Some Apple collectors gather one of every Mac, iPod or iPhone, while others specialize in portables or all-in-ones. Then there are the outliers, the super-collectors who search out the incredibly rare items most people never get a chance to see.

“I’m always on the hunt,” says Henry Plain, a California man who specializes in tracking down impossible-to-find Mac prototypes.

Plain owns some of the rarest, most unusual Apple machines ever produced. These are the speed bumps, works in progress or developer’s editions that the secretive Cupertino company never intended for outside eyes. His vast knowledge of Apple’s production gave him a role in facilitating the sale of the Storage Wars-esque Macintosh collection of Marion Stokes that came to light last month. I like to think of him as Prototype Man.

What’s in Plain’s amazing Apple menagerie? Transparent versions of the Macintosh SE and PowerBook 140. A Mac mini with a built-in iPod dock. Prototypes of the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh (TAM), the Power Mac G4 Cube and iDevices too numerous to mention. Even to other collectors — and I have a Mac Museum in my house — his inventory is crazy-impressive.

Celebrities have been lending their voices and likenesses to video games for years, and you need only look at the voice-cast lists for big games like epic first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops to see how prevalent they are.

But some appearances are more subtle, relevant or just straight-up awesome. Here are seven celebrity cameos that actually belong in their respective games.

George Orwell once wrote that, “The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.”

Yesterday we reported on the fact that Samsung and Apple were sitting down to negotiate an end to the ongoing litigation between the two companies — and unlike all the previous occasions, this time the plan was to make it stick.

Well, one day later, and talks between the two warring factions are reportedly breaking down — as lawyers from both sides express difficulty working with each other. What is seemingly particularly grinding gears in the Apple camp are statements made by Samsung’s top lawyer, referring to the protracted lawsuit as “Apple’s Vietnam” and Apple as “jihadist.”

Like Scarlett Johansson’s phone number, wine is something I’d like to know a bit more about. It’s good to hear, then, that popular wine assistant app Hello Vino (great name!) has just been given a sparkling update in time for spring.

The update adds support for a massive 140,000 store and restaurant locations to help you pick out the perfect wine. It also adds improvements to the app’s search engine, which is powered by wine-searcher.com and features more than 6 million wines.

Super Monkey Ball was one of the real gems of the GameCube era, and now a version of it is set to bounce its way onto iOS this summer.

But this isn’t your grandpappy’s Super Monkey Ball. According to SEGA, the game takes inspiration from the classic arcade game, pachinko, and features AiAi and the rest of his monkey pals as they attempt to thwart the evil machinations of the dastardly Prof. Boscis.

Gulf Air, the Kingdom of Bahrain’s flagship air carrier, has become the latest airline to participate in an iPad-based electronic flight bag program. The program will see Gulf Air purchase 355 iPads, to be distributed throughout the airline’s fleet.

“We are proud of our existing strategic relationship with VIVA Bahrain and pleased to extend this partnership to include the provision of iPad devices as part of Gulf Air’s Electronic Flight Bag project,” says Gulf Air Acting CEO Maher Salman Al Musallam. “This is an essential component of our ongoing commitment to all new technology that provides integrated solutions for managing information in the air and on the ground.”

A video has surfaced online showing a jailbreak solution for iOS 7.1.1, compatible with the 64-bit iPhone 5s.

This is the third iOS 7.1.1 jailbreak we’ve seen in a matter of days, although it’s possibly the most impressive yet being that it is for Apple’s premier iOS device.

If you’re looking for a new home awesome enough to house all of your Apple products in style, you’re not going to find one better than this.

A 10,000 square feet palace — newly on the market for a cool $35 million — it will be instantly recognizable to cinema buffs as the home of none other than Tony Montana in the 1983 movie Scarface.

Instagramming your skinny cinnamon latte and taking selfies of yourself with your skinny cinnamon latte is always going to take its toll on your phone’s battery. But that’s going to be less of a concern for those who live and work in New York, where AT&T’s new solar charging stations allow anyone to top up their juice while they sit down and relax with their skinny cinnamon latte.

With so many Bluetooth speakers, varying in size and price, it can be hard to find the best fit for you. In this episode of Cult of Mac’s Product Recommendations, we take a look at the Angle speaker by Oontz, a portable Bluetooth speaker perfect for office, bedroom and other settings.

Take a look at the video to see what you think and make sure to enter the giveaway to try your hand at winning one.

Enter the Cult of Mac giveaway: We have two Oontz Angles to give away to two viewers who like and comment on our video, and also subscribe to the Cult of Mac channel on YouTube. Winners will be picked at random and entries end Monday, May 26, 2014. Prizes provided by Oontz.

It’s totally irritating when you’re using your Mac and it slows down all of a sudden. While your computer is obviously doing what you’re focusing on, it can also be working hard on pointless tasks running in the background. In today’s how-to video, find out how to stop this and speed up your Mac in no time.

Remember those summer days of yore, playing in the pool with your friends, and one of you would close your eyes and yell out Marco? And all your buddies, who got to keep their eyes open, yelled Polo!*

Now you can find wherever you’ve lost your iPhone in your house, car, or office cubicle by shouting at it with the nifty and useful new app, Marco Polo: Find Your Phone by Shouting MARCO!, which may be the longest name for an app, ever.

Marco! Polo! Marco! … Polo!

There are a number of way to track emoji use on Twitter but this globe of real-time emoji tweeted across the world has me so spellbound I can’t look away.

Good thing too, because unlike EmojiTracker, it won’t cause a seizure.

What if we lived in a world where you could pay for your food by sharing it on Instagram? Some would call it hell on earth because of how our Instagram feeds are already overwhelmed with such pictures, but that kind of attitude could be starting to change.

A new pop-up diner in Soho, London called The Picture House is letting its customers pay for their meals in exchange for posting a pic of it on Instagram with the hashtag “BirdsEyeInspirations.”

Joel Thomas Zimmerman, aka Deadmau5, is undoubtedly one of the most popular EDM artists/DJs on the planet. He’s apparently so famous that he has his own subscription service with an iPhone app that came out a few days ago.

The self-titled app is the one-stop shop for everything Deadmau5, and it costs £2.99 per month.

The web has spun about 13,000 different theories on why Apple bought Beats. Did they want the headphones? Or was it Beats Music that tipped things over?

It’ll be months, if not years, before we learn Apple’s real play with the Beats acquisition, but Steve Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson has his own theory on why Apple bought Beats and it has nothing to do with music, overpriced headphones, or other wearables.

It’s all about video.

So you got yourself a Tumblr blog, right? Whether you’re a newbie website runner or a veteran Tumblr owner, you’ll need to keep track of your website stats.

The best (and free) system out there to find out who visits your site and why is Google Analytics. The web stats analysis package there is the best in the business, but unless you have some sort of degree in SEO or traffic analysis, it can be pretty overwhelming.

So, for those of you that just want to get into tracking your site stats with a minimum of fuss, here’s how to get Google Analytics installed on your Tumblr blog, and a quick and easy way to set up your Analytics dashboard with the basic info.

“So here we are,” says Chris Pratt’s Starlord in the new trailer from Marvel Studios, “a thief, two thugs, an assassin, and a maniac.”

They may be an odd team, but they’re not going to stand by as evil wipes out the galaxy.

Guardians of the Galaxy is shaping up to be a fantastic take on the cult-hit comic book series, further cementing Marvel Comics as the cooler-than-you comic book movie studio with this hot new trailer, embedded below.

While you’re distracted by the bright screen in your hands, the real world is passing you by. This is where MetaWatch saves the day.

MetaWatch is a Bluetooth-connected smartwatch that will discreetly alert you to new text messages, phone calls, app alerts and certain athletic metrics. You can leave your phone in your pocket and avoid getting sucked into the vortex of refreshes and updates. And Cult of Mac Deals has The MetaWatch STRATA Smartwatch for only $99 during this limited time promotion.

iPad users in the UK, Spain, Germany and France can now trade-in their old iPad for credit towards a new device as Apple expands its iPad trade-in program internationally

Apple’s trade-in program doesn’t give customers cash for their old devices, but it will exchange it for Apple Store credit that can be used to purchase a new iPad or iPhone.

Is it a stills camera? No. Is it a video camera? No. Is it something between the two? Correctamundo! The OTTO is a “Hackable GIF Camera” that uses a Raspberry Pi brain to make animated GIF pictures.

Xbox One owners just got a shot in the arm as the team behind the acclaimed Halo franchise has just revealed a new iteration in the series: Halo 5: Guardians.

Halo has always been associated with the Xbox system, reaching back to Microsoft’s original console, released in 2001. With the latest title now in sights, Halo fans will start the salivation required of the lead up to the game industry’s most popular series.

Apple is finally giving iOS developers the opportunity to provide promotional codes for in-app purchases. EA will be one of the first to take advantage of the new scheme with a Real Racing 3 promotion that will allow players to redeem free in-game gold that would usually cost $1.99.

Cult of Mac Magazine May 19 Edition

Every week, we serve up the best of the Cult of Mac website as a magazine so you can download and read it at your leisure on your iPhone or iPad.

Apple’s iconic Fifth Avenue retail store might be turning eight today, but the company is looking to boost its New York presence with a new store on the city’s Upper East Side.

City building permits, dated May 15, detail soil testing at the new site, along with the demolition of the building’s current interior — costing a total of $80,000. The new Apple Store is set to be located at no. 940 Madison Avenue, a limestone and marble building currency occupied by luxury retailer VBH.