Welcome to Cult of Mac Magazine: a weekly newsmagazine devoted to the world of Apple. Every Saturday, we’ll bring you the best of what the Cult of Mac blog does on the Web, in an iPad-friendly format.

But there’s a twist.

Cult of Mac Magazine is the first news magazine devoted to the world of Apple technology. It’s like a Sunday newspaper magazine, but focused on Macs, iPhones and iPads and the people behind the news.

We’ll be doing a lot of original, long-form journalism. The world of technology is changing at a breathtaking pace. We’re in the middle of one of the biggest technology shifts ever; from desktop to mobile. Apple, of course, is at the very heart of it.

To help you with this change, we’ll have special editions devoted to different topics, from iOS gaming to cooking with an iPad. These special editions will be a mix of reported features, product reviews, app roundups and killer how-tos.

We’ll have new weekly features, like our “Ask a Genius” column, in which a genuine Apple Genius answers your thorniest technical questions.

We think a weekly iPad magazine is a great way to package and organize the stuff we are publishing every day on the website.

With news about Apple breaking 24 hours a day, it’s easy to miss stories on the web and hard to find something once it’s cycled down the site’s front page.

There are several forces at work that make it a great time to be publishing a blog-like magazine. The iPad is a reading machine. We’re already seeing tens of millions of page views in apps like Flipboard and Zite that syndicate our content. The web is good for breaking news or brief product reviews. The iPad is better for deep dives that explore a subject in depth.

We’ll be publishing four issues a month for a $1.99 monthly subscription. We think it’s going to be great. We’d love for you to check it out.

Many thanks, Leander.

Even if you don’t work in tech, you had better hope your town has more companies like Apple move in. If an innovation hub takes root where you live, you’ll be wealthier, healthier and less likely to divorce than areas that remain barren to it.

And if you are in a startup – wherever you live now, get yourself to one of these brain hubs before it’s too late.

That’s the crux of “The New Geography of Jobs,”  a fascinating book by Berkeley economics prof Enrico Moretti who leads readers on a whirlwind tour of how tech innovation is reshaping opportunity in the US, clustering around places like San Francisco, San Jose, San Diego, Austin, Seattle, Boston, Washington, DC and Durham, North Carolina.

There’s a big debate, of course, about the yuppification of cities like San Francisco, which have seen a huge influx of monied engineers from companies like Apple, Facebook and Google, who are feeding a huge boom in tech. Locals are complaining about skyrocketing house prices, $4 toast and the artisanal food trucks that charge $12 for a tofu Thai burrito. Outrage Missionites react with birthday pinatas shaped like Google buses and posters from the Yuppie-eradication project.

However, there is another side to it. If an Apple worker moves next door, that person will create on average five jobs, Moretti’s research shows.  Those jobs are a mix of skilled (nurses, lawyers, teachers) and unskilled ones (hairdressers, waiters, carpenters.) Innovation will never create the majority of US jobs, but it has an outsized effect on the economy of American communities, he writes. It’s not your resume but your zip code that determines how much money you make – so be glad instead of complaining about that Cupertino traffic, folks.

“Gentrification is a good problem to have”

Here in San Francisco a quick look around confirms that, at least on an anecdotal level. The Cult of Mac co-working space is abuzz with fancy-schmancy tattoo artists, hipster nail designers and boutique financial planners.

Moretti’s ideas – considerably nuanced and convincingly bolstered by research in the 250-page work – go counter to much of what’s being written about the squeeze of resources in the booming Bay Area. Gentrification is also a good problem to have, he says, acknowledging that it brings serious social consequences. The solution: not to discourage growth in innovation (in the vain hope manufacturing comes back to big cities) but manage the “growth in smart ways to minimize the negative consequences for the weakest residents and maximize the economic benefits for all.”

Given his local base, you’d expect a lot of interesting examples. In between a visit to a color scientist at Pixar and an artisan chocolate factory, he talks to a San Francisco bookbinder who employs eight people, uses the same equipment from decades past and whose fortunes go up and down with the high-tech companies of the NASDAQ. Noteworthy clients include the Jobs family, who had Steve’s condolence book made there.

Cities change and grow or they die out. And whether they thrive or wither in America now depends on innovation.

This picture of tech making things a little better for most of us is in stark contrast with the San Francisco that has been painted by the tech press as a gentrified, bloated old floozy who puts out for soulless tech workers who trample what dignity she has left by kickstarting pop-up food trucks and lofts that proliferate like mushrooms.

This strikes me as strange, coming from people whose livelihood often depends on breathless excitement over things like cell phone covers. Then again, I’m the fourth generation of my family to live here. I like to imagine that my great gran would find it funny that the Del Monte plant where she gave up elbow grease putting peaches into cans has morphed into a gaudy tourist shopping center. (I am also fairly sure she’d arch an eyebrow at my earnest writings about iPad stands, but still.)

Cities change and grow or they die out, basically. And whether they thrive or wither in America now depends on innovation. Whether you’re part of the innovation or provide services for those who are in it, you’re still better off. Moretti’s research shows that more college grads raise the salaries for everyone in an area – regardless of the higher cost of living. Same with lower divorce rates and better general health.

So get over that Tesla parked in your new neighbor’s driveway and get on with your life.

Apple has been hard at work on OS X Mavericks, even though it’s pushing to meet its deadline for iOS 7, and while many Apple fans were hoping the next Mac operating system might launch shortly after next week’s iPhone keynote, a new report claims Apple won’t ship OS X Mavericks until October.

There are a bunch of video games out on iOS for kids, from educational games to adventure games and more. Sure, you can get reviews of these games by adults, sometimes even from parents of kids who use them.

We thought it’d be fun, though, to ask the kids themselves.

Welcome to Kid APProved, a series of videos in which we ask our own children what they think of video games on the App Store that they’re playing.

This week, it’s Disney’s first Infinity tie-in game, Disney Infinity: Action!.

I’m no web designer. I’m not a coder either. I’ve either used WordPress or Squarespace to build my sites, which enables me to focus on content more than anything else. But there are times where I wish I knew more about CSS (or more specifically, CSS3) so I could make changes to my templates – even minor ones. I wish I knew how to take care of some of those things so I didn’t have to read up how to do it online – and spend an inordinate amount of time doing so – and then hope that I did it right because all I’ve done is copy and paste some code.

Cult of Mac Deals has an actionable video course that will help you wrap your head around CSS3 (and HTML5) during this limited time offer. For $39 you’ll get this course – and learn about some essential coding practices in the process.

Having gone without a refresh since 2009, the iPod classic is one of the oldest products still on sale in the Apple Store. Will Apple finally update it this fall to add flash storage and a Lightning connector? Probably not. In fact, some expect the Cupertino company to finally kill it off.

Having access to a dictionary is one way to really improve your vocabulary. When my teacher in eighth grade English class told me that, I ignored it, because who has time to stop reading, grab the dictionary from the shelf (or under my seat, in middle school), and look up that word. By the time I was done with that, I’d have lost any meaning in the reading I was doing, anyway. Ugh.

Flash forward to now, and almost every device has a dictionary attached to it. The same is true for Mac OS X, at least the Mountain Lion variety, and it’s super easy to bring up.

We have heard a lot of rumors and leaks over the last year that Apple would install a fingerprint sensor underneath the home button of the iPhone 5S this year, but what does the leaked hardware actually say?

Earlier this week, a number of images were posted showing the part for a new iPhone 5S home button and associated flex cable… and it was radically different than previous home button configurations.

But does it confirm the iPhone 5S has a fingerprint sensor? iFixIt CEO Kyle Wiens sure thinks so.

One of the problems that Apple has launching new iPhones in late September is that even though every iPhone release sells more than the release before it, they don’t actually bump Apple’s quarterly numbers as much as they could.

Why? Let’s take this year as an example. All signs point to the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C launching on September 20th, but Apple’s financial quarter ends on September 30th. That gives Apple just ten days to sell as many iPhones as possible to bump up their quarterly results. It’s the October – December quarter where Apple sees the most iPhone sales.

So how many iPhones can Apple sell in just ten days? According to Pacific Crest analyst Andy Hargreaves, a lot. He thinks Apple can sell up to 13 million iPhones before the quarter closes.

Earlier this week, we posted evidence that even after Apple unveils its new mid-range iPhone 5C device, it could keep the 16GB iPhone 5 around for customers who want a classier, more solid phone at a discounted price. Here’s some more confirmation.

Late last night, a verified account for China Telecom popped up on Weibo and posted an advertisement for the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C… and it seems to imply that iPhone 5C is a much different design than we think.

Monokrom is a pretty neat B&W conversion app for the iPhone. I uses colored filters to do the converting, so you can get some dramatic effects, just like if you were to use colored filters on your lens whilst shooting B&W film. Unlike most iPhone B&W apps, though, the range of available filters is unlimited – it uses the colors of the image itself.

From the department of “One Thing Well” comes KeyCam, an iPhone app which takes photos with a timer. Or a clap, which I guess makes that “Two Things Well,” but still.

There’s something beautifully absurd about the Hasselnuts Kickstarter project, which mounts your iPhone on the back of a Hasselblad 500-series film camera and uses it as an 8MP sensor for a camera that – in analog form – was considered hi-resolution enough to take photos on the moon.

Then again, if you do have an old Hassy lying around, then why not drop $250 just to get it working again?

Remember Federico Viticci’s review of the amazing new iPad “text editor” Editorial? Of course you do – it’s the one you pushed to your read-later service and never read later, because it was just too damn long for a single post on a website. Hell, the thing even had a table of contents. A blog post with a table of contents.

Now, though, you can enjoy Viticci’s opus in a form much better suited to a long text with multiple sections: a book. And being an Apple nerd, Viticci made it into an iBook.

The news from Sony this week was dominated by its stunning new iDevice-compatible QX lenses (and the blogger leaks that revealed the lenses before Sony wanted the lenses revealed).

But there’s also news from Sony’s audio corner; it’s evolutionary rather than revolutionary, but still exciting: Three new models have been added to the company’s midrange MDR-10 line of headphones, including one with what looks like class-busting noise-canceling abilities and another equipped with Bluetooth and NFC.

Despite the fact that Brother’s new, top-of-the-line all-in-one inkjet printer looks like a swarthy behemoth, Brother says the MFC-J6920dw is actually 35 percent smaller than comparable competitor’s models.

Brother achieves this through something they call “Landscape Print Technology,” a feature it introduced last year that lets the printers output to large pages from printers with relatively small footprints.

Apple just sent out an email to developers, notifying them that three new downloads are now available: OS X Server Preview 7 for OS X Mavericks, OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.5, and Windows Migration Assistant.

One of the downsides of being the world’s most successful company is that you’re the target of a ton of parody ads. Or is that the upside?

YouTube parody video creator, Matthias, has come up with a great one this time. Here’s the latest from the video creators: “Introducing the iPhone 5S.”

Think your messages are private? Think again!

A Cult of Mac reader, asking to remain anonymous, sent in a tip about how he caught his girlfriend reading Messages on his iPhone.

Privacy is important to this fellow, but he suspected that his love was sneaking peeks at his text and iMessages.

So he took a couple of steps to catch her in the act.

The latest from The Wall Street Journal is that Apple is working on bigger screens for the iPhone, with experiments ranging from 4.8 to 6 inches. This isn’t the first time we’ve heard such claims; the Journal itself said Apple was testing larger iPhones and iPads in July.

It sounds like Apple is still in the experimentation stage “with screens ranging from 4.8 inches to as high as six inches.” But the Journal says “people familiar with the company’s internal deliberations and plans indicate it [Apple] appears more willing to move ahead than in years past.”

Google’s mobile apps share a common and easily distinguishable design language, for the most part. The iOS app for Google Drive has been in desperate need of a redesign, and a revamped version has been released today in the App Store.

Google Drive now includes the card-like interface seen in other apps, which Google calls “thumbnail view.” You can quickly toggle between viewing thumbnails of files and the traditional list view. There are a number of other additions, including simpler file sharing and the ability to edit in landscape mode.

Fans across the globe have already embraced the idea that Apple will most likely release a smartwatch, but the biggest question everyone has is, what will it look like?

Artists and designers have been trying to imagine the design of the iWatch for a few years now and while no one has really blown us away with a perfect concept, we have seen some timely ideas that Apple will probably implement. To get a better idea of how the iWatch will look, function and feel, take a look at these six concepts.

Esben Oxholm iWatch

When design engineer Esben Oxholm created his iWatch concept he decided to make it as simple as possible. It features a black metal and rubber wristband. The display is shiny while the body is matte. And it has the rumored curved display. Apple’s iWatch probably won’t be as circular, but the minimalist look that Oxholm achieves will also be Apple’s aim as everything about the watch will defer to the screen.

Oxholm’s concept is probably the closest to what the iWatch will actually look like, though we imagine that Apple’s watch will be more oval in shape rather than a perfect circle. This concept almost looks like a bulked-up Nike Fuelband, which isn’t outside the realm of possibility. Tim Cook sits on Nike’s board, after all.

MacUser iWatch

Created by Dutch 3D modeler Martin Hajek, this MacUser iWatch concept tries to embrace traditional elements of watches while updating the technology of the watchface. In truth, Martin’s concept looks like a miniaturized iPhone strapped to some leather, but it gets a time out because of the UI.

The iWatch will have a touchscreen display, however, no one is going to want to interact with the display for extended periods of time. Our fingers are too tiny to hit the small X’s on this iWatch’s screen. The iWatch will be used to display information, but it won’t be used to interact with that info. Your iPhone will do all of the heavy lifting, while the iWatch acts as a secondary display to alert you of the most important information throughout the day.

ADR Studios iWatch

ADR Studios has made a couple of iWatch concepts, but this is their best one yet. The size of this concept iWatch is pretty small so it won’t feel like you’re wearing a computer on your wrist. Apple’s design team is obsessed with having the thinnest, lightest and smallest devices on the planet, so even though Apple will try to cram as many features into the iWatch as possible, it will also want to make a very small device. The actual face of the iWatch will probably be somewhere around this size unless Apple works out a curved display for it.

The UI for ADR Studios’ concept is one of the most on point we’ve seen so far. Notice that there is a small icon indicating that the iWatch is tethered to an iPhone. The ‘Slide to Unlock’ feature probably won’t be as big as it’s portrayed here, where it eats up half the screen. The iWatch display will take advantage of all available screen real estate even when it’s locked, so expect there to be bigger font for the time and a more elegant solution for unlocking.

Nikolai Lamm iWatch

One thing that a lot of iWatch concept artists haven’t taken into account is the user interface. Most assume that the UI will be a watered-down version of  iOS, but Nikolai Lamm offers a different take. Rather than interacting with your iWatch the same way you do an iPhone, it might actually be closer to the controls of the iPod classic.

Lamm’s spiral interface is based off an Apple UI patent for iTunes and would appeal to people who want the look of a classic watch that interacts with an iPhone. The circular finger movements required to interact with Lamm’s iWatch would compliment the design of the hardware and you would only need to touch your device when you want to adjust notification settings for certain apps, while everything else is controlled from your iPhone.

The display of the real Apple iWatch probably won’t be circular like this, but you should expect some new UI from Apple as the iWatch will be a completely new device with new functions not yet in iOS.

Just Design Things iWatch

With the sixth-generation iPod Nano, Apple embraced the idea of the iWatch and offered multiple clock faces and wrist bands to convert your iPod Nano into a watch. Expect the real iWatch to come with similar features.

The concept from Just Design Things for the iWatch has swappable wristbands and clock faces so that users can customize their look. Even if the iWatch doesn’t offer changeable Swatch-like wristbands, Apple will at least offer it in multiple colors. The display of this concept looks too heavy and bulky to be worn comfortably as a wristwatch though, so we think it’s more likely that the display will be built right into the band to make it more comfortable for everyday use.

ItswithaKay iWatch

For this iWatch concept, artist itswithaKay modeled the watch after Nike’s Amp watch and added some iOS elements. It sounds too simple to be plausible, but we already know that Jony Ive and his design team requested a number of sport watches from Nike to study.

The iWatch has to have a durable design. Unlike the iPhone or iPad, the iWatch must take a licking and keep on ticking, so a thick rubberized band will help resist some of the wear and tear. Also take note of the tapered band on this concept. It allows enough width for a display while also being comfortable for the wearer. The display will probably be a bit bigger than in this concept, the UI will be different along with the clasp in the back too, but the physical outline of the iWatch will be pretty similar to what you see here.

2K Drive, the highly anticipated racing game from the creators of titles like Project Gotham Racing, has launched as an iOS-exlusive title in the App Store. We’ve been covering the story of 2K Drive for awhile, and Cult of Mac Games Editor Rob LeFebvre got to play it over the weekend at the Penny Arcade Expo.

Yeah, that Call of Duty.

Activision today announced the exclusive to iOS launch of Call of Duty: Strike Team.

This is the first time Activision has released a mobile title in the incredibly popular and well-selling military first-person shooter franchise that breaks all kinds of records on consoles, Mac, and PC.

You’ll be able to play with a squad of four in the new iOS game, customizing the loadouts and skills of each team member, then switch between first-person action to a top-down, third-person viewpoint, giving you a more strategic take on the battles. Here’s a great video that explains more.