If you’re one of the millions of people who went out and got themselves an iPhone 5s recently, you might notice that sometimes Touch ID doesn’t work on the first try. While most people haven’t had an issue with the new biometric fingerprint scanner, some have.

Luckily, there’s a pretty straightforward way to make it much more reliable.

This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.

To the surprise of many, Apple added a very un-Apple-like color choice for the iPhone 5s – gold.  The glimmering device seems to clash with Apple’s modern, subtle style and was immediately hated by many fans around the world, who called it downright gaudy.

Yet the gold iPhone is tailor-made for a particular group of people in China, where it has become a beacon for the nouveau riche as well as a way to deride them.

This story first appeared in Cult of Mac Magazine.

“Adapt or die” is the rallying call of business strategists and evolutionary biologists everywhere. But when it comes to a U.S. tech company expanding its reaches into a new country, things aren’t always that simple.

History is littered with examples of American businesses that have tried and failed to crack the Chinese market — either because they attempted to adapt too much to local markets (thereby losing what made them unique), or else not changing enough.

While Apple’s success in China and other Asian countries is only of direct concern to shareholders, there is a very real reason for your average Apple watcher to be interested.

Pundits (including me) have been predicting Apple’s entry into the mobile payment space — using a smartphone instead of a credit card to buy stuff in the real world — for years.

It hasn’t been a hard prediction to make. The financial rewards are enormous, and Apple has filed multiple patents around mobile payments over the years.

Now, it’s finally happening. And although Apple hasn’t really started yet, they’re already way, way ahead of just about every other player.

This is Cult of Mac’s exclusive column written by an actual Apple Store Genius who answers all your questions about working at an Apple Store. Our genius must remain anonymous, but other than “Who are you, anyway?” ask anything you want about what goes on behind that slick store facade.

This week our Genius answers why the iPhone screen can be repaired in stores while the iPad has to be shipped away from special care. We also discuss whether working at the Apple Store can be turned into a solid career, plus the top 5 most annoying things customers do at the Apple Store.

Got a question you want the inside scoop on? Send us your questions and the answers will be published first in Cult of Mac’s Magazine on Newsstand. Send your questions to newsATcultofmac.com with “genius” in the subject line.

Q: What’s the craziest launch day you’ve experienced?

iPhone launches tend to be the craziest. The biggest I was a part of was the iPhone 5S/5C launch. There is a huge amount of hype that builds up in the store. Nothing in the store changes until after closing on the night before launch.

Store employees can volunteer to be on a special group called the “visuals team.” They focus on the appearance of the store, like the displays and product tables. They stay overnight and work furiously to update the store. On this last iPhone launch, our store was one of many that were unable to complete the display setup in the front of the store. Then, since it wasn’t completed, we had to take the whole thing down. There just wasn’t enough time — we were short staffed for the overnight gig. The rest of it came together just in time.

The stores usually provide breakfast, lunch and drinks to keep us energized. Leaders work to get everyone all hyped up for crazy day ahead. Customers get pretty excited too. The downside to all that energy: when people don’t get what they want, they can get pretty nasty. One of the people in the front of the line who waited overnight at our store threw a fit because we didn’t have the gold iPhone she wanted in stock. She demanded we get her one because she had waited all night for it. The majority of people are pretty happy though, and add to the energy. We had lines of people coming into the store from when we opened until closing time.

There are more than a couple of people in the store who have Android devices. Some specialists, a couple of geniuses, and one manager in our store use Android. One devoted Blackberry user swears his phone does everything he needs it to. Some people only use an iPad or maybe just a Mac. One of my coworkers swears that the best thing Apple makes is the Apple TV, believe it or not.

Everyone has a personal opinion, but they are all passionate about Apple. Even if they don’t use the iPhone, they use something Apple and know all of the products. On a side note, we’re asked not to display our phones while on the job for a number of reasons.

Q: Is AppleCare+ worth it?

Applecare+ is definitely worth it — to me, at least — for the iPhone. I only upgrade every two years since that’s how my plan works, so I definitely think having two years of coverage is needed. If there are any issues it’ll be covered or even if I have an accident, I can have two accidents at a much lower cost than without the coverage. For the number of problems and accidents people bring in every day, I tend to get the coverage. For the iPad and Macs, I think it’s a cheap insurance in case of costly repairs. Either way, ask yourself how long you plan on keeping the device, especially if you upgrade often. I tend to keep my stuff longer and use it to the bitter end; some people buy the newest stuff each cycle and just sell the old, in which case, extended your warranty might not be necessary. If you’re going to hang on to it past the warranty I definitely recommend it!

You’ve most probably seen Apple’s tear-jerking “Misunderstood” Christmas commercial: an ad about a seemingly isolated teenager who spends the holidays with their face buried in their iPhone — only to reveal at the end that they’ve been using the device’s camera to create a touching tribute to family togetherness.

Well, it seems that someone from Universal Studios Orlando’s ad agency David&Goliath also watched it (or else this whole thing is an amazing coincidence) because the theme park’s new ad — embedded above — bears an uncanny resemblance to Apple’s much-lauded commercial.

One of the things I like most about iOS 7 is the two different colors of keyboards, but unfortunately, they only come in monochrome: black or white.

Enter Fancy. A new jailbreak tweak, Fancy allows you to color iOS 7’s UI any pigment you want, from having a sea green Notification Center to a blood red soft keyboard, and much, mucj more.

Fancy is compatible with the iPhone 5, 5c, and 5S, iPod Touch (5th Gen), iPad (4th Gen) & iPad mini. It’s available from the ModMyi Cydia Repository for $0.99.

If you want iOS 7 to drink some of the electric kool-aid, this is the tweak for you.

Via: iClarified

There was a rumor early this morning that iOS 7.1 beta 4 was coming to developers to tomorrow, but it looks like it’s here now. Apple just made iOS 7.1 beta 4 available to developers as an OTA update. You can also grab it from the Dev Center.

Along with the iOS 7.1 beta 4 release, there’s a new beta for Apple TV as well. We’ll update you with all the new changes once we get it downloaded on our devices. Feel free to yell at us on Twitter (@cultofmac) if you come across anything yourself.

In the meantime, get to downloading. Here are all links:

Most people were suitably impressed when the iPhone 5s allowed the Camera app to use a “slo-mo” recording mode — shooting video at a smooth 120fps, and producing some astonishing images in the process.

Now a new jailbreak tweak called Slo-mo Mod is letting the owners of older iOS devices manually configure a similar recording feature.

Don’t look now, but here comes India.

While everyone obsessed yesterday over Apple finally launching on the world’s largest carrier, China Mobile — and the Chinese market in general — smart companies are starting to focus on the smartphone market of the future: India.

The country’s 1.2 plus billion people are kinda hard to ignore. Also: India is so much more than the “other China” when you dig into the details of that smartphone market. Everything about India is an opportunity for smartphone companies and providers of mobile anything. And the major companies are each taking radically different approaches.

I think Apple’s strategy is the best one, and I’ll tell you why.