There are different ways to measure the success of a tech company — thing like how many lucrative patents it’s sitting on, how much money it’s giving back to shareholders, and what its overall market penetration is in whatever area it’s operating in.

Well, there’s another way also: how much do its product launches correlate with a spike rates. You can keep your reports about Apple’s recent financial quarters disappointing Wall Street analysts — as far as San Francisco’s criminal element is concerned, Apple is doing better than it has in years.

The ClipR is a little disk that turns any headphones into a set of Bluetooth headphones. Or, to be more accurate, it turns any 3.5mm jack cable into a Bluetooth-enabled jack cable.

And it has a clip, so you can tuck that cable neatly away.

It’s Black Friday everyone, and Cult of Mac is here to tell you that Apple has kicked off its sales across retail outlets in Europe (including the UK). We’re not just talking about gift cards being on offer, either — but real cash savings.

Here are the the most popular savings being given on Apple’s most popular products:

When I ordered a Retina iPad mini, I went for the cellular version – and not only because it means I can get online anywhere without draining my iPhone’s battery by tethering. I got it for the GPS, which is pretty fantastic to have when traveling, especially in the (big) pocket-sized mini.

But if you didn’t have the foresight to spend the extra $130 on a cellular, you can now spend that exact same $130 on a dongle that adds GPS through the Lightning port.

I love my Olloclip, but I wince every time I use it and see its anodized red body next to my white iPhone. Kidding. Who cares if it matches? After all, it’s what’s on the inside that counts and beauty is only skiZzzzzzz.

Kidding again. Somebody at Olloclip cares, which is why you can now snap up a limited edition gold or space gray Olloclip, along with a neat Cyber Monday cyber discount of 10%.

Native Union wasn’t kidding around when it chose the name “Gripster” – this thing can be gripped and grabbed any way you like. Hell, even a Dolphin could get a purchase on this thing with its slippery flippers. The case, now available for the iPad mini, had a swiveling hand loop, a kickstand/carrying handle and a Smart Cover that folds up to add yet another handle.

If the new iPad Air or Mini with Retina display is on your or a loved one’s list this holiday season – this bundle from the award-winning designers at Just Mobile is a deal that’s too good to pass up.

The Slide iPad stand and the AluPen stylus are winners of nearly a dozen prestigious awards, including Best of Show, Design, and other Category awards from the likes of MacWorld, iF International Forum, Reddot, iLounge, Computex, Spark, and others. And Cult of Mac Deals has them packaged together for just $59.99 for a limited time.

Hatch, the cute virtual pet for iPhone from the makers of Clear, has received its first update just one week after making its App Store debut. The release adds some beautiful wallpapers for your iPhone, introduces some new shop items, and makes a long list of fixes, tweaks, and improvements.

You’ve probably heard that the new iPad mini with Retina display has a significantly smaller color gamut that the larger iPad Air, but how does it compete against rival tablets like the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon’s new Kindle Fire HDX?

According to the experts at DisplayMate, not very well. In fact, the new iPad mini came a “distant third” in their tablet display shootout, thanks to Apple’s “inexcusable” decision to use old technology.

“Apple was once the leader in mobile displays, unfortunately it has fallen way behind,” DisplayMate says.

Hoping to get a nice discount on your next Mac or iOS device this Black Friday? Then you’d better buy it from a third-party retailer. Apple has taken a new approach to its Black Friday deals this year and decided to give away gift cards rather than discount its goods.

An astonishing 76 percent of new smartphone sales in Japan for the month of October were either iPhone 5s or 5c handsets, according to recent data.

The report comes from a Kantar World Panel, and demonstrates just how far Apple’s share of the Japanese smartphone market has increased over the present quarter.

Just when you thought you had heard every wacky app concept going, here’s another you might not have considered: Facebook for dogs.

Okay, it’s not exactly Facebook, but the free Woof iOS app (from developer Woof Labs) is pretty much that — describing itself as “an ecosystem to bring dog lovers closer to their dogs and local dog communities.”

Imagine that your task list was made up of a bunch of little slips of paper that you can slide around in any order, only these slips can’t blow away. That’s the central metaphor for Gneo, a universal task manager app which starts out looking like the ultra-simple Clear app, but hides a lot of power under the hood.

“Great pen, lousy software” was the gist of our review for the Livescribe 3, a.k.a. “The World’s Smartest Pen” when we got the chance to use it recently.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Livescribe 3 is a so-called “smart pen” which takes handwritten notes and transfers them from paper to screen on the iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. (In other words, it’s something of a next-generation Newton stylus for those old enough to remember Apple’s long-abandoned line of PDAs.)

There are few tech terms more loaded than “user privacy” here in 2013.

Back in January Cult of Mac reported that Apple had lost its spot on a list of the 20 most trusted companies when it comes to user information. That was long before the revelations of Edward Snowden and PRISMgate (the subject of an entire recent issue of our Newsstand magazine), which made everyone super-jumpy about data collection and what it means for personal liberties.

Here’s a riddle to start Thanksgiving in style: what looks like an iPad mini, costs only $177, ships anywhere in the world, and runs… Android?

It’s none other than the Chuwi V88, and it’s a Chinese tablet designed to appeal to the would-be iPad owner on a budget — or at least a would-be Android owner, who wants people to think that they’re really an iPad owner.

Would you pay $100 for a cutting board with a few holes drilled in it? No? Are you sure? Because somebody certainly does. In fact, as of this writing, 349 people have ponied up between $68 and $98 to pre-order the Slate Mobile AirDesk on Kickstarter, a wooden laptop tray that lets you put your laptop on your lap. Like a sap.

TenOne Design’s new updated Pogo stylus is gonna be great for heavy stylus users, people who love magnets, and folks with shirt pockets. Why? Read on:

Ever wished that there was an app like Diptic, only it let you put videos together in a grid instead of just photos? No, me neither, but if we had, then we’d love Diptic video.

Apple is all about the dollars; something that usually pleases its shareholders no end.

However that same behavior may be exactly what has wound up getting the company on the wrong side of Brazil’s Consumer Protection Secretariat department.

Boxer, my current and all-time favorite iOS e-mail client, has now added Sanebox to its list of features. Sanebox, if you don’t know it, is a service that weeds out the crap from your e-mail inbox and presses it into a solid nugget that can be easily disposed of, after you’ve picked it over for anything good. And you can now try it out without signing up, right inside Boxer itself.

I bought the original version of Lomo’s make-it-yourself Konstruktor camera, made it, shot a roll of film, loved the results, and gave the thing to a thrift store.

Why? Because film is a pain. In fact, I probably should have bought this limited-edition see-through version instead, as it would at least had a life beyond one single 36-exposure roll of film.

Songkick Concerts — Music — Free

Like live music? Got an iOS device full of music? Songkick Concerts looks like the app for you, then, as it trawls your music library to find concerts in your area. Be the first one to grab tickets to hot events, all based on your own music preferences. Sounds good, right?

If you’re traveling to a new city, never fear, as you can use Songkick Concerts to search your destination for upcoming concerts from those very same artists. Want to see Kanye West in Madison Square Garden? I mean, who wouldn’t? Use this app to find out when and where he’s playing, and tap through to buy tickets right within the app itself.

Of course, you’ll want to use Songkick Concerts to bargain shop as well, since it lets you compare venues and prices for all the artists you must obviously want to go see, since they’re in your music library.

Songkick Concerts

The holy grail of mobile devices like the iPad mini, in my opinion, is a bulk-free, cable-less charging system that can position Apple’s diminutive tablet in various ways.

The iPort Charge Case tries to make this dream come true, but it doesn’t quite hit the mark. While the iPort stand can indeed hold my iPad mini in both portrait and landscape orientation at a wide range of viewing angles, the need to place my gorgeously designed device into a bulky plastic case sort of kills the whole idea of “mini.”

The iPort Charge Case and Stand does indeed have some very valid uses in and around the home, but ultimately, due to the way it changes the use experience of the iPad mini, it isn’t quite the world-changer it hopes to be.

It’s a widely established fact that Android dominates the mobile landscape’s market share globally. IDC’s most recent numbers say Android accounted for 80% of the market in the third quarter of 2013, while iOS only accounted for 13%.

But there’s much more to consider than just market share when determining who’s winning the mobile wars. For instance, Apple brings in the lion’s share of mobile profits. We told you just earlier today why developers pick iOS to make apps on before Android: apps on Android generally make only a fraction of the money that can be mined from App Store users.

Adfonic tracked third-quarter mobile ad impressions and found that iOS received twice the number of ad impressions of Android. That means there’s a much higher level of user engagement on iOS.