Cult of Mac Magazine June 9 Edition, Free on iTunes

Every week, we serve up the best of the Cult of Mac website as a magazine so you can download and read it at your leisure on your iPhone or iPad.

All is fair in love, war, and smartphone launch dates!

According to a new report, Samsung is rushing ahead with its Samsung Galaxy F smartphone in order to release it at the same time as Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 6, which is set to debut this September.

The Galaxy F — which will be the premium model of Samsung’s flagship Android phone — will feature major improvements in screen resolution, processing speed and the camera, with 1440 x 2560 QHD resolution on its 5.3-inch screen, a quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor under the hood, and a 16MP rear-facing camera with OIS.

Last week’s WWDC demonstrated how Apple devices can communicate with one another to make life easier for users. Well, the same holds true for games which can take advantage of the interactivity between, say, the built-in motion sensors of an iPhone and the viewing experience offered of Apple TV to replicate the experience of a full-on games consoles like the Nintendo Wii.

That’s the idea behind Rolocule Games’ innovative new game Dance Party, which is powered by something called “rolomotion” — the winner of the Silver Edison Award for best innovation in the Entertainment category at the recent 2014 Edison Awards in San Francisco. Rolomotion is a technology which precisely tracks the various movements made by an iPhone and allows users to play games using natural motion gestures on television using a combination of Apple’s smartphone and the Apple TV.

Based on the sheer amount of biotech experts it’s been hiring, the fact that Apple has its eyes set on the health and fitness tracking sector is one for the “Cupertino’s Worst Kept Secrets” file. But after tons of speculation about the iWatch, Monday’s WWDC keynote provided a first glimpse of an actual Apple creation in this category with its upcoming Health app for iOS 8.

Then Apple dropped a brand new ad for the iPhone 5s, adding a sporty spin to the company’s current trend for showing Apple products used in real-life scenarios in its commercials. If you’re anything like us, it makes you think two things. Firstly, that Apple will revolutionize the health tracking field like it did the personal computer, music player, smartphone and tablet market. Secondly, that we need to hurry up and drop the flab for summer.

With that in mind, here are our picks for the best iOS-compatible fitness devices currently on the market — including the skinny on specific gadgets from the latest iPhone ad (which, incidentally, had fitness-tracking watches conspicuous by their absence.)

Let us know in the comments what tracking gear you’re using and what you hope Apple will provide next.

Wow! This year’s WWDC keynote was one of the most important in years, and on this week’s CultCast, we unpack all the new features announced for Yosemite and iOS 8, and tell you which ones we can’t believe we ever lived without. Plus, with so many new developer APIs and a whole new programming language, we think Apple in on the verge of something big, and if you thought they had cool products before… well, hold on to your butts.

Snicker your way through 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 uproarious good time commence.

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

Click on for the show notes.

Get ready, because the iWatch is coming this fall—October, to be exact.

Corroborating another report from earlier today, Re/code confirms that Apple’s “first, long-in-the offing foray into wearable devices” is indeed slated for October of this year. The publication’s sources have been spot on with future Apple event dates in the past.

Six years after Apple pioneered what it means to be a mobile app, the company has reinvented the concept in iOS 8.

Thanks to what the company calls Extensibility, iOS 8 can let apps talk to one another and work together like never before. Once developers figure out how to implement their newfound flexibility, apps won’t just be apps anymore. They will become tools and services. Not just silos that can’t communicate, but pipes feeding into each other.

“Extensibility is tremendously interesting, and it’s fair to say developers have hoped for something like this practically since day one,” said David Chariter of AgileBits, makers of 1Password. Developers like AgileBits see iOS 8 as a sign that mobile apps will become not only smarter, but more powerful in their ability to aid users.

OS X Yosemite is the biggest visual overhaul Apple’s made to the Mac in years, but developers at WWDC seemed most excited about one tiny UI tweak – dark mode.

Beta testers eager to try out the the new OS X 10.10 feature were disappointed to find out it didn’t make it into the first Yosemite beta, but our friend Jean-David Gadina, from the DiskAid developers team, has done some digging into the OS X Yosemite beta and discovered a new file not present in Mavericks that can be manipulated to enable the hidden dark mode feature.

Here’s how to do it:

A Twitter account claiming to be run by superstar Apple exec Craig Federighi has been tweeting and retweeting as if it’s run by Hair Force One himself during WWDC. It has amassed more than 14,000 followers in less than two weeks and looks legit at first glance, but don’t be fooled.

We’re pretty sure it’s a fake — and we’ve seen an email that appears to confirm our suspicions.

China is an important market for Apple, and while the company now has deals like the one with China Mobile that help distribute hardware in the country, that is only half the battle. According to new reports, Apple has recently been focusing on wooing Chinese appmakers to get them to develop for iOS.

“Two years ago there was no developer support in China,” Chinese developer Woody Wan told Bloomberg in a recent interview. “There’s been a significant improvement.”

According to the report, Apple has been taking various steps to win over Chinese app developers — including beefing up developer relations by allowing new apps to be approved in the country, opening up a new office in downtown Beijing where the China App Store is located, and building new Chinese-language-specific software to benefit developers. At WWDC this week, Apple held several sessions and social gatherings for programmers visiting from China.