Throughout the Samsung vs. Apple patent trial, Judge Lucy Koh has been a stern and sardonic overseer that has more often than not resembled a fight between children than an actual lawsuit. Now Koh is speaking up again, telling Samsung and Apple that, once again, they are wasting everyone’s time throwing a million and one allegations at one another, and that they need to “focus and streamline” their cases against one another.

When you buy your iPhone 5, you have tons of options to choose from. Yes, there are different storage sizes, but you also have the two color options, and then have to get the right iPhone for your carrier. In the U.S. that means you have 18 different models to chose from if you don’t have a carrier preference.

If Apple could just manufacture one iPhone that works on all the LTE carriers, then they’d be able to simplify their supply chain considerably. Luckily, Qualcomm announced a new wireless chip that might make that possible.

The latest commercial for the Optimus G Pro starts as a homage to Apple’s iPhone 5 ad, “Cheese!”, which famously advertised iOS 6’s Panorama functionality.

Man, though, does LG one-up Apple in this advertisement, not only showing how the Optimus G Pro can create a 180 degree panorama of a scene… you can actually use the camera to stitch together a full 360 panorama as well, which LG calls a VR Panorama.

In addition to forecasting that Apple would double existing investor dividends to 6% by borrowing low-interest cash domestically. Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty walked away from her recent meeting with another conviction: that a cheaper ‘iPhone mini’ aimed at emerging markets was extremely likely

With AAPL stock in decline, investors are rioting to get a piece of Apple’s $137.1 billion cash horde. Greenlight Capital’s David Einhorn, of course, has been making waves with his lawsuit against Apple and his proposal that Apple issue an ‘iPref’ preferred dividend to investors; now, Morgan Stanley Katy Huberty has come out of a meeting with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer, apparently convinced that Apple will more than double its existing dividend to investors to 6%.

With 60 episodes, over 1,000,000 downloads, and more appearances as an iTunes top tech podcast than we can count, we celebrate our first year anniversary on our newest episode of The CultCast! Join us as we remember our favorite episodes and guests, and tell the story of how CultCast almost never made it on the air.

But first, true to form, we discuss this week’s best Apple news and stories, including the new iOS features Sony is introducing into their just-announced Playstation 4; the honor Jony Ive just received that’s even better than a knighthood; and Woz says Apple is close to losing its cool—we disagree!

Get a fun weekly dose of all things Apple, subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Street View is a new $0.99 iOS app from FutureTap that promises to bring Google Street View back to Apple’s Maps app on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Once installed, you’ll be able to access Street View from within Apple Maps with a series of simple taps. It’s not seamless, but it works.

Google has updated its Google Maps SDK for iOS to version 1.1, opening up its API to all third-party developers who now have the ability to build iOS apps with Google Maps embedded. The update also adds support for ground overlays, gesture controls, and more.

Notes on Mac OS X is like Notes on iOS: a basic, skeuomorphic note taking app that lets you type notes, format text, and add images from either operating system, and have them sync up if you’re using iCloud. There’s nothing super tricky about the app on OS X, but the default font size might be a bit too small for you.

If you want to change the size of the text that appears when you just start typing in Notes, here’s what to do.

Now that you’ve upgraded to the latest iOS devices, you’re probably wondering what to do with all your old 30-pin speaker docks. You could get a $30 Lightning to 30-pin adapter from Apple and continue to use them, but for just $15 extra, you can get the auris and turn them into wireless Bluetooth speakers.

The official Call of Duty Elite app for iOS has today been updated to version 2.2.0, which adds a number of handy new features. Players can now compare their statistics with those of their friends, and track their progress during clan operations and challenges.

If you’re a true music aficionado your time has come to upgrade to one of the best-designed sets of headphones on the market. This Cult of Mac Deals offer features a headset that is designed specifically for anyone looking to enhance their audio experience.

If you’ve considered buying high-end headphones such as Beats by Dre, these ETZ Headphones from 3EIGHTY5 AUDIO have arguably better sound quality with more luxury and style for half the price – just $129!

We told you that LEGO The Lord of the Rings was coming out this week, but if you were waiting for it to show up on Steam, you might be as disappointed as I was when I went to check it out tonight. The Steam store entry for the video game only shows PC compatibility, making my poor Mac-loving head sad.

Luckily, though, you can purchase LEGO The Lord of the Rings via the Mac Game Store as well as directly from Feral Interactive, the studio that ported the game to Mac in the first place, for the same $30 as it would cost you on Steam.

Maybe you’ve never played what is, inarguably, the best series of empire-building games ever created, and want to see what all the fuss is about. Or maybe you’ve been meaning to try that Vikings expansion pack. If any of the above fit, now is the time: Aspyr has cut the prices of all their Civilization titles by half to coincide with the release of the Civilization V: Gold Edition.

The French have a history of coming up with some pretty fascinating ideas. Some don’t work out too well. Some are ingeneous. The VEA Buddy watch looks like it fits in the latter category. What makes it different than the deluge of other smartwatches that have recently arrived: It might actually be brilliantly (French word, by the way) practical.

There are many Craigslist apps out there, but let’s be honest, most of them suck. A new app for Craigslist on Android and iPhone has arrived, and it’s beautiful. It comes from Mokriya, the development company behind high profile apps like Path.

Mokriya’s app is officially licensed by Craigslist, and it’s available now for free in Google Play and the App Store.

If you’ve been up on your Apple news the past few months, then you’ve probably heard about a “silly sideshow” that been going on about Apple’s stock. Basically, Greenlight Capital isn’t happy with the amount of cash their getting back on their investment in Apple, while Apple has been hoarding all their cash.

Hoping to convince Apple to give shareholders some of their cash, Greenlight Capitals found, David Einhorn, has a concocted a plan that would have Apple selling “iPref” stock to investors who want to eat Apple’s cake.

The only time I ever really care about Major League Baseball is during the Spring. And that’s only because I live in Arizona, where half of the league’s teams come for Spring training, and I can go watch tons of all-stars play games for cheap.

Whether you love baseball or not, you can certainly appreciate the amount of work that goes into the MLB At Bat app. It’s got tons of information, video, and photos, and it got a big update just in time for Spring training.

Every time I even go near a computer on a desk my wrists lock up and my carpal tunnels tighten. Still, even I can appreciate the amazing versatility and capacious storage power of this fully operational My Writing Desk, a beautiful plywood and fiberboard confection from etc.etc. designs.

Google has just unveiled an absolutely mystifying new product apparently created by insane millionaires, for even crazier millionaires: the Pixel, a $1,300 Chromebook with a Retina-like display. Although it’s attractive and well specced, it might be the most inexplicable product announced this year.

Sony and Microsoft, are all coming out with new gaming consoles this year, but when it comes to handheld gaming, Apple and Google have got them beat.

A new report claims that in the fourth quarter of 2012, gamers spend more money on iOS and Android games combined than the amount spent on dedicated handheld devices.

Following the public release of iOS 6.1.2, Apple has seeded the 6.1.3 beta to registered developers. Apple seeded the first iOS 6.1.1 beta towards the beginning of this month, and the minor release of 6.1.2 has caused the jump to 6.1.3 “beta 2.”

A crazy security flaw in the iOS lockscreen was recently discovered that could bypass a passcode, and Apple says it has patched the bug in this developer beta. There are also improvements to Maps in Japan.

Source: Apple

It’s no longer a surprise to walk into a store that sells gloves and mittens and finding a pair with capacitive spots on the thumb and forefinger. These gloves let you tap on the screen of your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, or other touchscreen device without having to take off your gloves, thereby saving you from potential cold hands or frostbite.

Living in a cold city like Anchorage, AK, I’ve come to appreciate the ability to use my iPhone when I’m outside, but really haven’t found a pair of gloves that let me use my iPhone naturally and easily, until now, with these knit gloves from Glove.ly. These soft, warm knit gloves now let me use my forefinger, a pinky, a thumb–indeed, a whole hand or two–to tap, swipe, and multi-touch gesture my way around an iPhone or iPad screen.

I’m fairly in (g)love.

Now that you’ve jailbroken your iPad on iOS 6 with Evasi0n the right way, it’s time to install the coolest tweaks and apps from Cydia, the jailbreak alternative to the App Store.

Wondering what you should install? Here’s a roundup of the very best jailbreak tweaks available for the iPad:

Jailbreaking allows you to do all sorts of wonderful things to your iPhone that Apple wouldn’t trust you with. It’s totally awesome and can completely change the look of your iPhone, which could be great, or horrible depending on your taste in design, fonts, and wallpapers.

We’ve seen some really beautiful iPhone themes and tweaks over the last year, which got us thinking, “How beautiful could you make your homescreen with jailbreak tweaks?”

We could go down this lovely path alone, but we’d love to have our pals accompany us. So what do you say? Make your iPhone homescreen as pretty and different as possible, take a screenshot, and then post it in the Cult of Mac Flickr group. The five best homescreens will win a free copy of Kuvva Wallpapers, so hurry up and beautify your homescreens.

Here’s how to enter the contest: