One December years ago, in London’s Piccadilly Circus, a Santa Claus sat in a pavement cafe eating lunch with an elf. Santa had a pint of beer in from of him. I raised my old film SLR, which was prefocused and had the exposure already dialed in, and took a couple of shots.

I hoped they’d turn out well.

“Who are those pictures for?” said a guy, shouting as he jogged toward me. He’d come from somewhere nearby because it was too cold for just a shirt on a December afternoon in London, and he wasn’t wearing a jacket. I ignored him — there are a lot of nutters in Piccadilly any time of the year.

“Are you taking pictures of me?” he said.

Despite Apple’s claims that email attachments are safely locked away with data encryption in iOS 7, a new report has found that all your email attachments have been vulnerable and unencrypted for months.

This week we check out the best iPhone cases for using underwater. And seeing as the only reason to take an iPhone underwater is to snap pictures, we’re looking specifically at the camera capabilities.

This time on The CultCast: rumored new EarPods take your pulse and more; updated Macbook Airs get faster and cheaper; a leaked “iPhone 6” case indicates an iPod-inspired design; Google takes on Office with new iOS apps for Drive; we ponder the state of the iPod; and we pitch our favorite tech and apps then vote on which is best… it’s an all new Faves N Raves!

Have a few chuckles while we catch you up on each week’s best Apple stories! Stream or download new and past episodes of The CultCast now on your Mac or iDevice by subscribing on iTunes, or hit play below and let the audio adventure begin!

And thanks to Lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at Lynda.com.

Click on for the show notes.

Celebrities like Samsung phones, but they love marketing paychecks even more.

The wave of Samsung-sponsored selfies that started with massive retweets at the Oscars, has become one of the most popular viral campaigns in the history of the Internet as everyone from Ellen to Big Papi have been spotted snapping Samsung-selfies in exchange for a fat paycheck.

And Apple is totally jealous.

Do you remember the classic Simpsons skit from the episode “Homer Bad Man?” When Homer walks past a salesman, they try to catch his attention by yelling, “Hey, sir!  Try our wax lips: the candy of 1000 uses.” Homer is skeptical. “Like what?” he asks. “One, a humorous substitute for your own lips,” the salesman responds, before immediately running out of other possible other uses.

Well, Logitech’s new modular case+ promises to be the “wax lips” of the iPhone 5 and 5s — albeit with more actual applications. Using magnets to switch between a variety of interchangeable accessories — including power supply, car mount, kickstand and wallet modules — the case+ hopes to be the most versatile iPhone case yet.

There’s a reason T-Mobile’s offer to pay off new customers’ early termination fees sounds too good to be true. In certain cases, it’s a rotten deal compared to just paying the fee yourself.

However, with a little hackery, you can flip T-Mobile’s deal from bad to fantastic — and save hundreds on a new iPhone (or any smartphone).

We knew Apple had improved Touch ID recognition in iOS 7.1.1, but now – thanks to Redditor iOSecure – we know how and why.

Apparently, the reason that accuracy would decay over time was down to users screwing up their first scans, when the auto-correction feature needed a perfect start to work properly going forward.

We know the iPhone emits radiation, but how much? The answer: Apparently enough to light up luminous glyphs on the back of an iPhone case. A bunch of inventive Ukranians — the same ones who brought us the iBlazr LED phone flash — figured out this little trick, and created the Lunecase, an iPhone 5/c/s case with symbols on the back that light up when you receive a text or phone call.

Who’d have thought that four tiny stick-on plastic corners could make such a great iPhone “case?” Yet the Bezl, a case so minimal it doesn’t even have room for vowels, is one of my favorites. That might not be surprising for someone who avoids cases altogether, but they’re pretty useful for something so tiny.