The ever-expanding holiday season is upon us once again, and Cult of Mac wants to help make your obligatory family dinners the least awkward they can be.

We know that a certain amount of discomfort is unavoidable. Kids might have tantrums, Grinches might get a bit too much “holiday spirit,” or some cousin with a beef might have been waiting for everyone to be in the same room before they announce how they really feel about Grandma.

Family drama aside, we have a few tips for conversation tech topics to avoid during dinner to keep everyone as happy and un-yelled-at as possible. It was a big year for tech, but some topics are best left in Internet forums and the comments of your favorite Apple blog.

The fact that professional-level photos and videos can be made with the camera on the iPhone is old news. However, the amazement never gets old with professionals when they forgo conventional equipment to use iPhones on a shoot.

The cinematographers who capture breathtaking action sports for Freeride Entertainment were in awe of the results with the iPhone after filming some of the most daring skiers, wakeboarders and motocross athletes for a promotion for HITCASE.

The developers of the Poison Maps app figured out a new way to implement 3D Touch that goes above and beyond what we’re used to seeing. They use two patent-pending gestures called “context zooming” and “context panning.” The first lets you quickly see the surrounding area of a particular location you’re zoomed in on without leaving that location, while the latter lets you move around in the surroundings and effortlessly focus in on somewhere new.

These gestures work using long presses. Since 3D Touch can sense varying amounts of force, Poison Apps cleverly uses the technology to adjust the zoom based on how hard you press.

Another week, another Cult of Mac Magazine – the best place to get your Apple fix in one place.

This week, we’ve got quick tips to speed up your iPhone and Apple Watch, our take on the stupidity of killing the iPhone’s headphone jack, new how-tos for Apple Music and Apple TV, a hilarious bit of Star Wars fever that Siri’s picked up, and the latest rumors about iPhone 6c and iPhone 7. That not enough? There’s tons more inside.

Here’s the rundown for this week’s cover stories:

Reports that iPhone 6s production may be slower than expected may be plain wrong, if you go by the record earnings one iPhone supplier recorded last month.

Catcher Technologies supplies the metal casings for the iPhone 6s. In November it recorded sales on $254 million — representing an increase of 1.4 percent from the previous month, and a massive 50.3 percent increase from this time last year.

Because even the newest devices get stepped on and dropped in toilets, Cult of Mac’s buyback program has been updated to include the latest Apple products.

We are wireless, but not quite wire-free. One company wants to help iPhone users cut a couple of cords with a magnetic charging solution called the STACK PACK.

It’s all capital letters for a product that sounds more like workout vitamins. The STACK PACK promises to pack just as much power as that soon-to-be obsolete charging cord — except with shorter charging times and a satisfying feeling as your iPhone magnetically clicks onto a battery or charger.

The longtime Kings of the Camera must know their kingdoms are shrinking. If Canon or Nikon need further evidence, Flickr’s 2015 Year in Review shows the popular tool of choice for an engaged and global photography community is not a dedicated camera. It’s first and foremost a phone.

Apple’s iPhone was the popular device used by the Flickr community, according to an analysis of the EXIF data on pictures uploaded to the site. iPhone cameras accounted for 42 percent of the photos on the site, compared to the DSLRs of Canon, 27 percent, and the Nikon, 16 percent.

Apple has a range of different Apple Watch straps available — but, aside from letting you pick the perfect strap to suit the rest of your attire, they all serve exactly the same function: keeping Apple’s debut wearable safely strapped to your wrist.

That may change in future iterations of the Apple Watch, with a new patent application published today describing how future Watch straps (or straps for other Apple devices) may include flexible displays woven into the material, offering another way of presenting user messages or notifications.

After the “chipgate” event of the iPhone 6s — in which Samsung-manufactured A9 processors were rumored to perform worse than those built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) — a new report suggests that Apple may give its South Korean frenemy the boot, and award 100 percent of its iPhone 7 A10 chip orders to TSMC.