Apple’s brand value is more than the total cost of the Apollo Space Program in today’s dollars, according to a new report by brand consulting agency Brand Finance.

Apple topped a list of 500 firms — including heavyweights like Walmart, Google, and AT&T — to be named the most valuable billion-dollar U.S. brand name.

Brand Finance compiled the list by estimating the royalty rate that would be charged to use a company’s brand, taking into account current and expected future revenue. Notably Apple was the only brand to have surpassed the $100 billion mark, being valued at $104.7 billion.

Dropbox is planning an update that will let you switch between home and work accounts, according to the Verge. The new service will be announced on April 9th, and will let users switch between accounts without logging out of either.

I’ll admit it. I was about to pass on writing up the OGIO Ruck Pack because it looks like a dorky kids bag. And then I noticed it also looks like the pack on the back of a space suit. And then I saw the pocket on the side, stuffed with my favorite water bottle, the Klean Kanteen, and I was sold. So here it is: The dork-tastic, space-friendly water-carrying Ruck Pack.

People who were gaming during the late 1990s may well have fond memories of the long-dormant franchise RollerCoaster Tycoon franchise.

A series of construction and management sims that let you build and run your own theme park, developers Atari recently announced that they are creating a mobile version of the game called RollerCoaster Tycoon 4 Mobile, which is set to debut on iOS very soon.

Do you get creeped out by the fact that Google reads your emails in order to serve you ads (even though every time you search any web-based email it’s doing the exact same thing)? Then you should leave now, because the Mod Notebook is a service that scans your filled-up paper notebook and sends you back the digital version.

Samsung’s NX Mini camera uses a one-inch sensor – like that inside the Nikon 1 series – only it comes in way cheaper, at $450 or $550, depending on which lens you choose. Other than that , the best description is probably “a lanes and a flip screen, and not much else.”

Windows 8 has been a gigantic flop for Microsoft, but Apple, at least, is giving the new operating system a surprising push. The Mac maker has dropped support for Windows 7 running under Boot Camp on the new Mac Pro, making the installation of Windows 8 the only option for those who want to dual boot Windows on the most powerful Mac yet.

One of iOS 7.1’s major changes was a new Calendar app that added such features as the ability to see a full list of events while in your Calendar’s month view, as well as a more complete list of nation-specific holiday.

If you use your iPhone as an organizer, the new Calendar app is enough to update to iOS 7.1 on its own right. Unfortunately, iOS 7.1 also broke the popular evasi0n jailbreak, meaning that to get the new Calendar, you had to abandon your jailbroken device.

No longer. If you have a jailbroken iOS device, you can now download a new app that patches the iOS 7.1 calendar into iOS versions 7.0 and 7.0.6. Called Gregorian, it can be downloaded through Cydia from the https://rpetri.ch/repo/ repository.

Via: Modmyi

We’ve seen Martin Hajek’s incredible Apple TV concept with a touchscreen remote before, but in an update to the project, Hajek has imagined what the Apple TV would be like if the next gen set-top box didn’t ship with just a touchscreen controller, but a traditional gamepad as well.

I’ll say this for Hajek’s Apple TV gamepad: it looks like a controller Jony Ive would design. Thin, sleek, classic, beautiful, and utterly unsuited for actual gaming.

What do you think? Additional images after the jump.

If you spend a lot of time on the App Store, you’ve probably wondered if app icons are colored the way they are for a reason. Are certain shades more likely to correspond to certain app types than others? And what are the most over- and under-represented Pantone swatches in the App Store pallette?

If these are the sort of questions you have ever asked yourself, you’ll probably enjoy this great infographic by Brandisty, who crawled the iOS App Store, grabbed the top 5 app icons from each category, and then ran a hisogram analysis to find out which colors were used most often.

I wish they’d polled more apps, but this is great. Business apps are just as blue and boring as I thought they were! Check out the complete infographic after the jump.

We’ve seen a lot of iPhone 6 concepts lately.

Here’s another one, in a dramatic mock advertisement that uses a much more dramatic electronic score than the poppier serenades usually favored by Cupertino. Check out the video below!

When playing games on your devices it’s common for the most challenging to be the most played. The game Bouncing Slime: Impossible Levels is an arcade game that boasts incredibly challenging levels. Simply tap to help the ball of slime surpass dangerous platforms and enemies to reach a checkered flag. Do you think you can pass every level?

Take a look at Bouncing Slime: Impossible Levels and find out what you think.

This is a Cult Of Mac video review of the iOS application Bouncing Slime: Impossible Levels brought to you by Joshua Smith of “TechBytes W/Jsmith.”

Dozens of books have been written about Apple and Steve Jobs since the latter’s passing in 2011. None have painted as grim a picture for Apple’s future as Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs by Yukari Iwatani Kane, but in a rare public statement Tim Cook has come out to bash the book, calling it simply “nonsense.”

In our review, Luke Dormehl says Kane’s book was a missed opportunity that ultimately falls shorts, but Tim is a bit harsher with his criticism, saying Haunted Empire doesn’t properly capture Apple, Steve, or anyone else in the company for that matter.

Here’s the money quote from Tim:

In the time it took you to type the words “Cult of Mac” into your web browser and read up to here in this article, Apple made approximately $162,585.

That’s the amount the Cupertino company earns every 30 seconds according to a new data visualization created on behalf of WorldPay Zinc — showing just how much revenue and profit Apple and its fellow tech giants make on a rolling basis.

The iWatch hasn’t been announced. We haven’t seen any leaked hardware, but that’s not stopping every major tech company in the world from rushing out their smartwatch designs, including Motorola which just announced its beautiful answer to iWatch, the Moto 360.

Rather than utilizing a square display Motorola ambitiously decided to give the Moto 360 watch face a round display, which is trickier to manufacture and code for, but it looks gorgeous. Moto 360 is powered by Google Wear, features Google Now voice inputs, has built in support for Maps, Email, Texting and calls, plus it doubles as a pretty nice timepiece.

Here’s the Moto 360 teaser video:

You need to know two things before you read this review. One is that Pad&Quill’s The Field is one of the best-made bags I’ve ever tried. It’s solid, tough, and will ages way more gracefully than I will.

The second is that it’s exactly the kind of bag I will never use: heavy, full of handy pockets and able to put enough weight onto that one strap to crush your shoulder. So bear both these points in mind as we continue.

Checkmark was already the best app for location-based reminders, but with today’s 2.0 update, it has become one of the most sleek and powerful to-do apps for iPhone, period.

Snowman has rebuilt Checkmark for iOS 7, and version 2 includes a host of new features.

Writing a book about any technology company is hard. Books take a long time to write, and a longer time to make it into print and arrive in stores. Technology, on the other hand, moves quickly. As a tech author, you have two options. One is to write a book that tries its best to be timely by making it to market as soon as possible. The other is to wait until a book-length narrative has unfolded, and then to write about it. Tech writers, I suggest, would typically prefer the latter. Book publishers prefer the former.

Bind is kind of a weird idea for an app, but then again, I know people who watch the Super Bowl just for the commercials. So if you want big companies to try to sell you things without all that pesky programming getting in the way, here’s where you should go.

It collects ads. Just ads. Do you want to watch ads? Bind has all the ads including movie trailers and those ones people at work were attempting to describe (poorly) the day after the Big Game. And you can rate and share your favorites with your friends.

So at the very least, it’ll save you a trip to YouTube.

Source:Bind – Free | Bind Group LTD.

You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who would argue that Apple’s Lightning connector isn’t superior to the old 30-pin connector in every way. That’s why it’s surprising that it has taken Apple so long to phase 30-pin out of its product lineup.

Today Apple brought back the fourth-gen iPad to replace the non-Retina iPad 2. While the press release focuses on the obvious display upgrade, discontinuing the iPad 2 means something else that’s important: another nail in the coffin for 30-pin.

Alright, so I don’t know for sure that it’s a colon, but you’re definitely inside something’s guts.

And you’ll never get out because Microtrip is an endless faller in which you guide a blob down into the bowels of the bowels of a creature. It’s more pleasant than you think, though, because everything’s all cute-ified and cartoonish.

It’s also a lot of fun, provided you don’t crave variety

Google today announced Android Wear, a new version of its popular mobile operating system that’s designed exclusively for wearables. The search giant says it is working with consumer electronics manufacturers, chipmakers, and fashion brands to bring the technology to life in “an ecosystem of watches in a variety of styles, shapes, and sizes.”

There’s a lot to Microsoft Office, and many of us are expected to dive right in and be competent with the software suite with little to no training. That’s where this Cult of Mac Deals promotion can help.

With this actionable course, you’ll learn be able to mater MS Office and take your skills to the next level (while impressing your co-workers and superiors in the process) with The Microsoft Office 2011 Course Bundle. And Cult of Mac Deals has this package available for only $39 for a limited time.

For many people, their iPhone has long cemented its place as their primary camera.

A newly granted patent, published Tuesday, looks to build on that reputation by adding a remote control capable of operating the iPhone camera.

The “Systems and Methods for Remote Camera Control” patent describes a wireless iOS attachment, featuring a built-in display for both previewing and reviewing photos. The accessory would let users to remotely switch between different typing types of recording (both stills and movies), and also between camera and playback mode.

Apple launched its new 8GB iPhone 5c in Europe this morning, but the cheaper handset is yet to reach the U.S. online store. That’s because it isn’t going to. The Cupertino company has confirmed that the device will only be available in a select few countries, and the U.S. isn’t one of them.