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Here’s a reason to download Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts app if you haven’t already: the latest gift — freely downloadable using the app — is Martin Scorsese’s critically-acclaimed 2011 film Hugo.

The movie, based on Brian Selznick’s New York Times best-seller, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, tells the story of a 12-year-old boy living in the walls of a Parisian train station, who meets a down-on-his-luck toymaker, who turns out to be silent movie special effects maestro Georges Méliès (the guy that famously made this iconic short, entitled A Trip to the Moon).

In the Mac space, Dutch designer Martin Hajek is the crown prince of concepts, having done some of the most realistic and jawdropping renders we’ve ever seen for the iWatch, Mac Pro, iPhone 6 and more.

One product concept we thought Hajek bit the pooch on a little, though, was his idea of what an Apple HDTV would look like. His concept was black, chamfered and gorgeous… but also looked like Martin Hajek had never used a television in his life. But here comes Hajek’s Apple HDTV, Mach II… and this is an Apple television set I would buy.

There are more than a few people who would claim that not much happened with Apple in 2013. After all, they spent the first six months of the year without releasing a single product, didn’t they?

Maybe that’s true, but in actuality, 2013 was one of the most exciting years in the Apple space in recent memory.

Don’t believe us? First of all, check out our round-up of the biggest stories in 2013, and then, take a detailed look at this incredible infographic by Kevin Choi, beautifully showing the most important milestones in Apple’s fiscal 2013, from the introduction of the 128GB iPad to the App Store’s 50th Billionth App Download, and beyond.

We can only show a small snatch of the infographic, due to its hugeness, but you can see the whole thing here on Google Drive.

Apple is increasingly shipping hardware products with specific features that are crazy overkill — far more power than is necessary or even usable.

Here’s why I think that when it comes to some technology features, too much is just right.

This week, Cult of Mac Magazine looks back on 2013 with our Year in Review issue.

Apple has once again overturned a few carts and made mincemeat of our best predictions for where the Cupertino company is heading next.

In addition to a rollicking review of the best — and weirdest — news, apps, games, rumors and the like, Cult of Mac’s resident gadfly Mike Elgan opines on what Apple will bring us in 2014.

Elgan also weighs in on whether those iWatches or other gadgets (iGlasses? Yeah or Nay?) will be anything we actually want. Reporter Alex Heath takes a look at Apple’s bumper crop of acquisitions, a record this year, as a signpost of what the new year may bring.

As always, we bring you the best in apps, games, movies and books out of all the stuff our staffers have watched, played with and read this year — but only the stuff that doesn’t suck.

Cult of Mac Magazine: Year in Review.

Tim Cook was paid $4.25 million in 2013, according to a regulatory filing reported by Apple on Friday.

This figure broke down as $1.4 million in salary, and a further bonus bonus of $2.8 million. Cook’s other compensation included $52,721 in company contributions to his 401(k) account, life insurance premiums, and vacation cash-out.

As the new Mac Pro trickles out into people’s hands, lucky owners of the world’s most high tech trash can have started playing with the machine to see what it can do. Over at Other World Computing, they figured that since the 2013 Mac Pro can drive three 4k monitors, it should be able to drive six 27-inch displays at 2560 by 1440 pixels – right?

The verdict? Yes, it can. Shown here is the diminutive dark tower surrounded by six 27-inch displays, radiating and reflecting in all their glory. Pretty slick. Besides serving as the ultimate multi-tasking system, this capability can also help drive things like video walls in museums, sports arenas and other on-location installations. Just remember to leave room for the stack of external hard drives!

Update: I just did the math, and this is equivalent to twenty-one 11-inch MacBook Airs…

Source: Other World Computing

Alongside the powerful iPhone 5, and now the amazing iPhone 5S, iPhoneographers in 2013 have enjoyed some pretty rad photo apps. What follows is a completely subjective list of my favorite photo apps of the year. Some are in there because I use them and love them so much (I’m looking at you, Snapseed and PhotoSync), and others because they brought something truly new or great to iOS. Whatever, they’re all worth a look.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a flippin’ quadrocopter… with an aerial camera! It’s the Micro Drone 2.0 with an aerial cam so you can capture video from the sky.

This crazy maneuvering remote-controlled Micro Drone 2.0 can do it all! You can literally throw it into the air like a frisbee, upside down or at any angle, and its new self-righting algorithm and sensors will immediately stabilize it back to its horizontal flying position. And you can get it for just $69.99 – 45% off the regular price – thanks to this limited time offer from Cult of Mac Deals!

The barrier to entry for emulating classic games on a Mac has always been pretty high, until now. OpenEmu is an amazing retro game emulator for the Mac that has been literally years in the making, and it’s finally available for everyone to download and use for free.

Look, gaming is a big thing, right? You can’t swing a dead cat in an ugly holiday sweater without hitting someone who’s busily involved in some kind of gaming screen these days, and iOS has the clear advantage with the hundreds of thousands of games on offer, all of which are fairly inexpensive or free to play.

We’ve taken some of the effort out of finding the best games of the past year, with this mega-list of over 20 iOS games (in no particular order) that you really should check out right away. Except where noted, all these games will work on your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. Because, really, there’s no excuse for not making a game work universally these days.

Apple is by far the most secretive company in tech, so predicting its next move or the specifics of its next big thing is incredibly difficult. No one in Cupertino will leak this kind of information, so analysts and investors are forced to look a little further afield for scraps.

They usually turn to Apple’s supply chain — the people who are in some way involved with the production of its upcoming products. Sometimes this yields successful results, but other times, it results in some pretty crazy rumors.

Like every other year, there have been many memorable ones throughout 2013, so we thought it might be fun to look back at some of them. Here’s our roundup of the craziest Apple rumors from the last 12 months.

It’s still very early in the life of the new Mac Pro (shipping dates have already slipped to February), but the first review unit reports are starting to seep out — and they’re positive.

Tim Cook has talked about this being an “iPad Christmas”, but plain calling it an Apple Christmas might be altogether more accurate — as Apple surged to a 2013 new stock high following news of the recent China Mobile deal.

Apple stock gained 3.8 percent to end Monday trading at $570.09, reflecting what Creative Technologies analyst Tim Bajarin has called, “a huge deal for Apple.”

Although it hit several year highs over the past several months, Apple stock prices had been depressed for some of 2013 as investors appeared concerned regarding a supposed lack of innovation from the company.

More recently, share prices had wavered as nervous shareholders fretted that the long-reported China Mobile deal wasn’t happening as fast as they hoped.

Although analysts are still arguing over the long-term impact the China Mobile deal is likely to have, this strong year finish nonetheless bodes well for Apple in 2014.

Twitter, Facebook, and Google shares also finished strong after the day’s trading.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

It may have recently fallen out with Beyoncé over her decision to debut her new album on iTunes rather than in brick-and-mortar stores, but Target isn’t above going down the Apple route to grab a pre-Christmas buck either.

Customers searching for perfect last-minute holiday gift ideas can head to Target, which is offering deals on the iPhone 5c, 5s, and iPad Air between now and December 24.

Apple investors got their Christmas wish: The China Mobile deal, which could add billions of dollars to Apple’s revenue, has finally materialized.

The iPhone will be available to China Mobile customers beginning January 17, Apple announced Sunday, with pricing and availability to be released at a later date.

Christmas came early this morning for jailbreakers who have been waiting for iOS 7 to be cracked. Today the Evad3rs, the same group of hackers behind the iOS 6 jailbreak, released the full iOS 7 untethered jailbreak to everyone’s surprise.

Evasi0n7 is available now for free, but here’s why you should wait to jailbreak your iOS 7 device:

This article first appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand magazine

Lumen Bluetooth Lightbulb

$70 — Home — Anything

Wi-Fi lightbulbs are either the greatest thing ever, or final proof that our society is about to collapse form absurd decadence into fully-deserved chaos and misery. But as long as we’re buying into the convenience of the modern-day Clapper, why not make it even more useful by adding Bluetooth?

That’s the idea of the Lumen, which can be controlled by your iPhone from even where there’s no Wi-Fi network. It changes color, turns on and off and — if the accompanying video is anything to go by — it can help you get laid. All this, and the incorporation of “automatic manners” too. Who wouldn’t want one?

This article first appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand magazine

Alubolt

$50 — Docks & Stands — iPhone

The Lightning connector has made the iPhone and iPad dock a pretty tricky thing to get right: the plug is so happy and snug in its little Lightning hole that it just won’t come out without a good tug, and this means that the dock usually comes with the iPhone when you lift it up.

The Alubolt doesn’t help with this, but it does at least come with its own Lightning cable, so you won’t have to pony up another $20 just to use it — which is kind of a downer on Christmas day.

Alubolt

Dodocase Durables iPhone Wallet

$50 — Cases — iPhone

This article first appeared in the Cult of Mac Newsstand magazine

Versacover for iPad

$60 — Cases — iPad

The Versacover has two uses. One is to protect and support your iPad Air, offering many, many different ways to prop it up thanks to the origami-like folding front cover, which can be flipped into a large-but-limited number of iPad-bracing shapes.

The other use is to make work for idle hands, in the same way that a Rubik’s Cube used to do back when I was a child. All this and a microfiber lining to keep the screen clean: it’s the perfect Christmas Day accessory.

Apple, Google and Microsoft all want to be your phone company. But with both competitors’ communication offerings in disarray, Apple has an opportunity to offer the best, most elegant and integrated communication platform.

All they have to do is keep moving in their current direction, make a couple of key rumors come true and keep Steve Jobs’ promise about FaceTime.

On our all-new CultCast: Apple has a new Christmas commercial and some are hailing it as their best ad yet; Mac Pro is Apple’s most powerful computer ever; Beyonce’s iTunes-only album release breaks all the records; an alarming new study shows pervs can use your Mac’s camera to peep your naked bod; and we choose on our favorite Christmas movies of all time!

Have a few laughs whilst getting caught up on each week’s finest Apple stories! Download new and past episodes of The CultCast on iTunes or hit play below and let the audio enjoyment commence.

Thanks to DigiDNA and MacUpdate for sponsoring this episode. Need an easy way to wirelessly transfer movies, music, and data to and from your iDevice? You need DiskAid. Plus check out Macupdate’s new holiday app bundle and get $400 worth great apps for only $40.

Cult of Mac Magazine’s Unboxing Issue is a super-sized, mega edition packed full of good advice for your new device, whether you’re giving or getting.

We’ve got guides on how to set up your brand new iPhone and iPad, what apps and games you need as well as the accessories Cult of Mac reviewers won’t leave home without.

We’ve shown you plenty of app deals, but this one may be the best. App Santa is a new project from some of the best and most popular indie iOS developers. It includes 15 award-winning apps that have been discounted for Christmas, like Clear, Tweetbot, 1Password, and Day One.

Here’s the full list:

Investors and other interested parties may have an explanation for Apple’s M.I.A. deal with China Mobile — and that explanation could be lower-than-expected iPhone 5c sales.

That’s according to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who suggests that this is the reason a deal between the two parties has yet to be finalized.