It’s easy to forget just how much the iPhone changed things. Today saw the publishing of one of the iPhone’s most familiar patents — its gesture/touch-based text selection tool.

Describing a new way of selecting text using gestures on a multi-touch sensitive display screen, the patent, which was filed back in March 2008, is credited to Wayne Carl Westerman, Apple’s Multi-Touch Architect; Bas Ording, a User Interface Designer who joined Apple not long after Jobs’ return; B. Michael Victor, and Stephen O. Lemay.

We all know Apple is one of the biggest companies around, but how big is just iTunes? Bigger than many famous, multinational corporations, as it turns out… and that’s without counting in iPhone, iPad and Mac sales.

There’s talk that the iPod is dead, but not so. Although Apple’s selling less of its iconic MP3 player than it has in years, there’s at least one place where iPods are worth their weight in gold: Sochi, where an Olypic athlete nicknamed ‘iPod’ has brought home the gold.

It’s not every day that you hear a story of someone quitting their “dream job,” especially at Apple. While people leave the company all the time, hearing anything about it publicly is very rare. Apple’s thick veil of secrecy extends to everything it does, including the talent it gains and loses.

A former mobile designer at Apple named Jordan Price has published a pretty damning explanation of why he chose to quit his job at Apple.

With the proliferation of mobile, internet-connected devices, iOS development and software development as a whole are rapidly expanding fields. The demand for new developers (of all skill levels) far outweighs the supply, and don’t think you need a degree in computer science to get your foot in the door…passion and hard work can get you just as far.

The Complete iOS 7 Developers Course is a true iOS boot camp, you’ll gain the skills and learn the tools needed to develop iPhone and iPad applications for iOS 7. And now you can get it for only $59 – a savings of 88% – thanks to Cult of Mac Deals!

Getting a screenshot on your Mac using the default keystrokes can be adventure in dexterity to say the least. This Cult of Mac Deals offers you a one stroke solution to this dilemma…and at a price that’s tough to beat.

DreamShot uses just one keyboard shortcut to take and send screenshots to all apps, services, and destinations on your Mac that deal with images. Keeping your current system in place, DreamShot is the brain of your screenshot workflow, tying it all together into one seamless experience. And Cult of Mac Deals has it for 50% off – just $4.99.

Facebook’s main iOS app has just added a feature to automatically play videos–sans sound–when you swipe the video preview onto your screen.

If you have data caps, or just don’t want to waste your cellular bandwidth on videos you don’t want to see anyway, there’s a simple way to restrict the auto-play feature to only when you’re on a Wi-Fi network.

Sadly, there’s no way to just turn the feature off, though.

If Indiana Jones carried an iPad, he’d carry it in the Outback Solo. It’s a beautiful, tough waxed-canvas and leather number, with a padded lining for an iPad, pockets on the front for an iPhone and a wallet or a charger, a little loop on the front for handing your whip and a leather flap that closes with a magnetic clasp to keep out snakes. It’s pretty great.

Apple announced this morning that it has promoted Denise Young Smith to lead its human resources worldwide for the company.

Smith has been working as Apple’s chief of human resources for retail operations, but will replace Joel Podolny, who’s moving over to work full-time on Apple University

The iPhone 6 is still many months away from launching but the rumor mill has sprayed a steady stream of rumors about Apple’s next handset, with the latest claiming Apple will ditch the iPhone’s bezel for an edge-to-edge display.

Image editing app iDraw has been around for quite some time, but the new 2.0 version (released this past week) really kicked things into high gear.

If you’re looking for a solid Photoshop-style image editing program for only a little bit of scratch, iDraw 2.0 has it in spades. The app now imports and exports PSD photoshop files with full vector path and effect support, as well as shape layers and layer effects. You can also export your designs as layered PSD files.

The app has been redesigned for iOS 7 as well, and it now takes advantage of the new 64-bit A7 processors on the new iPad Air.

Seriously, there is so much jam-packed into this release as to consider it an entirely new app, which is why we wanted to share it with you now.

Source: iDraw 2.0 – $8.99 | Indeeo, Inc.

Your iPhone is indispensable. You carry it all the time and it makes your life a whole lot easier due to its versatility and power. But what about when you need to fix your bike, tighten a screw, or cut your steak? Is there an app for that?

No…but there is a case for that.

Introducing The TaskOne Case, a multi-tool built right into an iPhone 5/5S case. With 22 tools plus dual kickstands engineered into an ultra-compact package, TaskOne is the ultimate iPhone case for the nature enthusiast, gadget lover, or handyperson. and for a limited time you can get the TaskOne for 35% off the regular price – just $64.99.

Sprint, America’s third-largest carrier, has just announced its Q4 2013 earnings revealing marginal growth thanks to its quickly-expanding 4G LTE networks around the country. The carrier added a total of 682,000 customers during the last three months of 2013 alone.

Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen says he yanked his app from online stores because of its “addictive” qualities, putting to rest the many theories about why he would try to kill the game at the peak of its popularity.

Plex Inc. has slashed 50% off all of its mobile apps for Android and iOS for a limited time, including Plex for Google TV. “This sale will last about as long as most relationships,” the company says, so you’ll need to get in quick to take advantage of the offer.

We’ve all been there, in a meeting or a quiet house and we just want to turn the volume down. The whole point is that we want to make things quieter.

We hit the F11 media “Volume Down” key on the keyboard to just keep quiet and all we hear is the Pop Pop Pop sound as the volume decreases.

Annoying.

Luckily, it’s super easy to fix in OS X Mavericks.

The official Flappy Bird might well be dead, but if you thought that was the last you’d see of it, you can think again.

Since the game’s creator announced it would be pulled over the weekend, countless clones have been popping up all over the place. Even the Pebble smartwatch has one called Tiny Bird, and it’s available now for free through the Pebble appstore.

Perhaps paying homage to its fallen brother Flappy Bird, award-winning iOS flapping game Badland is currently priced 50% off its usual cost of $3.99.

That’s not all. In time for Valentine’s Day, Badland adds a new friendly multiplayer level where the aim is to cooperate with — rather than compete against — friends, along with a new “lovely” main menu to get you in the mood for amore.

Ever wondered if somebody you thought you could trust is going through your phone when it’s out of sight?

That’s the (all too pertinent) premise behind Catchr, a new app designed to give users peace of mind while they are away from their iPhone. While the app won’t protect against “leaky apps” or other forms of government eavesdropping, it can tell you whether your phone has been moved, and which applications have been started or stopped during your absence — along with plotting on a map where your iPhone has been during the time Catchr is running.

The general thought process when it comes to iOS 7 game controllers is this: “I would like one of those, but they’re horribly expensive.”

MOGA is apparently trying to do something about that, since it has just dropped the price of its Ace Power iOS 7 controller from $99.99 to $79.99. That’s still $40 more than you can buy a PlayStation 3 Dualshock 3 wireless controller for (which you can then use to play iOS games provided you’re willing to jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch), but if cost is the one factor that’s been holding back your decision to buy an Ace Power controller, this may help sway you in the right direction.

Apple has lost its latest bid to put court-appointed antitrust monitor Michael Bromwich on hold, with a federal appeals court rejecting Apple’s claim that the monitor’s work was causing irreparable harm.

In a brief order, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York said that Bromwich (the former U.S. attorney and Justice Department inspector general given the job of ensuring antitrust compliance regarding e-book price fixing) may continue to examine Apple’s antitrust compliance policies, while Apple pursues a broader appeal seeking to remove him altogether.

Carl Icahn has backed off campaigning Apple to increase its stock buyback — citing the company’s recent repurchases, along with influential proxy adviser ISS’s call against his proposal.

In a letter directed to Apple shareholders, Icahn noted that he was ditching his non-binding proposal to get Apple to add a further $50 billion to its buyback plan — down from the original $150 billion he was initially requesting.

How hot is Sigma’s new DP2 Quattro camera? [Licks fingertip, mimes touching object, makes “tssss” sound with mouth.] That hot! The crazy-looking new camera not only has a whacked-out body design that looks like it’d be real comfy to hold, it has a crazy new take on Sigma’s already weird Foveon sensor inside.

Shortcut-S is the kind of devices that is born when engineers get to make whatever they want. It’s a huge monster of a keyboard, with 319 keys all dedicated to separate Photoshop functions. It’s as if somebody took the piano and added a key to play every chord and note of Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony. Would that actually make it easier to play?

Kim Dotcom’s Mega app for iOS now lets you auto-upload your photographs from your iDevice, just like Dropbox, Jottacloud and Google Drive. Only unlike those other cloud services, Mega comes with 50GB free storage, and jumps to 500GB when you sign up for the $11-per-month paid tier.