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This year we’re covering the Barcelona Mobile World Congress a little differently. Each day there will be one liveblog post here on Cult of Mac and one on Cult of Android.

Instead of gathering up press releases and writing them up in the press office at the show, and then hitting the parties, we’ll be posting quick photos and snippets of info from the show floor itself (and from the parties, if we don’t lose our phones).

Think of it as a kind of Instagram/Twitter hybrid, only right here on the site. Currently the newest posts are at the top, reverse-chronological style. And if you want us to check something out, Tweet us @mistercharlie or @killianbell.

Check it out:

Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress has always been about mobile – of course – but this year it finally seems like the world has caught up, and mobile is more important than desktop. To mangle the words of Steve Jobs, these days the truck companies are desperate to be let into the car show.

On February 21st, Apple released iOS 7.0.6, a small software update that provided “a fix for SSL connection verification.” The same SSL fix was also released for older iOS 6 devices and the Apple TV. Apple pushes out smaller bug fixes from time to time, so at first glance 7.0.6 seemed like a pretty normal update.

But in reality, Apple patched a major security flaw that has potentially compromised millions of peoples’ data for years. Nicknamed “gotofail,” the bug has been flying under the radar for quite some time, and it still hasn’t been patched in OS X.

Welcome to Barcelona. The official Mobile World Congress starts tomorrow, but today the press shows begin. Follow along for our live blog of ShowStoppers and later Mobile Focus.

A really great article published in Advertising Age this week by data specialist Kate Kaye about Apple and Amazon said (to paraphrase Breaking Bad’s Saul Goodman): “You two suck at peddling ads. Period.”

Well, that’s what Madison Avenue thinks, anyway, according to the piece. Here’s why Madison Avenue is wrong.

Personally, I love the look of the new stealth engine Mac Pro, but some people find it to look, well, a little too much like a trash can (which may not be a coincidence).

Jarred Land, one of the key figures of the Red Digital Camera Company, obviously agreed. He built himself a machined aluminum chassis to keep his Mac Pro in, plus an integrated Redmag Mini card reader with 8TB internal Thunderbolt RAID, and a monster fan to keep things cool.

It looks pretty awesome, but sadly, it’s a one-off: Land says he did it just for fun.

Source: Facebook
Thanks: Chuck W.

This week in Cult of Mac Magazine – No Fail iPhone Photography, the best tips, tricks, and practical advice on using that amazing camera you carry around in your pocket.

We’re celebrating Apple’s astonishingly great iPhone camera with a whole issue dedicated to all things iPhoneography. Cult of Mac’s own photography guru, Charlie Sorrel, weighs in with some choice technical advice on photography that applies across all cameras, iPhone or not, while Buster Heine gives you the lowdown on all the greatest peripherals you’ll want to gear up with before the big shoot.

Olloclip’s Michele Baker drops some wisdom on how to best capture “silver” with your iPhone, in honor of the winners of this week’s Photography contest, and our very own Nicole Martinelli interviews one of the best street iPhonographers around.

We’ll take some time out to showcase the top ten entries in our #CoMSilver photo contest, with the top three winners and some fantastic runner ups.

Of course, we’ll start off with the usual Best Apps, Books, Movies and Music from the past week and then end with our famous “Ask A Genius” column, so be sure to subscribe and download the issue.

Well-known jailbreaker “winocm” announced today that he will be taking a job at Apple later this year.

When reached for comment, the 17-year-old hacker declined to elaborate on what his new role at Apple will entail. He also declined to provide his real name, which is a common theme amongst high-profile jailbreak hackers who prefer to hide behind their online pseudonyms.

While winocm did not work on the recent iOS 7 jailbreak, his expertise in reverse engineering iOS will undoubtedly make him a valuable asset at Apple.

Apple has purchased Burstly, the company behind iOS app beta platform TestFlight. The specific details of the buyout have not been disclosed, but TechCrunch reports that Burstly’s engineers are working at Apple already.

To aid in its uphill battle against Apple and Android, Microsoft is adding a voice assistant of its own to Windows Phone 8.1 and according to the latest details she could pass as Siri’s sister.

Inspired by AI character from the Halo series, Cortana will replace Bing-search in the update and act as a mix between Siri and Google Now, according to the Verge, but the UI and personality will be pretty similar to Siri:

The first Macintosh clone in the world was not one of the Apple sanctioned systems released in 1995, such as those from companies like PowerComputing, Radius, Umax or Daystar Digital. Nor was it the Outbound laptop in 1989, a hybrid system produced using Mac ROMs taken from working Mac Plus systems.

No, the first Macintosh clone was the Unitron Mac 512, a unauthorized copy of the 512k “Fat Mac” produced by a Brazilian company in 1986. And it was a pretty darn impressive copy. The fallout from that effort nearly help start a trade war between Brazil and the United States; to prevent theft of Intellectual Property, Apple and other companies lobbied Congress to hike import taxes on Brazilian goods like oranges and shoes as a response.

And as we know, nobody messes with Tropicana …

It’s not a widely known story. Pieces of this long-forgotten chapter in Mac history can be found scattered on websites around the world. Here is the fascinating tale of the first Macintosh clone in the world.

Apple’s already “big-ass” North Carolina data center is about to get even bigger.

Based on an erosion permit filed with Catawba County on Wednesday, Apple is looking to build an additional structure onto the side of its existing already enormous complex. Made of precast concrete wall panels, along with steel columns, this add-on is set to add 14,246 square feet, and be around 25 ft tall.

Control Center was one of the top touted features added to iOS 7, but while the new swipe up gesture to toggle it is great, you might find yourself using multitask function more, so Bill Labus created a gorgeous iOS 8 concept that merges multitasking with control center to give you quicker access to your most used controls.

“Flicking up from the bottom of the edge allows the multitasking app views to be tied directly to the gesture, which allows for direct manipulation and avoids having to wait for a passive animation to complete before interacting with them.”

Developers can grab the Xcode project and take it for a spin or you can get your fill from the video teaser below:

The story of WhatsApp — the messaging app just purchased by Facebook for an insane $19 billion — is pretty fascinating.

Seems that the app’s founders did everything right by doing everything wrong. They flouted Silicon Valley rules like getting press and adding features, and instead focused on making the app do one thing well: send messages. It all sounds very Apple-like, and it’s been well covered in fascinating features from Forbes and Wired that are currently doing the rounds.

One detail in the Forbes piece flew out at me in particular — detailing how Apple accidentally created the core element of WhatsApp by adding a new iOS feature.

During an Ubuntu Town Hall Hangout on Wednesday, Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth made some interesting comments regarding Apple’s sapphire displays.

“Apple just snapped up three year’s worth of the supply of sapphire screens from the company that we had engaged to make the screens for the [Ubuntu] Edge [smartphone],” he said.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Ubuntu Edge was a proposed “high concept” smartphone announced by Canonical on 22 July 2013. Canonical was seeking to crowdfund a production run of 40,000 units through Indiegogo, but the project was scrapped when fundraising was able to only raise $12,809,906 out of the $32 million goal needed to kickstart the project.

If you can’t beat ’em, buy em.

That’s been Facebook’s strategy lately when it comes to third-party challengers and this afternoon the company announced its making its biggest acquisition yet, scooping up popular messaging app WhatsApp for a cool $12 billion in stock.

Facebook is also tossing in $4 billion in cash as well as $3 billion in restricted stock units bringing the total price tag to an incredible $19 billion.

Sapphire glass was in the news again today, thanks to a jump in the share price of GT Advanced Technologies Inc. — the company which will reportedly manufacture the iPhone 6’s sapphire display.

With contrasting reports about sapphire’s advantages over Gorilla Glass, along with counter-reports from Gorilla Glass maker Corning, we figured the time was right to break down some of the questions about Apple’s latest wonder-material.

Apple’s first iTunes Festival for the U.S. will take place at next month’s SXSW event in Austin, Texas. It will be held in Moody Theater, home of Austin City Limits, and will feature a whole host of chart-topping artists — including Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Pitbull, Keith Urban, ZEDD, and more.

Apple maintains its position as the world’s most valuable brand for the third year in a row, according to this year’s Brand Finance Global 500 study.

After Apple, the other positions in the Top 10 were filled out by Samsung, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, General Electric, AT&T, Amazon, Walmart, and IBM.

“What sets [Apple] apart is its ability to monetize [its] brand,” Brand Finance CEO David Haigh said in a statement. “For example, though tablets were in use before the iPad, it was the application of the Apple brand to the concept that captured the public imagination and allowed it to take off as a commercial reality.”

Apple won’t come right out and say so, but the iPhone 5c is a (comparative) dud. But why? Legendarly Apple ad man Ken Segall has his theories, and it all comes down to the fact that with the iPhone 5c, Apple violated Steve Jobs’ prime directive: Apple doesn’t do cheap.

Do you think Blackberry is dead? So does T-Mobile, which is why they tried to get Blackberry customers on the network to switch over to Apple’s smartphone. But apparently, Blackberry has some life in it yet… or enough, at least, to get pissed off about T-Mobile counting the Canadian smartphone maker out.

Remember GBA4iOS? It was a Gameboy Advance emulator for iOS that took advantage of an App Store enterprise deployment loophole to let you play GBA games on your iPhone or iPad, no jailbreak required. Unfortunately, Apple closed the loophole… until now.

Apple has launched the second story on its new Your Verse microsite.

The campaign — which focuses on showing the iPad in unexpected real world situations — this time chronicles the work of mountaineers Adrian Ballinger and Emily Harrington, who take the iPad with them on their extraordinary climbs.

Ballinger and Harrington use the iPad — along with the Gaia GPS topography app — to plan and navigate their ascent, while also using the device’s access to social networking tools to post photos and progress updates during various junctures of the journey.

A new Apple patent, published Tuesday, reveals how future Apple earbuds and headphones might incorporate health-monitoring features.

The patent shows how a monitoring system could be cleverly built into Apple earphones, and used to track activity such as speed and distance traveled during exercise. The device would also be able to sense other biometric data relating to metrics body temperature, perspiration rate, and heart rate.

San Francisco artist Jason Mecier has just unveiled a new portrait of Steve Jobs, composed entirely out of e-waste.

Created using 20lbs of electronic waste — including cell phones, iPods, headphones, Mac keyboards, CD-Rs, batteries, mice, and memory sticks — Mecier’s portrait is a meticulous recreation of the iconic 2006 Albert Watson photo of Jobs originally commissioned by Fortune magazine.

The original image was most famously used for the hardcover jacket of Walter Isaacson’s 2011 Steve Jobs biography.