SAN FRANCISCO — Right in the middle of the Macworld show floor, there’s a circle of 12 tables. They’re showing off a range of cool gadgets, like a combination battery/wall charger and a clever foldable iPhone stand.

The dozen products all started life as successful Kickstarter projects, and can be found for sale on BiteMyApple.co, an online store that sells Apple-related Kickstarter products.

The site is the brainchild of Chris Johnson. After founding the site three years ago, Johnson has grown it from $45,000 in annual revenues to more than $500,000. He runs the whole operation himself out of his small apartment in New York.

He’s even making a profit on the 12 tables here at Macworld.

You’re probably the go-to person in your circle of friends, family and maybe even your company when it comes to cracked iPhone screens, waterlogged iPads and battery-dead iPods.

That’s why the team over at iFixit is planning to launch a section for third-party repair services, which they previewed at Macworld. CEO Kyle Wiens says the project was a natural outgrowth of the numbers: on average, iFixit members have made seven repairs. “We figured if you can do that many, you should be making money from it.”

Don’t be a tool
Wiens asked for a show of hands of people who had tried to repair an iPad and broken the screen taking it apart instead: a dozen arms shot up from the 50-or so aspiring repair people at the conference. If you want to go into the repair business, you’re going to need the right kit, so consider which tools you’ll need for the bulk of your repairs and add that to your business plan, Wiens said.

For example, after realizing the iPhone 5 fingerprint sensor is easily busted when pried open, they created the iSclack, which pops it open without damaging it. (Bonus: it also works on other versions of the iPhone 5 , but is not suitable for previous generations.) The new repair biz section of the site will have tool kits aimed at third-party repairs.

Follow the money
A good rule of thumb for pricing your services? Half to two-thirds the cost of the device. Keep in mind,

Luke Soules, iFixit COO said, that iPads have higher margins for the repair person since the owner’s perception is that it’s a more expensive device. (The “free” or subsidized iPhones that come with call plans or trade-ins mean most American consumers perceive the phones as costing less.)

Consider the scale
“You could charge $150 to fix an iPad and customers are OK with it,” Weins said. “There’s more potential there, once you get up to scale.” He reiterated that iPhone owners, especially under warranty, will go back to Apple but watch those same customers come crawling back, he said, when it expires.

Pick Your Battles
“Figuring out when to say no is essential to success,”  Soules told a breakout group of would-be third party repairers. “You’ll want to pick the repairs where you know what you’re getting into.” A cracked iPhone screen can be a quick turnaround with “instant gratification” for the owner, and a borked home button can also be an easy fix.

Keep in mind “broken” can sometimes be easier to fix than “damaged” (especially when it comes to water damage, he said.) And when a customer brings in a device but doesn’t know why it’s not working, troubleshooting can end up being costly — for the repairer. There are obvious things like the water sensor which turns pink when there’s damage — though pristine sensors can be bought bogus online, he noted. Sometimes, you’re going to want to tell the customer that the device can’t be fixed and offer $50 for parts. That may end up being a much better deal for everyone involved.

Parts is Parts
On the question of parts, Wiens admitted that iFixit’s parts are more expensive than other options: “We spend more because we want quality.” It’s buyer beware if you’re going through eBay or Amazon, he said, noting that often the reviews don’t accurately reflect the overall quality of the parts on sale. Apple still refuses to offer original equipment manufacturer’s parts (OEM) to third-parties, despite the fact that not every Apple customer lives close to store or certified technician. “Tim Cook has not returned any of my phone calls about OEMs yet, but I will keep calling.”

The preview of the repair info was clean and organized – like you’d expect from iFixit. You’ll have to wait to check it out, though. Soules told us that it will probably debut in a couple of months. “It’s one of our more long-term projects,” he said. Not a quick fix, in other words.

Once again Cult of Mac has waded through this week’s endless list of new releases of books, music and movies to find the very best stuff so you don’t have to.

This week’s selections feature a little bit of pop, emo, gangsta rap, novels set in pre-Hollywood Los Angeles, and greedy dragon guarding one of Middle Earth’s most valuable treasures.

Music

Future Islands – Singles

Pop fans will soak up the energy and ambiance that flows along every note from frontman Samuel Herring in the fourth album from Baltimore pop synth band Future Islands. Singles manages to balance pop and melodrama built around a new age beat. The first half is definitely better than the back, but Future Islands indulgence in poppy beats is so fun you’ll probably have the entire album on repeat.

iTunes – $9.99

YG – My Krazy Life

YG’s “My Nigga” and “My Nigga (the remix)” have been on repeat during my jogging runs pretty much nonstop the last two weeks but My Krazy Life is full of great tracks that aren’t super innovative but serve as a beautiful nod to the era of Compton rappers, featuring appearances by SchoolBoy Q, Drake, Lil Wayne, Jeezy, and Comptons new king, Kendrick Lamar.

iTunes – $9.99

Owls – Two

Tim Kinsella’s work under Owls isn’t really pop and not totally emo despite its cryptic, piecemeal lyrics, but it falls unpleasantly inbetween. Two is the band’s first work in over 13 years, and while the album has been called “highly anticipated” from the best of fans, it’s also the most accessible piece of music Kinsella’s made for new fans as well. 

iTunes – $9.99

Books

Leaving China: An Artist Paints His World War II China
by James McMullen

I still think children’s’ books are best enjoyed in print where you can cuddle up with the pages, but James McMullen’s latest work really shines on the iPad. Leaving China depicts the artist’s exodus from China giving kids and adults alike a glimpse into life in China during the tumultuous  World War II era.

iTunes – $9.99

The Age of Radiance: The Epic Rise and Dramatic Fall of the Atomic Era
by Craig Nelson

Craig Nelson first rose to prominence with his autobiography on Thomas Paine, but rather than tackling another historical figure, for his next book he gives us the first complete history of the Atomic Age, chock full of accounts from people who uncovered the secrets of the nucleus and brought its power to America.
iTunes – $12.99

Mount Terminus
by David Grand

David Grand’s Mount Terminus is one of the best coming-of-age novel this year thanks to its elegant yet dark prose. Set against the backdrop of pre-Hollywood Los Angeles, the novel focuses on a young man named Bloom who is uprooted to California after the death of his mother and chronicles the rise of the film industry.

iTunes – $12.99

Movies

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

Smaug finally slithers into life for the second part of Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy The Desolation of Smaug. Bilbo and the company of dwarves have slipped through the White Orc’s meaty claws, but now they face an even more potent adversary as they make their way into the depth of the Lonely Mountain in search of the arkenstone.

iTunes – $19.99

Delivery Man

Just when I started believing Vince Vaughn could no longer carry a comedy by himself, he brings it with Delivery Man. It’s the story of an anonymous sperm donor, Starbuck (Vaughn), whose sauce is so potent he fathered over 500 children. Vaughn’s character finds out the shock of his life might be the best thing to ever happen to him in this feel-good comedy that really delivers the laughs.

iTunes – $19.99

Grudge Match

I’d love to see Stallone and De Niro go at it in an epic good-guy bad-guy movie, but since they’re both more worried about osteoporosis than adding to their oeuvre of action flicks, we’ll have to settle for the comedy Grudge Match which sees the two actors as long-time rival boxers from the Pittsburg who rekindle their rivalry 30-years after their prime.

iTunes – $19.99

It was a close call this week in our games department, as reviewer extraordinaire Evan Killham lobbied hard for his favorite, Words & Cards. Granted, it’s a great game, but I had to push back a bit. Plus, I’m the editor, so I win.

Star Wars Assault Team is kind of the perfect blend of role-playing game stickiness with digital collectible card game features, all put together with your favorite Star Wars characters to boot.

The writing is great, with plenty of nods to the iconic movie series, and we finally get to see something new: how you spell Chewbacca’s roars. Really, that’s worth the download right there.

Here’s our Game of the Week video below to show you a bit of the game play.

I’m always on the lookout for some nice accoutrements to make my working day a bit more delightful, and as an Apple fan, the better something looks and works, the more I want it.

Take these sweet Macbook lap desks and iMac risers–made of walnut and oak with a birch core–from Danish design firm Nordic Appeal: they’re light, super functional and as elegant looking as I’ve ever seen.

Ergonomically, it’s useful to bring your Mac screen to about eye level, and having these little risers and wedges will certainly help you do that, no matter what desk, coffee shop table or lap you ultimately do your work on.

Any old physics puzzler can ask you to fling a ball into a goal with a bunch of springs or conveyer belts whatever. And most of them don’t care how you get the ball there, as long as it does.

But Lightlands thinks you can do better than that, and it encourages you to get the ball to its home along the most efficient route possible.

You can still go the “no pictures on scorecards” route and just get the thing to the other thing, but where’s the challenge in that?

Major League Baseball mobile companion app MLB.com At the Ballpark has just received a significant update.

While one new feature is the expected iOS 7 redesign, the most exciting update relates to Apple’s iBeacon technology. As Cult of Mac wrote back in September, MLB has installed iBeacons at 20 ballparks around the U.S. to offer iOS-using spectators point-of-interest mapping and other relevant contextual information during the 2014 MLB season. With MLB.com At The Ballpark version 3.0 support for iBeacons is included.

Urban Outfitters, everyone’s favorite copyright-infringing chain store, is at it again with the Happy Plugs, earbuds from a “Swedish fashion and lifestyle brand that brings color to the world.”

Can you imagine a pair of Apple’s old Earbuds, only in color? Congratulations, because you just imagined the Happy Plugs, in a uncannily accurate piece of mind theater.

The stunningly gorgeous Yahoo! Weather app that inspired Apple’s own new iOS 7 app for iPhone and iPad has just gotten another update, adding some great features that only enhance the usability and beauty of the app.

The day has finally come. During a keynote today in San Francisco, Microsoft unveiled the Office suite for iPad. Rumors have said that Word would be unveiled for Apple’s tablet this month, but that’s not all; Microsoft has also released versions of PowerPoint and Excel.