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Amidst rumors of a mysterious smartphone and new iPad apps, Facebook held a big press event today at its headquarters in Menlo Park, California. The topic was search, or more specifically, social search. It’s a new feature Facebook is calling “Graph Search,” and the beta has started rolling out already. It will be available for all of Facebook’s one billion users soon.

Think of Graph Search as Google with a more personal touch. Facebook is leveraging everything it knows about you to help you connect with people who like what you like. Instead of leaving Facebook.com to get your results, all of your social data and timeline history is mined and collated inside Facebook’s walls. That’s good news for Facebook, and bad news for Google.

The recent departure of John Browett has left Apple searching for a new senior executive to lead its retail division. Internally, Apple has had a couple of execs who could fit the bill. One of the top contenders, retail VP Jerry McDougal, has now left Apple for personal reasons.

McDougal’s replacement will be VP of Finance Jim Bean, according to an official statement provided by Apple.

So you got a new Mac over the holidays. (Or your old Mac makes you wish that you did.)

Well today’s Cult of Mac Deals offer will keep that newly-minted Mac running like the day it was unboxed and get your old Mac running like new again. With this exclusive promotion you’ll get the CleanMyMac Double Pack which will keep two of your Macs clean and free of clutter – for life – and for only $25!

Although Apple has already combined blockchain and retail for some time now to maintain a smooth flow of their entire process and also keep track of everything, they must now overhaul its supply chain in a bid to make its iPhone cheaper and meet the demand of low-cost smartphones in emerging markets, according to former CEO John Sculley. The Cupertino company has enjoyed plenty of success with the device in the United States and Europe, but Sculley feels that going forward, Apple will need to depend on growth in emerging markets, where the handset’s premium price tag just won’t work.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Apple has cut its iPhone 5 component orders by as much as half following “weaker-than-expected” demand for device. The news sent Apple’s stock price plummeting, but according to some analysts, there’s nothing to worry about. iPhone 5 demand is doing just fine, according to Sterne Agee’s Shaw Wu, and the component cuts are in no way related to poor demand.

Rumors of a cheaper, budget iPhone have been picking up steam in recent weeks. After the infamous Digitimes reported that Apple was gearing up to launch a low-cost iPhone later this year, mainstream publications like The Wall Street Journal chimed in with their own confirmations. Apple is “weighing retail prices of $99 to $149” for the unannounced device, according to Bloomberg.

Now Digitimes is saying that Apple could use plastic instead of metal or glass to cut costs for this new “entry-level” iPhone.

NEWSFLASH: Teens don’t want the iPhone! Parents beware! The Microsoft Surface and Samsung Galaxy phones are the new “it” things! Apple has lost its cool factor!!!

That’s what the Buzz Marketing Group, an organization that seeks to provide  “lifestyle and buzz marketing services for brands seeking to attract teen audiences,” wants you to think. You may have recently seen some headlines from big sites saying that teens think Apple is uncool now.

As my British boss Leander Kahney would say, that’s absolute bollocks.

Apple’s share price has plummeted this morning, following an earlier report that said the Cupertino company had cut iPhone 5 component orders due to weaker-than-expected demand. When the market opening on Monday morning, Apple stock dropped to $16.23, or 3.1%, to $504.07.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has recently cut component orders for the iPhone 5 due to weaker-than-expected demand. The device enjoyed a successful start when it launched in September 2012, quickly becoming the Cupertino company’s fastest-selling iPhone. It appears, however, that sales since then haven’t quite been what Apple was originally expecting.

So the Consumer Electronics Show is over for another year, and for those who’ve been in Las Vegas covering it for us, it’s back to normality. While we allow the Cult of Mac team to sober up, it’s time to look back at the best gizmos CES had to offer. There were thousands of products on show — far too many to cover in one week — but there were a handful that really stood out.

We’ve put together a list of awesome things that we were blown away by, including smartphones, accessories, gadgets, and more. Check it out and tell us what you’re most looking forward to getting your hands on in 2013.

My name is Mike and I’m a digital nomad. “Hi, Mike!”

A digital nomad is simply a person whose work is location-independent because of mobile technology and the Internet.

Location independence doesn’t mean travel. If you choose to work from home, but could travel if you wanted to, you’re still a digital nomad taking advantage of your ability to choose.

I’ve been a digital nomad for about a decade, and during that time I’ve lived abroad briefly while working.

Before I converted to all-Apple, all the time — and before Apple launched the App Store, the iPad and had Apple Stores all over the place — the experience of living abroad while working was hard, limited and isolating.

But since Apple became the “New Apple,’ and since I switched to Apple products — and also since a host of great online services came online — digital nomad living abroad has become easy, empowering and highly connected.

Welcome to the most awkward booth at CES. There are battery packs for your iPhone and MacBooks. You can check out a new stylus. On display in the corner is an external iOS drive. They even got some new iPad cases on too. But don’t let those products distract you from the real show: the four naked women standing on display.

Scantly clad booth babes are a common sight at CES, but HyperShop has taken it to a whole new level by unabashedly displaying naked women at their booth. They claim it’s art, and maybe it is (what is “art” anyway?), but what the hell do these naked women have to do with battery packs?

Third-generation iPad owners became understandably upset last November when Apple announced a new sixth-generation iPad eight months after theirs went on sale. It was the first time the Cupertino company had launched an iPad within 12 months of its predecessor, but it looks like we’d better get used to it.

Rumors have this week suggested that Apple is now looking to update its iOS devices every six months, introducing two every year. And according to one analyst, that’s exactly what’s going to happen with the next-generation iPads.

That’s a wrap, folks! The 2013 Consumer Electronics Show is done and over, but after walking the tech-packed floors and press events for days, we’re ready to reveal the gadgets that had us yelling “shut up and take the money!” Get the full scoop on our newest CultCast!

Plus, don’t miss our own Deputy Editor John Brownlee regale us with the hilarious story of a press event gone so wrong, the internet can’t stop buzzing about it.

All that and more on our newest and final live-from-Vegas CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes to catch our all-new episode, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App. And while you’re at it, be sure to download our other 3 daily CES recap episodes to hear our favorite booths of shows past and funny stories from the show!

Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, reportedly shot down suggestions that the Cupertino company will launch a low-cost iPhone later this year during an interview with a Chinese newspaper earlier this week. According to the report, Schiller said that the budget devices will “never be the future of Apple products.”

Reuters was one of the first media outlets to cover the report, but in an interesting move, it has this morning pulled its piece after “substantial changes” were made to the original article. Could this mean Schiller didn’t really say those things?

Apple was awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy on Thursday evening during a ceremony at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Launched in 1948, the Technology & Engineering Emmy Awards honor “development and innovation in broadcast technology and recognize companies, organizations and individuals for breakthroughs in technology that have a significant effect on television engineering.”

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – Last year, I gave my friend Rachel — a NYC singer/songwriter/comedian with an impressive array of musical proficiencies — my old iPad 2 as a gift. It was her first tablet, or even touchscreen device. I worried she wouldn’t know what to do with it, so when she opened the box and gave me an inquisitive cock of the eyebrow, I told her that the very first thing she needed to do with it was install Garage Band.

To this day, I think it was Garage Band that is the real gift to Rachel, not the actual iPad. Using Garage Band, she can quickly jot out a song idea on the road, or even fully record a fantastic mix, all from a device small enough to fit in her purse. There’s only one trade-off: you have to use the touchscreen. There’s no physical instrument as portable as the iPad to take on the road with you.

That’s where the Jamstik comes in. A product so new and in-concept it doesn’t even have a distributor yet, it’s one of our favorite products of CES. It’s a tiny, ukelele-sized guitar with real strings that connects to your iPad over WiFi, and not only can you use it to record or even perform with your iPad, but it can also teach you how to play the guitar… or serve for an impromptu game of Guitar Hero.

Tim Cook is on his second visit to China as Apple CEO this week, and during an interview with local reporters on Thursday, he confirmed that the cellular version of the iPad mini will be arriving in the nation in late January. The Wi-Fi only model arriving in China on December 7, just over a month after it launched in the United States.

Apple announced on its developer site today that it will be locking down the images submitted along with apps once they are approved for the App Store, locking scammers out of one more tactic used to scam naive app buyers into purchasing apps that may look just like popular games (like Pokemon or Minecraft). The tactic involved submitting apps with basic images for approval to Apple, then switching them out to infringing images that look just like the popular apps.

Apple’s new policy should help cut down on scammer app sellers from deploying the bait and switch maneuver in the future, helping keep app buyers a bit safer than before.

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 –
The Cult of Mac staff invaded Show Stoppers last night at the Wynn Resort in Las Vegas. Along with some free buffet food and an endless supply of booze, there were products galore. Some were neat. A lot were horrible. But the event was a lot of fun.

Here is a small sampling of the sights of CES Showstoppers last night:

We’ve been itching to get our hands on the Pebble smartwatch since it first hit Kickstarter, but that wait will be over later this month. At CES in Las Vegas today, Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky announced that the device has now entered mass production, and that shipping will begin on January 23.

Rumors surrounding an upcoming low-cost iPhone have really taken off this week, with The Wall Street Journal reporting on Tuesday that the device could make its debut before the end of 2013. Now Bloomberg is corroborating that with information from its own sources, who say Apple is already discussing the device with at least one of the major U.S. carriers. They also claim that the handset will cost between $99 and $149 when it launches.

This morning we told you about the Digitimes report that said Apple is planning to release a low-cost iPhone for emerging markets later this year. Now The Wall Street Journal is corroborating by saying “the device could come as soon as late 2013.”

LAS VEGAS, CES 2013 – The first Lightning speaker docks are starting to Rumble out of CES, starting with the thunderous OnBeat Rumble, an attractive new dock from JBL that can not only dock a new iPhone, iPad or iPod, but accepts audio streamed across the room via Bluetooth as well.

Digitimes has today published one of its more questionable rumors regarding Apple’s upcoming low-cost iPhone. Citing sources in the Cupertino company’s supply chain, it claims the cheaper device — believed to be called the “iPhone mini” by one analyst — will make its debut later this year, aimed at China and other emerging markets.

But it won’t be smaller to cut costs. Instead it’ll boast a larger screen to meet the “prevailing trend for the adoption of 5-inch displays.”