With the touch of a button, Apple’s iPhone 5s will change the mobile industry. And Touch ID, the fingerprint reader built into the latest iPhone, just may simplify your life.

Thanks to its insanely simple implementation in the phone’s Home button, Apple has taken the first big step toward making its mobile devices even more central to the daily process of more efficiently managing the security-dependent details of our daily lives.

Two days after getting my brand new iPhone 5s, the fingerprint scanner stopped working. I couldn’t believe it. The iPhone wouldn’t recognize my thumb print, no matter how I caressed its button. I tried training the system to recognize my other thumb and my two index fingers. That didn’t work either. The new iPhone’s marquee feature was already a write-off. “Just works,” my ass.

The iPhone’s hottest new feature is as reliable as my cat.

Then the news broke that the Chaos Computer Club in Germany announced that it had “hacked” the sensor with a photo of a fingerprint. At first glance, this story looked really bad. Some German anarchist coders had used a slight of hand to crack a “foolproof” biometrics system with a simple picture? Before the phone flew into our eager hands, everyone imagined that more elaborate methods would be needed to fool Touch ID, like hacking someone’s finger off. But a simple picture? It was the biggest story of the weekend: “Apple’s Touch ID hacked in less than 48 hours.”

But turns out the “hack” — which is more correctly called a “spoof” — was anything but simple. It was a multi-step process that required considerable skill, specialist equipment and almost 30 hours of hard work.

Firstly, a clear, un-smeared fingerprint has to be found. This looks easy on CSI, but is tricky in real life. The fingerprint has to be “lifted” using standard crime scene techniques: cyanoacrylate fumes, fingerprint powder and fingerprint tape. Not stuff you’re likely to have on hand, in other words.

The lifted print is photographed at very high resolution (~2,400 dpi) and cleaned up in software. It’s printed on transparent sheet at 1,200 dpi using a laser printer with the toner settings turned way up, to ensure the maximum amount of toner is deposited. This creates a mold. Liquid latex or wood glue is poured into the mold and carefully peeled off when it has cured. The hacker breathes onto the mold to make it warm and moist and then presses it against the sensor. This method is well-known in the biometrics world and has a long history of fooling many other fingerprint sensors on the market.

So should you be worried? Not at all. On one hand, Touch ID will *not* protect your iPhone against a determined hacker. If a crook has the time and resources to target you, steal your phone, lift your fingerprints and create phonies, the fingerprint sensor will not prevent them from gaining entry.

But the average opportunist who finds your iPhone on the bus? Rest assured, your phone is safe.

As for my non-functioning sensor, I just retrained the system. The problem was my dry, scaly hands. If all journalists have thick skins, mine is really something else. (When my hands get really bad, a steroid cream thins it down and curbs cracking and bleeding.) I’d been using the cream and my hands looked like Heidi Klum’s when I first got the phone. But over the weekend my hands dried out like SpongeBob in Sandy’s dome. By Sunday, the sensor wouldn’t recognize any of my fingers or thumbs. I tried licking them and moisturizing my thumb, to no avail. So I deleted the five finger/thumbprints I’d trained the system on and started again. No problem! Touch ID now works flawlessly.

I just have to keep the moisturizer handy if I want to unlock my digital life.

So let’s say for a second that Apple doesn’t ship a Retina iPad mini this year… but still decides to release a low-res iPad mini 2. How would they update it without a Retina Display?

Touch ID, son. 64-bit support. And, of course, by spraying it gold.

With the fifth-generation iPad set to feature a new design based on the smaller, sleeker iPad mini, Apple’s existing lineup of iPad Smart Covers aren’t going to fit it. But fear not, Smart Cover fans — Apple is already working on new models that will fit the iPad 5’s smaller chassis. Check them out in the hands-on video below.

Strava Run, the fitness-tracking app that records your runs and lets you compete against strangers who have use the same routes, might be the first fitness app to take advantage of the M7 Motion Coprocessor (MoCoPro) in the iPhone 5S.

Now the app will not only run for longer thanks to saved battery power, it’s more accurate too.

Bloomberg Businessweek is back with another extended interview from its big Apple cover story of Tim Cook, Jony Ive, and Craig Federighi. After publishing the original story, a full transcript of the interview with Cook was published online over the past weekend. Now the same thing has been done for Jony Ive and Craig Federighi, who spoke to Businessweek week together about their roles at Apple.

To set the stage, this interview took place a day after the iPhone 5S and 5C launch event. I met Ive and Federighi in a ground-floor conference room in one of the buildings on Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Calif. Federighi was first to arrive, followed by Ive. In case you’re wondering, they’re both nice—not standoffish, not chilly, just nice. Federighi asked me if I had used Apple products and for how long, which began a conversations about carwash wages and an Apple IIC. Ive complimented my messenger bag, which, I must admit, I was sort of psyched about.

There are plenty of great quotes that make this interview worth a read for any Apple fan.

Source: Bloomberg Businessweek

I got married earlier this month, but my new wife has already threatened to divorce me due to my newfound obsession with GTA V. I’ve only had it since Saturday, but I literally can’t put it down. I’m not the only one, of course; the game has been a massive success so far, with $800 million made on launch day alone.

If you’ve been playing it, you may have noticed their are a number of references to Apple and its devices within the game, one of which is iFruit, and iPhone clone used by Michael De Santa, one of the game’s main characters. And now you, too, can have your own iFruit with this awesome iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s conversion kit for just $13.

Samsung has traditionally offered its smartphones in a whole variety of colors, but one we rarely see is gold — until Apple announces a gold smartphone. Just two weeks after the Cupertino company unveiled the gold iPhone 5s, Samsung has begun showcasing its gold Galaxy S4 in the United Arab Emirates.

Does this company have any shame?

Nothing makes Microsoft happier than seeing an iPhone user ditch their device for a Windows Phone smartphone. In fact, the company will even buy your iPhone off you if you promise to make the switch.

Starting this Friday, you’ll be able to take your old iPhone 4s or iPhone 5 into select Microsoft stores across the U.S. and Canada and receive a minimum of $200 in-store credit for a new Windows Phone device. The move comes weeks after Microsoft kicked off an iPad trade-in program to encourage consumers to switch to its Surface tablet.

Apple is expected to unveil the fifth-gen iPad and second-gen iPad mini at an October event, and we’ve been seeing part leaks for the devices since the beginning of this year. Now that the iPhone 5s has come out with different color variations, it looks like Apple will be bringing a new look to the iPad as well.

Fresh parts from prolific leaker Sonny Dickson have hit the web, and they show what is believed to be the next iPad in “Space Grey.”