SAN FRANCISCO — This is Charlie Hufnagel, who was paid $1,500 to be first in line for the iPhone 5 at Apple’s flagship store here in the city.

Hufnagel was hired through TaskRabbit, an increasingly popular freelance odd-job company in this economy. He’s been camping out in front of the store for 94 hours (nearly 4 days) to snag a new iPhone for a “private investor.”

In fact, there are about 70 “TaskRabbits” in line here in San Francisco, who are being paid $55 to wait up to four hours for other people. A TaskRabbit rep estimated that one in four in line here are TaskRabbits.

Dodocase is back, but this time without the faux-Moleskine iDevice covers. Now you can protect your tall, skinny iPhone 5 with Dodo’s new Durables range of covers, which also come for the MacBook and the iPad.

Job listings on Apple’s website reveal it is currently seeking developers to help fix its newly-released Maps app, which has received widespread criticism since making its debut in iOS 6 on Wednesday. The company is calling for software engineers who will be tasked with “road rendering,” and “creating new and innovative features.”

Did you ever find yourself walking down a neighborhood street and coming across a heretofore unknown (to you at least) restaurant? Did you promise yourself that you’d check it out next time you were in the mood for pizza/Indian/sushi/brunch?

And did you totally forget where it was when the time came? Then Snag My Spot is for you.

The Mac App store provides a nice, simple, graphical way to keep your Mac updated with the latest software, letting you know when system updates as well as Apple and third-party apps have a new update to be downloaded and installed.

If you don’t want to use the Mac App store, though, you can use the Terminal app along with some Terminal commands to do the same thing. When would you use this? Well, maybe when the Mac App store gets wonky, or if you’re not at the current Mac, and want to securely and remotely administer the Mac in question, that’s when.

It’s fairly simple. Here’s how.

The iPhone 5 just went on sale across the East Coast of the United States. As expected, the device has spawned lengthy queues outside of Apple retail stores all over, with more than 700 people in line outside of Apple’s flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York.

FedEx is gearing up to deliver a whole mess of iPhone 5s today, and they are almost literally swimming in a sea of iPhone 5 boxes at their distribution center. I can only spot about three boxes that aren’t iPhones making their way through the processing belt, and it looks like one iPhone 5 fell off. I hope that one’s not yours.

Source: Reddit

Verizon has been a bit of a dick about unlimited data and the iPhone 5. First, they told customers that they’d need to pay full price for the iPhone 5 if they wanted to keep their unlimited data plans; now, they are telling customers that they shouldn’t care about unlimited data anyway, because unlimited “is just a word.”

Waiting in line for the latest iPhone is by no means a pleasant experience. Sure, Apple often hands out free coffee and cakes, but I’d sooner stroll into the store and straight back out again and pay for my own coffee on the way home. But for millions of us this morning, standing in line is the only way to secure an iPhone 5 on launch day.

That is, if you’re a law-abiding citizen. If you’re not, you might consider breaking into a local carrier store and stealing more than $100,000 worth of iPhone 5 units — just like thieves in Japan did today.

Good morning! If you got in on the preorder crush last Friday within the first hour, you’re probably not even reading these words, but tucked into your warm bed, dreaming of iPhone 5s and dancing Wozzes. If you didn’t, though, we know where you are: camped outside of your local Apple Store in the cold, going absolutely bonkers with anticipation for Apple’s best phone yet.

So line-waiters, this post is for you. Tell us a few things. Where are you? What time is it there? How big’s the line you’re in? And, most importantly, which iPhone 5 are you getting?

Me, I’m getting too rickety in the bones for lines, so I’m waiting for my 64GB white iPhone 5 on Verizon to leave the Fed Ex sorting facility in South Boston. How about you? Let’s talk about it!

Click here to discuss the iPhone 5 in our forums

There’s an awesome image flying around Twitter this morning that shows someone working for the London Underground has a great sense of humor. On one of the many signs littered around London’s tube stations, someone has written:

For the benefit of passengers using Apple iOS 6, local area maps are available from the booking office.

Apple’s new Maps app has taken a lot of stick since its debut in iOS 6 on Wednesday, and users have been flocking to Twitter to post images of towns and villages that have seemingly been wiped out by the Cupertino company.

Source: Ben Mathis on Twitter

After boarding a plane to Melbourne, Australia to be one of the first in the whole world to get their hands on an iPhone 5, the folks at iFixit have torn it apart and found that — surprise — the new iPhone seems to actually have been designed with easy repair in mind. Partially, at least.

Update: Some of you have let us know that episode 32 is not showing up in iTunes yet. We’re not sure why, but if you subscribe via iTunes or Apple’s Podcasts App, it downloads fine.

Two HUNDRED new features — that’s what Apple claims they stuffed into iOS 6, and on this week’s CultCast, we’ll tell you which of those new additions delight us, and which lesser-known features we positively love.

Then, back by popular demand, direct from our Facebook page, we answer your listener questions, and boy, are some of you guys weird imaginative.

Subscribe to The CultCast now on iTunes, or easily stream new episodes right on your iPhone or iPad with Apple’s newly updated and freshly debugged Podcasts App.

Read on for the show notes!

Apple’s new Maps app has gotten a ton of complaints since iOS 6 officially released this week, and with good reason. Heck, right here at Cult of Mac, we have a feature on how to fix the iOS 6 Maps experience, as well as a gallery on some of the worst imagery from the Maps app itself.

Apple spoke out today about the issue in a statement to AllThingsD, saying, essentially, that people need to be more patient.

iFixit rips into new technology like a ten-year-old with a stack of birthday presents. Co-founder Luke Soules flew down to Melbourne, Australia to be one of the first people to own the magical device, with the sole purpose of taking it apart at the MacFixit offices in Australia.

The process itself is well underway, as you can see in the gallery of images below.

The iPhone 5 went on sale in Australia today, and hundreds of folks lined up for the privilege of being some of the first in the country to purchase and own Apple’s latest cultural and technical marvel. Some waited as long as 68 hours for the iPhone 5, competing to be the first person in the world to own an iPhone 5.

If you’re planning on waiting in line for an iPhone 5 tomorrow, be warned: judging by the numbers of people already waiting outside some of the big Apple Stores, the iPhone 5 launch is looking like it’s going to be an absolute zoo. There have never been this many people in line this far ahead of an official Apple product launch, ever. And Apple themselves anticipate long lines outside of their stores “all day long, into the evening.”

When it comes to home furniture, computer desks are pretty much the least exciting thing on the market. Even coffee tables are more exciting. That’s kind of all changed over the last 12 months as standing desks have become a sort of fad with studies showing that switching to a standing desk can improve your health tremendously.

Half of our time as humans is spent sitting down at work, watching TV, or driving a car. Something needs to change, so I sought out to find the best standing desk on the market that abides by Apple’s design principles, and the NextDesk Terra was the winner.

The iPhone 5 is almost upon us, and Apple has mandated that all third-party developers start submitting iPhone 5 screenshots in the App Store. Devs with new updates must include screenshots optimized for the iPhone 5’s 4-inch, 1136×640 display.

Many popular App Store apps have already been updated for the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, including the official Facebook app today. There were original concerns that developers wouldn’t have time to get their apps up to date for the iPhone 5, but it looks like updates are rolling out at a fairly rapid pace.

Since iOS 6 came out yesterday, everyone has been dog piling on the new Maps app, talking about how terrible it is (us included). There’s even an entire Tumlr dedicated to how badly it sucks. Is everyone being too hard on Apple for trying to build their own Maps platform? Or should Apple have kept Google Maps around?

What do you think? It seems like iOS Maps might be an understandable first step that will pay off for Apple big time in a couple of years, but do we really want to wait and have to use an inferior app for a few years while they try to get it right?

Click here to go to the Cult of Mac forums and let us know what you think about Apple’s decision to make their own Maps app

One of the best new additions of iOS 6 for iPad owners is the fact that not only do we finally get the iOS 6 clock app, but it’s absolutely gorgeous… easily Apple’s most attractive app, in my opinion.

The app’s good looks aren’t going unnoticed… and that might spell bad news for Apple. Apparently, the Swiss Federal Railway Service is livid over the clock used in the new app, says they own the trademark on the design.

Motorola is looking to bring down the ban hammer on almost every Apple product out there, including every Mac OSX computer. I have no idea if Motorola is just looking to throw spaghetti at the wall or what, but they have a long list of infringements that apparently the International Trade Commission has agreed to investigate.

So, there you are, sitting on the bus, and inspiration strikes. You really want to fire off a quick tweet or status update to Facebook, but your stop is coming up fairly quick, and you really can’t miss it again. Opening up the Facebook or Twitter app will take precious seconds, ones you don’t have to spare! What’s an iOS 6-enabled person to do?

Now that Facebook is integrated along with Twitter in iOS 6, you don’t need to open either specific app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch to get out that short message of genius.

A lot has been written over the last day or so about the crappy maps in iOS 6, and the fact that Apple’s new data engine doesn’t live up to its pretty new map tiles and spectacular flyover feature.

I thought exactly the same thing when I first installed a beta of iOS 6 on my iPad a month or two back. But while Apple’s maps are definitely a step back in many ways, it’s not all as bad as it seems. Not quite anyway.

But guess what? If you’re willing to use a couple extra apps until Apple fixes things, you can get everything back that you’re missing.

In case you don’t get the reference. More (real) iOS 6 Maps disasters can be found in our gallery here.

Via: The Amazing iOS 6 Maps