iTunes has gone from a basic mp3 player based on SoundJam in 2000 to a full-fledged movie and music media player, digital media distribution center, and repository of all your iOS apps. That’s quite a lot of functionality for a music player.

iTunes is still a pretty decent media player, even if it feels rather bloated at times when your music and movie collection grows out of control. However, like anything else complex, it can be a little tricky to figure out how to use iTunes most effectively.

Here, then, are five simple yet helpful tips and tricks to help you get the most out of your iTunes experience.

With deep strategy titles Civ Rev and Sid Meier’s Pirates in back catalog, just-released Haunted Hollow and the hotly anticipated iOS version of XCOM: Enemy Unknown due out this summer, one could argue that 2K Mobile isn’t the hottest name in iOS strategy games right now — but it’d be a steep uphill battle.

Then add this bombshell to support the argument: Sid Meier’s Ace Patrol, due out next Thursday, may be the best 2K iOS strategy game yet.

Today is Star Wars day (for the less nerdy, here’s the punchline: “May the Fourth be with you.” Now look at the date.)

In celebration, Aspyr has drastically cut prices on all five of their ported Star Wars titles — both at the Mac App Store and at Aspyr’s own GameAgent site (though they’re slightly more expensive at the former). Two of the titles can be had for as little as $3.30 each.

Apple haters, Android geeks and misinformed Wall Street analysts will tell you that Apple’s iPhone is falling behind because Apple can’t innovate anymore.

I don’t buy the Apple-doesn’t-innovate BS. Apple is super innovative, and their innovation is focused, disciplined and ultimately results in industry-dominating revenue and profits.

But iPhones are still lacking some of the best innovations out there. This isn’t because Apple can’t innovate. It’s because Apple can’t share. Apple can’t play nice with others. Apple wants to control the user experience, even at the expense of the user.

Apple isn’t open.

This quality used to be a benefit because it prevented the platform from becoming an ugly, confusing, fragmented mess.

But in the past month, Apple’s lack of openness has become a serious problem.

Here’s what I’m talking about.

Somehow, Apple managed to cram in a ton of web browsing functionality into a teeny, tiny package called Safari. To distinguish the mobile web browser from the one of the same name on OS X, we’ll call it Mobile Safari and be done with it.

Regardless of the name, the mobile version of Safari is chock full of features both subtle and hidden. Here are five great tips and tricks to help you master Mobile Safari on your own iOS device, whether that be an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch.

You may remember a post I wrote a while back about the Pentagon’s plan to get mobile devices working on military networks, and how we were able to ascertain that yes, they were working on testing iPhones and iPads and no, they were not planning on jettisoning support for Blackberry devices.

According to Spencer Ackerman at Wired today, iPads will finally have passed the rigorous security review set out by the US Military at the Pentagon in about two weeks, allowing the Apple-powered mobile devices onto the military networks. The Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs) for BlackBerry 10 devices and Playbook tablets, along with those for Samsung’s Knox Android phone, have already been released.

Path is a social network for our more private groups of friends and family, distinguishing itself from services like Facebook and Twitter in two ways. One, it’s not on any website, as it’s only accessible from your iPhone or iPad. Two, while it can be connected to those services, it does not have to, allowing you to keep things as private as you’d like, depending on the number of people you invite to the service as connections.

The new update, which went live just a few minutes ago, brings a new option to the app settings, allowing you to hide yourself in global search, which will keep even your friends from finding you or your activities if you don’t connect to them directly. This seems like a direct move to help Path feel more private, adding to a previous update, which brought private messaging (and stickers) to the app itself.

If you’re a fan of Lucas Arts and Sierra Games adventure games like Grim Fandango, The Dig, Monkey Island, or King’s Quest, you’ll dig this fun game from Replay Games, Inc. Fester Mudd: Curse of the Gold, Episode 1 is a spot-on tribute to the gaming days of yore, with hilarious writing, painterly-yet-pixelly artwork, and some quirky puzzles to solve with various items needing to be used with various other items.

It’s also by the guys who are working on the upcoming Leisure Suit Larry remake for iOS, so you know it’s gonna be good.

Slip on your Nikes and grab your Kool-Aid, dear brethren, it’s time for a new episode of The CultCast. This time around, iOS 7 takes over your car; 5S gets better at selfies; Jony Ive is under pressure; Tim Cook really doubles down on secrecy, ya’ll; and we pitch our favorite tech and apps on an all new Fave’s ‘N Raves.

All that and more on this week’s CultCast! Stream or download new and past episodes on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing now on iTunes, or hit play below and let the good times roll.

Break on through to the other side for the show notes.

Briefs is a new Mac app that allows designers to create interactive mockups of iOS apps. Developed by MartianCraft, Briefs can build iPhone and iPad app mockups without a single line of code. It looks like the ultimate tool for prototyping app ideas to clients and developers.

Different elements of an app can be assembled on the desktop and sent to the Briefscase iOS client via a shared WiFi network. From there, the mockup can be used like a real app on an iOS device.

There are 10 Apple stores in Germany, and another was opened today in the nation’s capital. After two years of construction, Berlin’s first Apple store was welcomed by thousands of eager customers and nearly 200 cheering employees. Lines started wrapping around the block 10 hours before the doors opened.

Hulu.com has long enabled us to watch our favourite content when we want on our computers. But what if you could add a whole other layer to your Hulu experience – one that gives you unlimited streaming on a myriad of devices, with access to entire seasons of your favorite series – and all in high-definition?

Well, that’s what Hulu Plus delivers.

Hulu Plus gives even more control over your entertainment options – and Cult of Mac has a deal that will help you take control of your entertainment: one month of Hulu Plus for absolutely free!

Want to get to websites faster using mobile Safari? No, I’m not talking about upgrading your internet or data plan to LTE or something, though that will obviously help. No, I’m more interested in showing you how to get to most major websites with just a bit less typing involved.

It’s pretty simple and straightforward, to be honest. Here’s how.

It seems like a week can’t pass by without a new video streaming app coming out of the wood work. If you need more video streaming options on your iPhone, T-Mobile’s got a new app to hook you up.

T-Mobile TV was just released for iPhone yesterday. The app has been on Android devices since 2010, but this is the first time the magenta carrier is bringing it to iPhone. The “free” app includes a number of channels, such as Disney, Nickelodeon, E!, TLC, ESPN, NBC, MTV, Comedy Central and more.

This is the first part of a two-part review. When you see the case I’m writing about, the reason will be obvious. It’s the Castello Davarg Kanam, and it’s a wraparound case fashioned from full grain leather in the good old U.S of A. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that it was thrown together by unionized slackers with one eye on the time-clock: The case is clearly put together with some care.

Why the tow-parter? Because this is a chunk of cow, and as such it’s meant to age gracefully, getting better over time. So today is more of a first look, with a long-term write-up to follow.

It’s no secret that AT&T is the least affordable carrier for the iPhone in the U.S. While T-Mobile has quickly rebranded itself as “The UnCarrier” and other prepaid carriers have attracted customers with their flexible plans and cheaper service, AT&T has clung to its expensive data and phone plans. All that might be ending soon though.

AT&T is planning to launch a pre-paid brand called ‘All In One” on June 15th to compete with other pre-paid carriers like Cricket, U.S. Cellular, Boost and now T-Mobile. The new AT&T pre-paid brand will offer customers monthly services starting at $35 per month for feature phones and $50 per month on smartphones.

Over the last few years, we’ve seen quite a few Apple I’s hit the auction block. Some of the machines can be worth over half a million dollars, depending the item’s condition, and a new working Apple I is about to hit the auction block.

A German auctioneer is putting their rare, working Apple I computer up for auction later this month and hopes to make between $261,000 and $392,000.

Now days, if you’re a carrier and you’re not selling the iPhone, you’re kind of screwed. As T-Mobile became the last of the four major U.S. carriers to start selling the iPhone earlier this year, smaller carriers like Cricket and U.S. Cellular have been trying to attract customers with cheaper phone and data rates.

Along with expanding its LTE offerings to over 86% of it’s customer in 2013, U.S. Cellular just announced that they will probably start selling the iPhone by the end of 2013.

Want to easily create interactive 3D objects on your Mac for the web? Want something so simple that no Flash or QuickTime plugins are required to run them – which means the objects will even work on your iPhone or iPad as well? Want to save 51% on such a software solution in the process?

Well, now you can with Boxshot VR and Cult of Mac Deals.

In today’s world it can be really difficult to set a website apart from the rest. BoxshotVR is here to help bring a unique UX to any page by making it easy for you to create interactive 3D objects that you can add to any site. Not only will it help a website stand out but it will also help you put a new twist on anyone’s website. Cult of Mac Deals is offering you an opportunity to pick up Boxshot VR for only $23.99 – but only for a limited time.

While Google Glass is already compatible with iPhone, some of its killer features — including turn-by-turn navigation and text messaging — require a companion app that’s currently only available on Android. But according to one Google employee, Glass will soon be able to offer these features no matter what device it’s connected to.

Spotify has acquired Swedish music discovery startup Tunigo in an effort to compete with Twitter’s new music service, AllThingsD reports. Tunigo will continue to operate as normal for the time being, but all of the company’s employees will reportedly move into Spotify’s offices in Stockholm and New York to work on Spotify’s main music streaming service.

What better way than try to woo customers into buying a Prius Plug-In hybrid car than by drawing a parallel between charging your iPhone and screwing your iPhone?

That was Toyota’s, uh, “genius” idea. It’s a free game called Plug-In Championship, and it’s one of the most hysterically dumb iPhone games in recent memory, in which your goal is to plug your iPhone in to charge according to the position of a “fast-moving bar rising up the screen.”

It’s what happens when you do plug your iPhone in that is so hysterically, bizarrely sexualized, though. If you’ve ever seen the end of Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest, it’s a lot like that.

With the countdown to 50 billion App Store downloads now underway, Apple has begun highlighting the “top 25 all-time” free and paid apps on iOS. The Cupertino company did a similar thing in the run up to 25 billion downloads last year, and for 10 billion downloads in January 2011.

Some of the apps included in the list are no surprise, with the likes of Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Skype topping the free chart, and Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, and Doodle Jump topping the paid chart.

Grand Theft Auto: Vice City is the best thing that ever happened to the “Games” folder on my iPad. It’s one of my favorite games of all time, and I love that I can play it whenever, wherever now that it’s on iOS. If you haven’t already snapped it up, now’s a great time, because it’s on sale for the first time since it hit the App Store.

We’ve been talking a lot about the budget iPhone in recent months, mostly in relation to the emerging market (where the vast majority of the remaining smartphone growth is expected to happen in the next five years), but here’s a question: even if Apple, as they are rumored to do, release their first plastic iPhone since the iPhone 3GS, how are they going to price it low enough to actually penetrate third-world countries where the cost of the phone might be equal to someone’s salary for the month? Especially while maintaining Apple’s customary profit margins?

The truth is, it’s almost impossible to imagine Apple being able — or interested! — in doing any such thing. Current rumor pegs the “budget” iPhone as basically an iPhone 5 with a colorful plastic shell. If those rumors are true, that’s not really a budget phone: it’s a mid-range. It has to be if Apple wants to make money off of it.

Slowly but surely, that’s the realization dawning on some people on Wall Street. The “budget” iPhone isn’t going to be budget at all. And Apple’s going to make buttloads off of it.