Cult of Mac

This is Cult of Mac’s exclusive column written by an actual Apple Store Genius who answers all your questions about working at an Apple Store. Our genius must remain anonymous, but other than “Who are you, anyway?” ask anything you want about what goes on behind that slick store facade.

This week our Genius talks about the oldest and youngest employees at the Apple Store. Then he dishes on Windows 8 as well as whether Apple will ever come out with an iPhone with a bigger screen.

Got a question you want the inside scoop on? Send us your questions and the answers will be published first in Cult of Mac’s Magazine on Newsstand. Send your questions to newsATcultofmac.com with “genius” in the subject line.

Q: What’s the youngest Apple Store employee you’ve seen? The oldest?

The ages of Apple Store employees varies a lot. Before I worked at Apple, I would be shocked to see older people working at this high-tech company, but now I think it’s great because we have a wide variety of ages, gender, race and backgrounds to give customers a lot of options to connect with a Specialist.

The youngest Apple Store employees are 18, as for the oldest, I have a female co-worker in her late 60s – I’ve never dared ask her exact age. She retired as an airline stewardess and now works at the Apple Store part time, mostly in the iPod and iPad sections, but she’s phenomenal. If you can put up with pushy airline passengers, the Apple Store is a cake walk.

Q: Are you required to use Macs? What do you think of Windows 8?

At the Apple Store we’re required to use Macs because the tools we use to diagnose and fix problems with Macs, iPods, iPhones, etc. only works on OS X, so using a Windows machine isn’t an option. As far as personal life though, Apple has no say. A few friends at the Apple Store game on PCs but most of them use Boot Camp on Mac.

Windows 8 is interesting. It was a gutsy move to introduce a UI that’s so radically different, but it sounds like its not paying off for Microsoft. I haven’t played with it a ton myself, but when I have, the tile interface has turned me off. I actually like Windows 7. It feels solid and in some ways I like it better than OS X 10.9, but Windows 8 feels like a mistake. I hate that Microsoft is trying to get us away from the keyboard and mouse for a touchscreen desktop. It doesn’t work as well as on a tablet you hold with your hands.

Q: Will Apple ever make an iPhone a bigger screen?

Probably ;)

Apple has already showed that it’s willing to make a bigger iPhone screen with the iPhone 5. I don’t have any inside knowledge, but rumors say they’re moving to a bigger screen this year.

Fragmentation is always a concern, but Apple has changed the resolution on the iPhone every two years since the iPhone 4 and developers have adjusted just fine. Maybe it’ll happen again this year. I wouldn’t mind if they do.

Despite Apple’s incredible success with the iPhone, company co-founder Steve Wozniak believes it should make a new Android-powered smartphone and “play in two arenas at the same time.” Woz believes such a device could compete very well in the Android market against rival manufacturers like Samsung and Motorola.

Numerus — Reference — Free

Numerus is one of those weird apps that shouldn’t be as interesting as it is. But once you spend a little time clicking around it, you will feel the random knowledge dropping into your head.

Did you know that in 1950, the Canadian postal system processed 1,362,310,155 items? I don’t know why you would, but you do now. Also, the human body has 248 organs, there were 129 episodes of the CBS sitcom Becker, and China contains 56 officially recognized ethnic groups. I can’t stop.

Alright, maybe one more.

Is that a Bill and Ted reference in there? This app is amazing.

Numerus: Fun Facts About Numbers – Clover Studio Ltd.

Here’s the thing about touch controls: You’re controlling the game with the same thing you’re using to see what you’re doing. This creates a problem when your dumb, clumsy fingers start blocking your view and lead to cheap and preventable deaths.

Some games prevent this by putting the control areas off to the side or in an otherwise unused place on the screen, leaving the view clear. Lego Star Wars: Microfighters, the latest in the synergetic juggernaut of a series, is not one of those titles.

It’s surprising that developers and publishers as experienced as Warner Bros. and Traveller’s Tales would allow such a clumsy and stupid thing to happen, but here it is.

Preview is a fantastic image viewer with some basic image and PDF annotation tools.

If you’re viewing a high resolution image and want to magnify a small portion of the image, without zooming the whole thing in, you’ll want to use the magnification tool, also known as a loupe.

It’s time to take your diet from digital to delightfully simple.

ReFleX NutriCrystal is a Bluetooh enabled, glass-top kitchen scale to help you track calorie intake and reach your healthy eating goals. And Cult of Mac Deals has it right now during this limited time offer for 27% off – just $79.99.

Your unbridled addition to Flappy Bird, the latest craze in smartphone gaming that has recently rocketed to the top of the App Store and Google Play charts, is earning its creator an incredible $50,000 per day in advertising revenue.

The title has been downloaded over 50 million times since its debut, and it has amassed almost 350,000 ratings across both platforms.

We’ve all likely done it: you’re sending a text message — only to find out after hitting the “send” button that your carefully crafted comments have fallen victim to some embarrassing autocorrect abomination.

Clearly someone at Apple has had the same experience, since a new Apple patent suggests that future iPhones may include an option for correcting messages after the user has instructed the device to send, but before the transmittal of the message has taken place.

From quadrocopter deliveries to rumors of a 3D Kindle smartphone coming in 2014, Amazon has been on the cutting edge of tech for quite some time now. The company’s latest update for its iOS app, however, might be among the most fun new developments we’ve seen.

Along with the ubiquitous bug fixes seen in practically every iOS app update, version 3.2.1 of Amazon’s retail app includes a feature called “Flow” which lets users quickly and easily search for products using their iOS camera.

We said it wouldn’t be too long until a jailbreak was available for iOS 7.0.5, and thankfully the good folks at Evad3rs haven’t let us down — since Evasi0n has just released its untethered iOS 7.0.5 jailbreak.

U.S. iPhone users won’t get a whole lot from the iOS 7.0.5 update, since its changes mainly deal with minor bug fixes to network errors on Chinese carriers — but for those looking for assurance that their unlocked iPhone can be used internationally without problem, it may be worth a download.

What do Steve Jobs, Tony Hawk, Elvis Presley, and Marlon Brando have in common? All of them qualify as “cool.”

That’s the verdict of the curators of a new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery — opening Friday — which explores the concept of “American Cool” through some of its most iconic figures.

Apple’s dislike of bitcoin has been on display for quite some while now, but the cyber-currency has been hit yet again as Apple removed Blockchain — the world’s most popular bitcoin wallet — from its App Store late Wednesday.

Apple had previously removed fellow wallets BitPak and Coinbase — while Blockchain had previously found itself excised, only to later be re-accepted.

After what seems like a lifetime of anticipation, Final Fantasy VI for iOS has finally touched down in the App Store.

Representing the FF series at its 2D peak, the game (which originally hit consoles back in 1994) takes place in an eye-popping Industrial Revolution-inspired world, as characters Terra and Locke battle to escape the clutches of an evil Empire.

The 2014 Winter Olympics may be the first quantified games in history. Sure, coaches have been standing by with stopwatches and clipboards since, well, some dude sprinted down dusty roads in sandals, probably. But now, there’s an app for that.

Elite athletes are using apps to keep them on top of their game – physically and mentally. We talked to Steve Portenga, who has worked with winter and summer Olympians, and created iPerformancePsychology to help give the rest of us the winning mindset. He admits there’s less to be done about your hopeless snowplow on the bunny slope, but more on that in the story.

I’m excited about these apps, and that’s saying a lot. There are only two times you’ll find me interested in sports: the Olympics and the World Cup. Even then, it’s usually not so much the sport that captivates me — though the winter games have the edge when it comes to mesmerizing sequins — it’s the epic international battles played out in the name of gymnastics or soccer.

When the question of who lands on the podium speaks to age-old predilections rather than strictly by GDP, things get interesting. Norway, for example, is a nation of just five million souls but is expected to make mammoth countries like the U.S. eat ice dust in Sochi. Jamaica’s bobsled team, which qualified for the first time since 2002, is coming to Russia courtesy an international crowdfunding campaign. I plan to re-arrange my schedule to view all of their matches. And what about host country Russia? Can pumping millions into sports bring back the glory days, especially after the embarrassing showing in Vancouver? The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat take on a larger meaning when countries go for for the gold.

Once again, I’ll be watching exclusively on my MacBook Pro, iPhone or iPad. (When I moved back to San Francisco from Milan with exactly four boxes, buying a set never became a priority.) Watching sports this way brings interesting aspects to viewing not limited to the tiny screen and intermittent buffering. For instance, I ended up watching the last World Cup entirely in Spanish, which definitely has an edge over the more buttoned-down English-language commentary. Note to U.S. broadcasters: you really need to hire a guy to give rat-a-tat-tat play-by-play climaxing in “GOOOOOOOOOOLLLLL!” People would watch soccer, then.

Fortunately, this time around our own Charlie Sorrel has chimed in with all the tips you need to watch without a traditional TV. And we’re off, for 18 days of sport!

When I was young, maybe between the ages of twelve and fifteen, I used to make very basic games with a friend of mine called James Brzezicki. They were almost always the simplest things imaginable: a single sprite jumping over other sprites, or a ball bouncing back and forth between two paddles. This wasn’t because we had worked out how to strip gaming down to its most base elements, but rather because it was all we could work out how to program.

Samsung is an official sponsor of the Sochi 2014 Olympics, and the Korean company has been giving athletes Galaxy Note 3 phones to use during the games. In exchange for the gifts, Samsung has reportedly asked the athletes to specifically cover the Apple logos on their personal iPhones.

What happens if athletes don’t respect the rule remains unclear. Logos were also asked to be covered by Samsung when it was a sponsor of the London 2012 Olympics, so this isn’t a new tactic. However, it does illustrate Samsung’s corporate contempt for Apple.

We’ve shown you how to enable the hidden Smart Mailboxes in iOS 7, which is a great way to manage your email in Apple’s own built-in Mail app.

If you’re like many of us, though, you’ll have a few folders for organizing your mail as it comes in. I use Mailbox on my iPhone, but Mail app on my iPad, and I want to be able to access the Mailbox “Follow Up” folder on my iPad without having to tap through a ton of different folder hierarchies.

It’s relatively easy to set your Mail app up to add any folders you have in any of your email accounts.

If you’re into gaming, then having a versatile experience at your disposal is ideal. This Cult of Mac Deals offer gives you just that — and at a price that is tough to beat.

That’s right. The Mac/PC/XBOX 360/PS3 Gamer Hardware Bundle gives you a universal controller and headset that lets you game with top-notch quality and on multiple platforms. And you’ll get this bundle at a 20% savings — just $48!

Browsing the App Store can be a bit overwhelming. Which apps are new? Which ones are good? Are the paid ones worth paying for, or do they have a free, lite version that will work well enough?

Well, if you stop interrogating me for a second, hypothetical App Store shopper, I can tell you about this thing we do here.

Every week, we highlight some of the most interesting new apps and collect them here for your consideration. This time, our picks include some interactive art, a quick way to exchange contact information, and a really rude personal trainer.

Here you go:

Slip — Utilities — Free

Slip knows that exchanging business cards can be annoying. You have to find your cards and then take theirs and then maybe jam it into the back of the thing where you keep your cards, and hopefully it fits. And then later, you find their card and can’t remember why you’d met in the first place.

So instead of that, Slip uses Bluetooth to exchange contact information wirelessly. You go in and toggle which bits of information you want to share and just flip it over to another user with a single swipe. You can also text or e-mail it to people without Slip, but that’s not as much fun.

Slip – Yodel Code

CARROT Fit — Health & Fitness — $1.99

It isn’t hard to find a fitness app that offers enthusiastic and positive encouragement to keep you motivated and working toward your goals. CARROT Fit is not one of those apps.

Following its predecessors, CARROT To-Do and CARROT Alarm, Fit brings the you-deprecating artificial intelligence program to bear on your weight-loss plan. You set your goal, and “she” gives you points and virtual medals for doing well and mocks you if you don’t. It’s basically like if GLaDOS, the comical, murderous A.I. from developer Valve’s Portal series, were sent to whip you into shape.

By which I mean that CARROT Fit is kind of amazing.

CARROT Fit – Talking Weight Tracker

Phone Price — Reference — Free

If you’re due for an upgrade to your iPhone, you might be wondering what to do with your current one. You could go to a bunch of different websites and search for buyback values or try to just sell it yourself, but that sounds like a lot of work, and living in the future like we do means things should be easy.

Phone Price is an app that aggregates phone trade-in values from a variety of sources so that you can get the most for your old device. So you’re basically making the phone a party to its own rejection and disposal, and that’s pretty cold.

Phone Price – K Mobile Solutions

iHud — Utilities — Free

You can pop into iTunes and find several dozen apps that will use the GPS in your iPhone to create an accurate speedometer, but most of them have a major problem: You have to look down.

iHud tries to solve that issue. You open it, and your velocity appears. It reads backwards, but if you place your phone up under your windshield, the reflection will look right, and you won’t have to look away from the road to check your speed.

I’m not sure how you keep your phone from sliding off your dash when you turn, but that’s for the engineers.

iHud – Anders Sperling

Colour by Numbers — Lifestyle — Free

Have you heard of Colour by Numbers? It’s a light installation in Stockholm in which anyone with a mobile phone can participate.

The top 10 floors of the Telefonplan tower contain colored lights, and you can change their hues by either calling in and punching in a bunch of numbers or using this app. For five minutes at a time, you can select floors and mix red, blue, and green to create any color you want. And you can watch the live feed online to see your contribution in real time.

It’s kind of eerie, actually.

Colour by Numbers – Milo Lavén

Contact Alias — Utilities — Free

People love their privacy, but you can’t play Phone Goalie all the time. What if there were some way to hide who your iMessages and texts are coming from, even if whichever nosy person you’re with is looking right at your screen?

Enter Contact Alias, an app that lets you set alternate names for anyone on your list and toggle them on and off with a single touch of a comically large button. I’m sure it has practical applications for sneaky sneakers, but I’m probably just going to use it to quickly change people’s contact names to “A**hole” when I’m mad at them.

Contact Alias – Ryan Siegel

Winter Olympics fans rejoice, for theScore is here to deliver unique sporting content and breaking news direct from Sochi to your iPhone. The app has its own team of news hounds who will push news on heats, medals, and podium positions in real time right to the app, which has been updated for this specific feature.

The app will show new in little bites that break down the big stories in to easily digestible snacks. Each update will come in on top of the previous, along with images, animated gifs, videos, and tweets from the events.

I hate thick wallets. I carry mine in my left front pocket most of the time, and I really don’t need something huge and bulky in there to both look dorky and hurt.

I’ve spent some time paring down the stuff in my wallet, too, making it as minimal as possible. I usually carry my driver’s license, my Visa debit card, a bit of cash, and a couple of shopping club cards, like Costco and Safeway. I rotate a credit card in on occasion, too, if I need the extra buying power.

Usually, and especially when I go out on the town for an evening, I only need the ID, some cash, and my debit card.

That’s exactly what fits easily in the new Wally Wallet iPhone case, making it a dream come true for this wallet minimalist.

Twitter’s new web design began rolling out to all users yesterday, but if you hate the new white UI there’s already an extension for Safari that darkens the scene.

Contact Alias — Utilities — Free

People love their privacy, but you can’t play Phone Goalie all the time. What if there were some way to hide who your iMessages and texts are coming from, even if whichever nosy person you’re with is looking right at your screen?

Enter Contact Alias, an app that lets you set alternate names for anyone on your list and toggle them on and off with a single touch of a comically large button. I’m sure it has practical applications for sneaky sneakers, but I’m probably just going to use it to quickly change people’s contact names to “A**hole” when I’m mad at them.

Contact Alias – Ryan Siegel

I’m a big fan of words. The idea that you can arrange letters and spaces in such a way as to change minds, inspire emotion, and create art is powerful and almost magical.

And the idea that you can do the same thing to ruin someone’s day or knock them down a peg is a different kind of magic, but just as eagerly sought. Spell Quest: Grimm’s Journey falls into the latter, “words can hurt” camp.

But they’re hurting monsters, so it’s probably alright.

BlackBerry has today announced that it is updating BBM for Android and iOS to add a new “Find Friends” feature that helps you seek out other BBM users and invite them to connect. It works alongside your smartphone’s address book to detect BBM users you already know, and it’s ideal for new users looking to build up their contact list.