SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/iWORLD 2013 – I don’t believe in covering my gorgeous iPhone with a case. I want it to be naked. Free. Yes, it might gather some battle scars in the process, but I think those give it character. I also don’t use a case because I just don’t want any extra bulk in my pocket, and most cases add a half inch of thickness to my svelte iPhone 5.

TwelveSouth has heard the complaints of iPhone users like me who hate using cases. They know that some of us don’t want to hide the iPhone’s beautiful design. They know I just want to be able to slip it in and out of my pocket with ease. But they also know I worry that my screen is going to get scratched or shatter, and they think they have the perfect solution.

Adobe has been making their “creative suite” for years, and while it is robust on so many levels, it is also daunting on just as many. There’s so much to learn and wrapping your head around each component is key in order to get the most out of each of them. Our latest Cult of Mac Deals offer will give you a chance to get the most out of Adobe Creative Suite 6 so that you can get more results from your creative work.

The Adobe CS6 Training Bundle offers over $891 worth of education on Adobe Creative Suite 6 – with over 1000 lessons making up over 100 hours of practical training – and Cult of Mac Deals has it available for only $99 for a limited time!

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has revealed that he sees Apple TV as more of a threat to the Steam Box than consoles like the Xbox or PlayStation. The Cupertino company has an “obvious pathway” into the living room with its platform, Newell told students at the University of Texas — and competitors must try to establish themselves before Apple does something about it.

What fun the Option key is in OS X, right? Adding it to clicks and keystrokes makes many features accessible that would otherwise be hidden. We’ve spent the last few days talking about how to maximize the Option key in your power-user Mac workflow, in the Finder, the Menu Bar, and in iWork apps.

Now, we’re going to head over to Apple’s built-in browser, Safari, and show you how the Option key can make your Safari life just that bit better.

There’s a new Android statue on Google’s Mountain View campus today. Made from what appears to be chrome, the little guy is hanging out of Building 45, which is situated opposite the lawn where the other Android statues sit. Its arrival has sparked speculation that Google is ready to release a new version of Android, but according to the company, we’re reading too much into it.

The upcoming evasi0n jailbreak that will will allow users to hack iOS devices running Apple’s latest iOS 6.1 firmware has been completed for Mac and Windows ahead of its public release. The team behind it the exploit confirmed the update on Twitter this morning. All that remains is the Linux client and “some testing.”

Adobe has been making their “creative suite” for years, and while it is robust on so many levels, it is also daunting on just as many. There’s so much to learn and wrapping your head around each component is key in order to get the most out of each of them. Our latest Cult of Mac Deals offer will give you a chance to get the most out of Adobe Creative Suite 6 so that you can get more results from your creative work.

The Adobe CS6 Training Bundle offers over $891 worth of education on Adobe Creative Suite 6 – with over 1000 lessons making up over 100 hours of practical training – and Cult of Mac Deals has it available for only $99 for a limited time!

The new year is well underway, and we’ve got a bundle lined up for you here at Cult of Mac Deals that will help you make the most of your Mac over the months to come. And the best part is that you’ll get all 8 of these time-savings apps for free as part of The Mac Freebie Bundle.

I did something really dumb in Vegas last month — I forgot my sunglasses in a Starbucks. A couple of hours after trapsing through a mall, I realized what I’d done, and panicked; they weren’t cheap. I anxiously retraced my steps, ending up back at the cafe. Some fabulous Samaritan had turned them in.

If I’d left my phone behind instead — or something else large enough for a FinderCodes tag (sunglasses aren’t) — the good guy (or girl) could have easily FedExed it to me anonymously.

The Tumblr iOS app updated about three hours ago, stating “small bug fixes” as what’s new in the app. This move comes shortly after 500px app was pulled from the app store, only to return with a 17+ rating, and Twitter-owned Vine got some flack as well.

What’s not listed in the App description is that version 3.2.4 of the Tumblr app is now rated for people 17+, and users will need to click through a dialog that says they are old enough to use the app. Because that totally works.

For all those unilingual schmos who’ve thought they were telling some lucky foreigner “hey, I like the cut of your jib” in another tongue, but instead said something like “you chicken dance the burning planets,” I sympathize. And also laugh. To make up for the laughing, here’s a tip — a trick app to pull out next time: Sendboo. It’s a free app that automatically translates your “hey, baby” to “olá, bebê” — or into 29 other languages besides Portuguese. Fantástico.

The iOS 6.1 jailbreak is dropping within the week. A group of hackers known as the Evad3rs have been working on it for months, and when it’s released, all current iOS devices will be compatible (with the exception of the third-gen Apple TV).

While we’ve known that a new jailbreak is coming, details have remained relatively scare. Until now. An official home has been given for the iOS 6.1 jailbreak: evasi0n.com

 SAN FRANCISCO, MACWORLD/iWORLD 2013 – The doors of Macworld/iWorld  open up tomorrow morning, but we’ve already taken a quick tour of the Moscone center to get an early look at the action.

Exhibitors are rushing around trying to put the finishing touches on their booth, but it looks like some of them will be burning the midnight oil as a lot of booths still need a ton of work. We’ll be back tomorrow morning to cover all the cool new products and TechTalks, but for now, here’s what it looks like behind the scenes of Macworld/iWorld 2013.

Apple has released a new SMC firmware update for the MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air. “This update addresses a rare issue on some Apple notebooks where a battery that has accumulated more than 1000 charge cycles may unexpectedly shut down or stop functioning,” according to Apple. This applies specifically to older batteries, but the update is recommended for all MacBook models.

You can find this new firmware update in the Mac App Store or download it directly from Apple’s website.

Source: Apple Support

Apple released iOS 6.1 Monday, and users are upgrading to the new software at a rapid pace. In under three days, just over 20% of Onswipe’s 13 million+ monthly active iOS users have updated to 6.1. Onswipe does touch-optimized website layouts for mobile devices. When iOS 6.0 came out last year, it took a week for around 44% of users to update, according to Onswipe’s data. Chikita reported similar numbers after the iOS 6.0 release.

Cult of Mac’s mobile site happens to be built by Onswipe, and the platform has brought us a 240% increase in page views on the iPad. Onswipe has seen a lot of growth by partnering with sites like ours in recent months, so their sample data is likely much more diverse this go around.

These adoption numbers aren’t exactly indicative of the entire iOS user base. The devilishly handsome and smart people who read sites like Cult of Mac are prone to update to new software quickly. And that’s because you’re awesome.

Source: TechCrunch

Despite the fact that she uses an iPhone, Alicia Keys joined BlackBerry’s CEO onstage today to announce her new position at the company as “Global Creative Director.” After giving a creepy analogy about her and BlackBerry “exclusively dating,” Keys skirted a question about what phone she used before her BlackBerry. That’s probably because she was a self-proclaimed “iPhone junky.”

The idea of a famous artist/non-technology expert like Alicia Keys getting in bed with BlackBerry may seem weird, but this isn’t something new. For years struggling tech companies have been using faux-celebrity partnerships and endorsements as a desperate plea for attention.

RIM’s European managing director, Stephen Barnes, was interviewed on BBC Radio 5 this morning about the new BlackBerry 10 system and phones coming down the line.

The host of the interview repeatedly asks direct, clear questions about what RIM has learned from Apple’s iPhone.

Barnes hilariously refuses to even acknowledge the word iPhone, let alone that RIM has obviously taken several pages from Apple’s smartphone book. Even, worse, he sounds scared.

Ok, get it out of your system. I’ll wait.

Ahem. So, by one-handed reading, I’m really talking about being able to hold your iPad mini or iPhone in your left or right hand, much like you can with a dedicated eReader device, like a Nook Simple Touch or a Kindle. The ones with buttons on them allow you to hold the reader in one hand, like you would with a paperback while lying in a sun chair by the pool, or in bed at night.

Here’s how to make your iPad or iPhone work more like that.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) allows the U.S. government open access to electronic information stored by non-US citizens on US-based servers, like a host of cloud services available today. iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, and other popular services are all subject to this law, passed in 2008 by the Bush administration and recently re-authorized by the Obama administration for another 5 years.

What this means is that any data stored by non-American citizens on cloud servers here in the US is able to be looked at in entirety by various agencies in the US federal government, including the NSA, FBI, and CIA.

Apple’s Find My iPhone led San Francisco police on a 90MPH car chase last night which ultimately led to the arrest of three suspected armed robbers.

My normally sleepy neighborhood in San Francisco has been plagued recently with a string of violent and scary armed street robberies.

For the last week or so, a gang of violent perps have been robbing people of gadgets like their iPhones at gunpoint. But last night, an iPhone hit them back.

That new Apple TV that went through the FCC last night? Apple says not to get too excited, it’s just a small tweak: it won’t be physcally smaller, nor will it feature any new functionality.

Kanex’s new DualRole will be pretty much essential for hotel-hopping MacBook Air owners the world over. It’s a little pocket-sized box which hooks up to the MacBook’s USB 3.0 port and turns it into three ports plus an Ethernet jack.

Yes, it costs $70, but you can expense that, right?

It’s official: the BlackBerry Z10, the first smartphone to ship with the new BlackBerry 10 operating system, and what many believe is the last chance for BlackBerry (formerly RIM) to save itself from complete irrelevance.

The early reviews of the Z10 aren’t bad, but aren’t great, pretty much agreeing that the smartphone is just good enough to buy BlackBerry some time. But how does it stack up, spec-for-spec, against the iPhone 5 and some of Android’s top phones? We’ve put together a chart for you to see for yourself.

The headline pretty much says it all: beleaguered smartphone maker Research In Motion has rebranded itself as BlackBerry, naming the company after it’s most popular product.

So now we have two fruit companies making smartphones: Apple and BlackBerry. And just like in the grocery aisle, one is going to sell by the droves, while the other will be largely rejected by shoppers at large until it collects mouldering funguses and is eventually thrown in the big dumpster behind the supermarket… I mean, gadget store.

Remember Siri Eyes Free? First announced back in June 2012 as Siri’s next frontier, the functionality allows car makers to install kit in their vehicles that allows iPhone owners to perform a whole host of tasks using Apple’s intelligent assistant — like taking calls, calling up directions or creating reminders — without ever taking their hands off the wheels.

Siri Eyes Free sounds great, but we’re still waiting on cars to actually ship that support the feature. 2013 looks like it’s the year that it’s going to happen, though. Following Hyundai and Chevy’s announcement that Siri Eyes Free was coming to their car now comes word that Honda will be offering the functionality in the new Accord and Acura.