Games! They’re awesome. There are a ton of them released every year, making best of lists like this one fairly difficult. In the interest of our space and your time, we’ve narrowed the field down to ten, with what we feel are the best of the best games out there for Mac as well as for iOS. All of these games were released this year, and while all of them may not be blockbusters you’ve seen on other end of year roundups (this is on purpose), they’re all of them worth your time and money.

So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the following top ten games for iOS and Mac.

Over at DesignBoom, they’ve put up an incredible gallery of early Apple II and Macintosh product designs that never saw the light of day by Hartmut Esslinger, a designer who founded Frog Design, the company that Apple partnered with through the 1980s and 1990s. There are even some products that Apple never made, like a stylus-controlled smartphone from the early 80s called the “MacPhone,” a precursor to the MacMini called the Baby Mac, and what appears to be a Mac with dual flatscreens.

We’ve picked some of our favorite designs and put them after the jump, but by all means, head to Designboom for more.

Want to know an easy way to predict a new Apple product release? Follow Digitimes‘s winning formula!

Australian earphone-maker Audiofly was just a fledgling outfit with scarcely a handful of models and a shaky toehold in the earphone market when I first encountered a year ago at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. After I had a chance to spend some quality time with what was then the company’s flagship set, the fantastic AF78s, I was pretty certain that, if the company did eventually fail, it would be in spite of the brand’s quality — not because of it.

But they didn’t fail. Now here they are, a year after debuting at CES, with a trio of new, more expensive additions — all decadently equipped with multiple drivers and balanced armatures — that shove the AF78 into the middle of their lineup.

Apple has been having problems with Chinese writers suing for unlicensed eBook distribution in the App Store. After a group of writers asked Apple for 10 million yuan in damages for unlawfully distributing copyrighted works in certain Chinese apps, the court has forced Apple to pay a smaller settlement fee of 1.03 million yuan, which is only about $165,000.

Designer and photographer Andrew Kim runs a great blog called Minimally Minimal, and he recently posted a gallery of fantastic photos after one month with the iPad mini.

I love Kim’s product shots, and he graciously gave me permission to share them with Cult of Mac readers. Check out the gallery below:

Apple’s iOS devices have always been hot Christmas gifts, especially for young folks. This year was no exception. Mobile app analytics firm Distimo is reporting that App Store downloads spiked a staggering 87% on Christmas Day, and revenues went up 70%.

The New York Times raised quite a stink at the beginning of this year with its provocative ‘iEconomy’ series on the poor working conditions at Foxconn, Apple’s largest manufacturing partner in China. After running headlines like “In China, human costs are built into an iPad,” the Times has published a new report that more positively portrays Apple’s recent efforts to improve working conditions in the supply chain.

After the mainstream media turned its attention to Apple and Foxconn, the Fair Labor Association (FLA) got involved to help ensure quality factory life for Chinese workers. For years, Apple has also been performing detailed audits of over 800 facilities where parts for its products are made and assembled. The Cupertino company has been beefing up its requirements in order to set the bar even higher in the supply chain. All of the combined efforts have resulted in better overall working conditions and pay raises for Foxconn employees. But that doesn’t mean there’s no more progress to be made.

I’ve barely met a person or two who love Macs but prefers to run with an Android handset instead of an iPhone. They’re a rare breed, but they’re out there, supposedly. And if you’re a Mac user who has ever been curious about the Google Play store, you’re about to be able to sample the entire buffet thanks to Bluestacks.

This morning Bluestacks announced that the latest version of the Bluestacks mobile app player will support OS X, meaning Mac users will be able to play with almost every Android app available.

My hands shake worse than a crack addict when I take video. I’m too cheap to go buy a tripod, so I just don’t try and take video anymore. There’s a new app that’s ready to cure some of my problems though. It’s called Cycloramatic and it’s the most amazing app you’re going to see today.

Rather than forcing you to buy a tripod to take perfect 360º videos, Cycloramic uses the vibrations of your iPhone 5 to swivel around and get a clean shot every time.

Are you a designer? Do you want to become a designer? Have you ever thought about bringing out the creative in you? Well, Cult of Mac Deals has an incredible offer that’s tailor-made for someone just like you – allowing you to feed your inner design spirit with over 3,000 creative items! That’s right…The Mega Design Bundle is here and is stronger than ever!

In the future you’ll never have to worry about taking blurry pictures whenever you go out on the town and get drunk. No matter how crappy your photography skills are future cameras will have infinite focus just like the Lytro camera that let’s you choose which objects to put in focus after you’ve taken a picture.

According to a new rumor, Toshiba is working hard on a chip that will bring perfectly focused pictures to your smartphone really soon. Their new sensor is a lot like the Lytro, except it’s small enough to fit in an iPhone.

Nearing the end of 2012, Cult of Mac has peered through the clouds of 2012 to take a look back at the best Mac Apps of 2012. While most of the popular Mac Apps continued to evolve and refine their features, a number of newcomers have sprouted up with new features and even better designs. There were some terrific releases this year that were are well worth your money, but here are the 10 best Mac Apps of 2012.

Apple has a reputation of excellent customer service. You can walk into an Apple Store and get your device fixed. You can play with an iMac or iPad in the store for an hour without a salesman trying to push you into buying.

Apple usually dominates customer satisfaction polls for physical retail locations, but their Apple Store website may need some help. Even though Apple is the most popular tech company in the world, in 2012 Apple’s ForeSee satisfaction score actually dropped.

If you sliced apart the average Mac user into separate parts and pieced her together, Frankenstein-style, what would you get? According to research from BlueStacks, the average Mac user is probably an American woman with freckles, long black hair, wearing a t-shirt and sneakers.

“We’ve created a monster,” said BlueStacks marketing VP John Gargiulo. “But she is a very cute monster.”

Sounds like my kind of girl. Sadly, she’s also probably seeing someone already. Sorry, fellas.

Via: All Things D

Want to see Steve Jobs’s new super-yacht up close and live in the riveted flesh? Well, here’s the next best thing: a vdeo taken by Amsterdam-best investor Michiel Frackers of the Venus, a vessel which will soon be leaving port after a misunderstanding about the terms of payment between Jobs’s family and the ship’s designer Phillipe Starck was resolved.

This isn’t strictly Mac related, but it’s an interesting discussion on what makes a multi-touch operating system like OS X work, and what makes a similar multi-touch operating system like Windows 8 a complete failure. It’s also an incredibly insightful and concise argument about how Windows 8 fails as a desktop operating system in the four key areas in which an operating system must succeed: control, context, conveyance and continuity.

Brian Bokyo makes a series of excellent arguments on Windows 8’s failure over the course of roughly 23 minutes, but perhaps the video is best summed up in this paraphrased line taken from it: “Use Windows 8 and all of a sudden, a goblin will magically appear, fart in your face and disappear. Moreover, you know it’s going to continue to unpredictably happen again and again… and you’ll never have any idea why.”

Source: YouTube

I wish it wasn’t two days after Christmas, because the Chisel 5 is the iPhone 5 dock I want. Designed by iSkelter, it’s just a slab of beautiful bambo, carved out to perfectly ensconce the iPhone 5 and prop it up in landscape or portrait mode with the Lightning cable snaking through. $39. What’s not to like?

Source: iSkelter

Although New York has traditionally been viewed as crime-ridden since the seediest days of the 1970s, the crime rate has actually been sinking for the last twenty years. No longer, however, and it looks like the desirability of Apple products are indirectly to blame.

For a couple of glorious years, Apple’s iPod nano came in a form factor that could be worn as a watch. Then this year, as Apple is wont to do with the permanently schizo iPod nano line, Apple switched to another design entirely, leaving fans who want a bonafide iWatch in the lurch. But perhaps there is method in Apple’s madness, as a new rumor suggests that Cupertino has phased out the watch-like nano to build their own Bluetooth Smart Watch for 2013.

Back from the holidays, Apple has just filed a preliminary proxy statement with the SEC today in preparation for its annual shareholder meeting in 2013. It’s filled with a lot of insight into the inner workings of our favorite company, and while the biggest news is probably Tim Cook’s remuneration for 2012, there are also other interesting tidbits, including Apple’s resistance to the idea of the appointment of a Board Committe on Human Rights, and the fact that Scott Forstall’s departure lead to a pay raise for the rest of Apple’s executive team.

When Tim Cook said that Apple would start manufacturing part of its Mac lineup stateside in 2013, many speculated that the Mac Pro would be the most likely candidate. We postulated that the upcoming Mac Pro would make the perfect choice because it is easier to build and doesn’t sell as well as the other Macs. Apple would be able to test a desktop production line in the U.S. with a niche Mac that won’t create huge consumer demand.

According to a new rumor, it will not be the Mac Pro, but instead the Mac mini that gets manufactured in the U.S. next year.

I swear my Contacts are a mess. It’s all because of the time I was doing outside sales (this was like 8 years ago now) and I imported the entire prospect database into my address book. Granted I’ve used some of these addresses since, but, wow, do I have some serious cruft in there. Not only do I have addresses that I don’t need, I have lots of outdated addresses that are as good as useless.

Geez I wish there was something that would scan and update my address book for me. Update everything. Automatically add important contacts. Merge accounts and cards. Oh right! There is! And we have WriteThatName 3-month Premium subscription free for you!

Mobile app analytics firm Distimo annually publishes a review of the past year’s growth and trends in the app space. For 2012, Distimo compared Apple’s App Store vs. Google Play on Android handsets. While both marketplaces are considered winners in their own right, the App Store is still where the real money comes from.

Google Play has technically been growing faster than the App Store in recent months, but the daily revenues generated in the App Store are still far greater than anything Google has been able to muster.

Open the Apple Maps app in iOS 6, tap the bottom right page curl, and enable Satellite view. All of a sudden whatever you’re looking at will be filled in with realistic details like grass, pavement, and buildings. The Google Maps for iPhone app is capable of displaying satellite imagery as well, but Google has also baked a hidden topography mode into the app.

Thanks to jailbreak tweak developer Ryan Petrich, there’s a new package in Cydia that unlocks the Google Maps for iPhone Topography mode.