In this week’s packed-to-the-gills Cult of Mac Magazine, we give you the rundown on Apple’s new file system (APFS) — which has remained unchanged for 30 years. Discover all the reasons why switching to the new APFS makes sense for you!

Listen in to Kahney’s Korner podcast where our guest, Gumdrop Cases CEO Tim Hickman, talks about the race to be first to market with new iPhone cases, and the killing companies can make in the days following an Apple launch.

Learn about the growing number of professional photographers and filmmakers who are foregoing traditional equipment to embrace the iPhone for their creative pursuits.

All this, and much much more, in Cult of Mac Magazine, free for you right now.

Here are this week’s top stories.

The market for iPhone cases is worth billions of dollars. The first manufacturer with a case that fits a new device — say, the iPhone 7 — can make a killing in the days following an Apple launch.

For this week’s episode of Kahney’s Korner, I talked with industry veteran Tim Hickman, CEO of Gumdrop Cases. Over the years, he’s tried all kinds of tricks and strategies in the race to be first to market with new iPhone cases — including making thousands of cases that turned out to be wrong.

This time around, Hickman has received several CAD files from mysterious sources in China that supposedly show the exact dimensions of the upcoming iPhone 7. Will he bet his company’s fortunes on these files of dubious origin? Let’s find out.

Ken Segall is a former Apple ad man who worked closely with Steve Jobs for more than a dozen years. Segall is the guy who put the “i” in iMac and worked on the famous “Think Different” campaign.

The big lesson he learned from Steve Jobs was keeping things simple. But easier said than done. How exactly do you keep things simple?

Segall went out and found 40 business folks who keep things straightforward. His new book based on those interviews is called Think Simple:How Smart Leaders Defeat Complexity.

In a new podcast, Kahney’s Korner, Segall talks about some of those lessons, how Steve Jobs kept things uncomplicated and about how Apple is doing these days without him.

This episode of Kahney’s Korner is supported by TunnelBear, an award-winning service that gives you fast and private access to the internet.

Best List: Beachtek DXA-SLR Ultra preamplifier

Hssssssssss.

Hssssssssss.

I told one of my favorite photographers, Mike Kepka, that I was trying to shoot a little video, but that my audio sounded horrid. He happens to be pretty decent videographer. And a little bit of a gearhead (at least in comparison to me).

“Get a Beachtek,” said Mike.

“What is the hell is that?” I said. “And do you have one?”

It takes years to understand the appeal of the unboxing video. On the face of it, they’re very silly. And yet unboxing is one of digital video’s most popular and enduring genres.

Who wants to see someone else opening the box of a brand new gadget? Wouldn’t you want to do it yourself?

And therein lies their appeal — the vicarious pleasure of seeing a stranger enjoy a gadget you covet.

With that, here’s our contribution to the genre: Cult of Mac’s first unboxing video. Watch in enraptured fascination as we take the iPhone 6s Plus from its box.

My family and I just got back from a too-short vacation in Italy, and we learned something important while we were there: Real vacations don’t have e-mail.

See, my wife was worried about us racking up unspeakably high bills while we were abroad, so we ended up almost completely disabling our iPhones for the entire trip. How we fared without them is the subject of this week’s Kahney’s Korner.

I am super-psyched to introduce you to a new app coming soon to iOS: the Cult of Mac Magazine app.

The new version of our magazine app will be published every Saturday. I think it’s a really great way to read all the stuff we publish here during the week.

What vaulted Apple from its humble Silicon Valley origins to the absolute top of the business world? From its first desktop computer in 1976 to today’s category-crushing Apple Watch, the company is intensely focused on creating technology that will delight the masses.

That vision is best exemplified by Apple’s five most important products, which I’ve rounded up in this week’s edition of Kahney’s Korner. Some made the list for reasons that might surprise you.

It’s festival season and there’s a festival for everything – even one for Apple II users.

It’s called KansasFest and it has been going since 1989. It’s one of the longest-running computer festivals out there and the amazing thing is the Apple II was discontinued in 1992.

The endurance of this machine is the subject of this week’s Kahney’s Korner.

I’ve had the Amazon Echo sitting on my desk for the last couple of months and it’s an odd device – and I actually think it’s pretty great.

It’s a voice-controlled, speaker-cum-shopping tube that can go in your kitchen, living room or bedroom. You use it for simple queries like, “How’s the weather?” or “How is my commute? or “What is Barack Obama’s middle name?”

Listen to me interact with this device on this week’s edition of Kahney’s Korner.