Apple is livid that a Thai government official spilled the beans on its pending launch of two new iPhone models and requested a meeting with officials at the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to talk about a little thing called doubling down on secrecy.

Reports from Thailand indicate Apple’s top exec from South Asia met with NBTC secretary Takorn Tantasith to discuss his uncharacteristic disclosure of the two iPhone 6 models, but also told him Apple might not even name their next smartphone “iPhone 6.”

Adding to the pile of leaked iPhone 6 parts ahead of next month’s great unveiling, a new photo from China has given us our first look at a fully assembled iPhone 6 logic board and some of the new components Apple will add to the smartphone this year.

People who work in creative fields know that the best software products for media creation are made by Adobe. Whether it’s getting pictures just right with Photoshop, or putting together a whiz bang digital newsletter with InDesign, Adobe makes software to suit just about any creative situation.

While Adobe products are the industry standard in creativity software, they can also be complex and frustrating for novice users. That’s why Cult of Mac Deals, for a very limited time that is ending soon, is offering Lifetime Access To Over 5,000 Adobe Authorized Training Videos for the remarkably low price of $79. That’s 84% off the regular price of $500!

If you use your iPad or iPhone (or both!) onstage when you perform, you know how hard it can be to find a good place to put them. Putting your iPad on a flimsy music stand just won’t cut it, and leaving your iPhone on the floor near your guitar pedals is just asking for a stomped-on smartphone.

The solution, for me, has always been iKlip iPad stands, which connect right to my mic stand. The new versions, including a sweet new iPhone mount, keep my iPad and iPhone safe from all musician-based harm, and always at the right height and angle to get at my lyric sheets, set lists and guitar effects.

Although the environmental group she heads up is “pleased” about the improvements Apple announced to protect workers from toxic chemicals, activist Elizabeth O’Connell still won’t buy the Cupertino company’s products.

Even if it means making those phone calls to rally support against Apple on an iPhone with a cracked screen.

“I am very happy that Apple has taken these steps and that the company is listening to its customers,” the campaign director for Green America told Cult of Mac via email. “That said, I’m going to hold on to my cracked 5c for now. I’d like for Apple to deepen its commitment to worker health and safety throughout its supply chain before I consider purchasing any new Apple products.”

Researchers in the U.K. have developed a cellphone that is charged by ambient sound, eliminating the need for a charger. Filled with energy-harvesting “nanogenerators,” the device uses a principal called the piezoelectric effect to turn the sound vibrations in the atmosphere around it into energy.

One sad limitation of Instagram is you can’t post photos to the service from your Mac, only your iPhone. It’s by design, of course — Instagram wants to be a more spontaneous photo hosting service than the likes of Flickr — but it can make things annoying when you want to give a more polished shot the Instagram treatment.

Things are about to get a little easier. You still can’t post photos directly from your Mac, but you can make it easier to get them on your iPhone or iPad. Younity, a service that gives you access to your computer’s files through a personal cloud with no syncing necessary, has just added support for publishing Instagram files directly from the service.

Nic Tullis has a summer project that doesn’t involve surfing or working at a frozen-yogurt shop.

The 18-year-old is at the tail end of a Kickstarter campaign to to raise $2,500 that will keep him out photographing with his iPhone 4s. His “Homeless But Not Hopeless” project aims to bring awareness about the homeless population of St. Louis, Missouri, which spiked 12 percent after the economic tsunami hit.

Tullis takes photos of homeless people that show how they live along with normal shots that show off St. Louis. The funding for the project would rent a gallery space to auction off prints as a fundraiser; proceeds would go to two local organizations that help people get back on their feet.

Do you hate the fact that Facebook is forcing you to install the Facebook Messenger app if you want to send or access messages on your iPhone or iPad?

We do too. But luckily, it turns out that right now, there’s an easy way to get around the restrictions and access your Facebook Messages through the vanilla Facebook app again. But better move on it: Facebook’s not likely to let this loophole stay open for long.

In the past, the chemicals benzene and n-hexane, which are chemicals that make your iPhone screen so shiny, have been said to cause health problems for factory workers breathing in the fume.

But Apple has just announced that as of the iPhone 6, these complaints will be a thing of the past, as they are banning the use of the chemicals across their entire assembly line.

If you’ve been on the Internet at all over the last few days, you’ve probably heard about the Ice Bucket Challenge. The idea is simple. Someone challenges you online to dump a bucket of ice water all over your head. If you choose not to do so within 24 hours, you are asked to donate $100 to a charity to fight Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Speaking as an observer, I can say conclusively that the Ice Bucket Challenge is best when accepted by buxom 19-year-olds in string bikinis. But watching Apple’s Senior Vice President Of Marketing dumping a bucket of ice water on his head? Definitely a close second.

Sony is hoping to boost digital record sales with a new iPhone app that offers a discounted album every 24 hours. Prices are slashed by as much as 70 percent in the Album of the Day app, and all purchases are made through iTunes.

Samsung is taking its wall hugger shaming marketing campaign to the airport this week, with new ads plastered over electrical outlets that draw in battery-drained iPhone users with the promise to quench their thirst for a little more power.

Touting the Ultra Power Saving Mode on the Galaxy S5, CNET reports that the ads will pop up at JFK International as well as O’Hare and Midway in Chicago, and they’ve included a subtle jab at Apple’s latest ad campaign.

Tim Cook has led Apple into the front of the LGBT-rights movement with company appearances at Gay Pride parades and Wall Street Journal op-eds demanding equal rights for gay workers, but according to one Apple Store customer in Portland, some of Cook’s employee don’t share his enthusiasm for inclusion.

Adam Catanzarite, who self-identifies as queer, has taken to social media after an Apple specialist printed off his receipt for a set of EarPods with a not-so-subtle homophobic slur tossed in the spot reserved for his email addresses.

Take a look:

Mailbox, the beloved email app owned by Dropbox, received a pretty big update today in the App Store. As the Mac beta of Mailbox continues to roll out slowly, the app is maturing on iOS.

19 languages are now supported by Mailbox instead of just English, including Spanish, Chinese, Japanese French, German, Russian, and more. Printing, Passbook support, starring, trash emptying, and more have also been added.

Apple’s mega deal with IBM could give it a death grip on the enterprise market, but according to a report from The Information, Google’s Android team has been deep in talks with HP on ways it can push Android deeper into enterprise itself.

Using Google Now’s voice-search powers, the Android unit and HP have been discussing the potential of creating a mobile search product nicknamed “Enterprise Siri,” that could access financial data, product inventory, and more to become the perfect Siri-like tool for enterprise customers.

Apple has seeded the third beta of OS X Mavericks 10.9.5 build 13F14 to developers this morning, just six days after the previous beta and all its bug fixes were released.

Apple is about to make the iPhone 5s and 5c obsolete, but if you’re in the market for a brand new iPhone and need an iPad to go with it, then AT&T is ready to lure you in with a $200 discount on any iPad you want, as long as it has 4G.

To score the deal you must be willing to venture into an AT&T retail store to buy your iPhone 5s or 5c, but like any carrier deal, there are a few strings attached.

I took the Filco MiniLa Air Bluetooth keyboard with me on vacation this year to use with a MacBook Air propped up on the fantastic Roost stand. I use the tenkeyless Filco Majestouch at home, and I was hoping for the same super-accurate, clicky-key action in this battery-powered, portable wireless version.

And I almost got it. But for one major flaw, the MiniLa is almost as good as the desktop version. The good news is, that flaw might just be a personal quibble.

While looking at social media on your favorite iOS devices is smooth, making the transition to the Mac just isn’t quite the same. Though there are plenty of top-notch applications for looking at Twitter or Snapchat on iOS, the social media gems on Mac can be hard to find.

In today’s video, we’ll show you the top social media apps for Mac so you can transport the fun from iOS to your desktop in the most efficient ways possible. Here’s how to enjoy the fun of Snapchat, Instagram and more, all on your Mac by downloading some killer social apps.

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

A Florida man accused of killing his roommate allegedly asked Siri to help him find a hiding place for the body.

“I need to hide my roommate,” 20-year-old Pedro Bravo told Apple’s virtual assistant on the day Christian Aguilar was kidnapped and strangled in September 2012.

Blending gorgeous black and white comic book-style visuals with compelling gameplay, iOS racer SXPD has just received a 2.0 update, not only bringing the game to iPhone for the first time, but also lowering its price from $1.99 to free.

Listen up, soldier! The aliens are headed our way and it’s up to you to keep them out of our base. You’ll have access to a variety of offensive towers that you can upgrade along the way, as well as a special Hero and other power ups to turn the tide of battle in our favor.

If you’re like many of us, you love a good tower defense game on the go. There are a few good ones out there (Fieldrunners, Kingdom Rush), but we’re always willing to give a new take on this classic gaming genre a spin.

The true test of a tower defense game, however, is whether it keeps you in that zen-like flow state while you play, and whether or not you want to keep playing it.

Amazon is the latest company to move into the ultra-hot area of mobile payments with a new hardware/software combination called Amazon Local Register.

It’s essentially a credit card reader that attaches to your tablet or smartphone, and is accompanied by an app, allowing small business to take credit card payments.

The idea that the forthcoming iPhone 6 (expected to be unveiled September 9) is the most anticipated refresh of Apple’s smartphone in ages was given further credibility by a recent survey by financial firm R.W. Baird.

Quizzing 1,000 residents surveyed in July, 6.8 percent of respondees said that they planned to buy the iPhone 6 without ever having laid eyes on it. This number is up from the 4.4 percent who answered that same way back in February.

The firm also notes that this intent to purchase is higher than the number of people who said they would buy the iPhone 5s after it had already been announced.