Going to the store at this time of year is an excruciatingly painful affair. We begin our Christmas shopping months early, and anything we need to get in December is bought online. Unfortunately for some, however, not everything they order online actually shows up.

As courier companies struggle to keep up with the surge in packages, it’s not uncommon for items to go missing, or for them to be delivered to the wrong address. But in some cases, shameless delivery drivers think it’s okay to reward themselves with items you’ve paid for during gift giving season. In the video below, a UPS driver is caught stealing an iPad that was left by FedEx just hours earlier.

Who’s winning in the United States: Android or Apple? If you’ve been watching AAPL’s shares, you might think Google’s mopping the floor with Apple, but you’d be wrong. According to new data, Apple now commands 53.3% of the U.S. smartphone market.

While Apple has managed to keep the App Store free from malware, it seems the Cupertino company has a hard time filtering out scams. Every so often, a shameless developer tries their luck at selling a title that promises to be something it isn’t. The latest claims to be a Halo 4 clone that is “iPhone/iPad exclusive.” They’ve gone through the trouble of writing a lengthy App Store description in an effort to fool you into thinking it’s the real thing. But in reality, it’s just a $4.99 game of chess.

There’s been a lot of talk about Project Azalea, Apple’s rumored $10 billion project with TSMC to build a top-secret chip plant on domestic shores. We’ve heard it might be built in New York. We’ve heard it might be built in Portland. Wherever it’s built, though, it’s believed to be a major blow against Apple’s frenemy Samsung, who currently builds the majority of Apple’s custom ARM chips.

Unfortunately, it turns out that Project Azalea might not have anything to do with Apple after all, with TSMC’s CEO himself now denying it.

Unbound app is a Dropbox-linked photo viewer. Imagine if iOS’ built-in Photos app linked to Dropbox instead of needing you to dick around with iTunes and the flakey Photo Stream, and you have pretty much imagined Unbound.

Apple’s guidelines for its new Lightning connector have forced a popular Kickstarter project that sourced almost $140,000 in funding — more than twice the amount it required — to close and refund all of its backers. Electronics firm Edison Jr designed a charging station compatible with a multitude of Android and iOS devices called the POP. But after exceeding its funding goal, it quickly realized that Apple wouldn’t approve it.

The yacht Steve Jobs was building before he passed away on October 2011 has been impounded over a €3 million (approx. $3.96 million) fee owed to designed Philippe Starck. Called Venus, the yacht cost Jobs more than €100 million to build, but he never got to use it. Now it will remain in Amsterdam port pending payment by lawyers representing Jobs’s estate.

On this week’s CultCast, we’re ending the year with our favorite gear! Don’t miss our “End of Days, Faves ‘N Raves,” where pitch our favorite apps, accessories, games, even shows, of 2012.

But before that, we’ll break down the whole Instagram debacle for you, and tell you why you should be paying attention to the big I’s plans for your personal pics.

All that and Tim Cook, person of the year?

Join us, friends! Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.

Show notes ahead!

Instagram’s iOS app has been updated to v3.4.0. It fixes a few ridiculous omissions from the last version, and adds a new filter, no doubt as a way to get users to shut up about the Terms of Service debacle.

VESA is the standard for display panel mounting, and Apple’s desktop displays have supported it for years. Unfortunately, the completely redesigned and ultra thin 2012 iMac can’t be legitimately mounted, according to a comment from Apple given to MacTrast.

“The new iMac is not VESA mount compatible at this time,” an Apple representative said. “We appreciate your feedback on this feature and will take it into consideration.”

Apple’s own VESA mount adapter kit actually notes incompatibility with the 2012 iMac. The $40 adapter does work with 2009-2011 iMac models and Apple’s Cinema/Thunderbolt displays.

Source: MacTrast

Image: OSXDaily

One doesn’t see too many battery cases for the Galaxy S3. Unlike the glass-fortress iPhone — for which battery-cases are more numerous than species of bird — the S3’s battery is easily removable, somewhat lessening the usefulness of an external battery. But that didn’t stop iWalk from coming out with the Chameleon Easy, an impossibly sleek monster of a battery case with 2800 mAh on tap — which iWalk says is the highest capacity of any S3 battery to date.

Madfinger Games announced on its Facebook page today an update to multiplayer FPS game, Shadowgun: Deadzone on both Google Play and the iTunes App Store. The update includes two new maps, new weapon upgrades, a chat feature in the main menu, a new way to play with groups of friends called Gangs, new hats, Rewards for finishing Zone Control or DeathMatch, and an increase to max player ranks (up to 50).

Blake Krikorian, the guy who made the Slingbox, founded a new startup last year called “id8 Group R2 Studios.” Since then, R2 Studios has released an Android app for controlling a home’s heating and lightning with Cestron. The firm also owns some secretive patents relating to remote device and interface control.

According to a new from The Wall Street Journal, a number of big tech companies (including Google and Apple) have been in talks with R2 Studios about a possible buyout:

Ever wanted to view your videos, pictures, or documents from your Mac without having to put them on Dropbox or Google Drive? If you know you need specific files from your Mac desktop at home, you’d probably just use one of those cloud services. But what happens when you get to work and need a file you forgot about, or a family member’s house and want to show off some photos or video from home?

That’s where QuikIO comes in.

The IMDb app is one of my favorites on the iPad, so I was pleased to see that it received a pretty big update today with a lot of new features. Version 3.0 brings a new user interface that focuses on showcasing movies and TV shows in a visually appealing way. There’s a full-featured Watchlist and recommendations that are tailored to each user.

The general experience of browsing photos and lists has been greatly improved and goes hand in hand with the revamped interface. The iPhone version of IMDb has received a little love too.

Instagram has had quite a week since legions of disgruntled users voiced complaints over the app’s shady Terms of Service (TOS) update. One clause in particular caused many users to jump to the conclusion that Instagram planned to outright sell its users’ pics without explicit permission. Instagram quickly responded to the outcry by reassuring that it has no plans to sell photos. An update to the TOS was also promised.

Today Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom published a new blog post detailing the service’s updated stance on content ownership and privacy:

Poor Negative Nimbus. He’s so sad, and so full of water, it’s a challenge to sail across the sky without drenching the happy hot dogs and caterpillars out for a picnic lunch, while still watering the happy flowers along the way. What’s a depressed cloud to do?

Apparently, the answer is to launch on Android, via the Google Play store and the Amazon Marketplace. That’s just what CloudKid’s fantastic game, Negative Nimbus, has done for the holiday season.

One of the better Yuletide traditions is the venerable holiday Advent Calendar, in which each day of December leading up to Christmas is marked off on a special calendar by opening its corresponding door to find a small gift, toy or chocolate squirreled away inside.

This year, we here at Cult of Mac decided we wanted to give our readers their very own Apple-themed advent calendar, filled with the year’s best apps, gadgets, stories and other curios. So each day in December, we’re going to lovingly peel back the door on the Cult of Mac 2012 Advent Calendar to reveal another delicious morsel, something really special that came out this year that we think every one of you should enjoy.

Day 20 is upon us as the end of the world draws near, and today we’re recognizing a handy menubar app for the Mac called Bartender.

Could it be that, after spending a lifetime looking, I have finally found the perfect bag? Of course not. There’s no single bag that can perform every task.

But I might just have found the perfect day-to-day backpack. It’s the medium Velo from Rickshaw Bagworks in San Fransisco, and it’s pretty damn awesome.

It looks like T-Mobile wants 2013 to be the year they truly start competing against the dominant forces of AT&T and Verizon. They just sewed up a deal to bring the iPhone to their carrier, and they’ve been trying to hurry up and bring iPhone-friendly HSPA+ speeds to fourteen new metropolitan areas.

T-Mobile announced today that they spent $4 billion investing in the modernization of their network over the last 10 months. The improvements mean that more than 100 million people now have enhanced coverage that the iPhone can take advantage of.

“Click!” You hear that? It’s the sound of an iPad turning into a Microsoft Surface, with the help of the Nibiqü keyboard cover.

Now that we see it, it’s obvious that this product was completely inevitable. And almost equally inevitable is the fact that it comes by way of Kickstarter.

Readdle has issued a new update to its Calendars app for iOS today, introducing a number of new features and some nice improvements. And if that wasn’t enough, the company has also slashed 80% off its price tag for Christmas, so if you haven’t already go it, now’s a great time to pick it up.

I usually avoid posting about concept designs because most of them are so lame. But the iPhone Theater deserves a special mention, somewhat ironically for the very same reason – it’s so lame.

With your help, we’ve narrowed down the list of best iOS apps of 2012 to a handful of favorites: Clear, Temple Run, Angry Birds Star Wars, Google Maps, Letterpress, and Paper.

Big thanks to everyone who voted so far. Now’s your chance to pick a winner from the shortlisted finalists.

Verizon continues its quest to leave no city unturned when it comes to its 4G LTE network. Starting today, 29 new markets will enjoy the blazing fast speeds of LTE and bring the total of covered markets to an astounding 470!