3-hour keynote. The coolest thing coming out of Google I/O wasn’t new software and thousands of APIs, it’s a small DYI VR headset that anyone can make.

After today’s keynote Google I/O attendees were given a taste of Google’s next wearable product that’s made from nothing more than cardboard. The experimental VR toolkit sounds like another one of Google’s April Fool’s jokes, except it’s totally real, and even if you didn’t happen to pick up a free one from Moscone West, you can build your own at home.

iOS 8 introduces many convenient features and enhancements designed to make your iPhone even easier to use. Among these is keyboard update QuickType and support for installing third-party keyboards on iPhones, iPads and iPod touches. In today’s video, we’ll show you exactly how third-party keyboards work — and how they will change your interactions with your device for the better.

Subscribe to Cult of Mac TV on YouTube to catch all our latest videos.

Google’s keynote presentation at its I/O developer’s conference today offered a revealing picture of the company itself: meandering, unfocused, copycat and just a little bit evil.

The two-hours-plus keynote had a lot of everything, from a new version of Android to new phones, smartwatches, TVs, cars, Chromebooks and big data — but much of it was deja vu from Apple’s WWDC two weeks ago.