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PSA: Don’t buy these overpriced knock-off Apple Watch charging cables

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Knock-offs of Apple’s official Apple Watch magnetic charging cables are now available to purchase from Amazon, but with a twist: unlike the real cables, which Apple sells for $29 to $39, the knock-offs from companies such as “Reiko,” “Somoder” and “WL” are going for $45 to $58. The $58 version is shipping now with delivery this week, while the $45 ones promise to ship at various times directly from China.

Marketed using Apple’s own images, the knock-offs provide few guarantees as to exactly what customers will get. Reiko calls its version “Data Cable for Apple Watch” even though the magnetic cables are used solely for charging, not for data. They all tout 100cm (1-meter) lengths comparable to Apple’s $29 cables and typically use pictures of the metal-clad Apple Watch Magnetic Charging Cable, but some of the postings additionally include shots of the all-plastic cable shipped with the Apple Watch Sport. All of the listings promise that the cable is “high temperature resistant,” with “shock absorption and good air permeability,” for whatever that’s worth.

Historically, sellers of cloned Apple cables have traded on (much) lower prices as a means to attract customers, but these vendors appear to be taking advantage of Amazon’s lack of official Apple cables to charge atypically high prices. For obvious reasons, we’d strongly suggest passing on the knock-offs in favor of the authentic, less expensive Apple alternatives.

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Gameloft releases first trailer for upcoming Modern Combat 5 title [Video]

With each instalment of the popular FPS Modern Combat series on iOS and Android, Gameloft seems to be getting a little closer to matching the quality of gameplay we expect from the top of the line console games in the genre such as Call of Duty.  While it’s no secret the Modern Combat series has borrowed a lot from COD (as have many other FPS games), the latest trailer for the upcoming Modern Combat 5 title looks to be the closet thing to an immersive, action-packed COD-like shooter that we’ll have on mobile devices. Note: On top of the gameplay, the logo towards the end of the video (including the animations) is little too close to the Call of Duty Modern Warfare series for my liking. Gameloft has been accused several times of knocking off games from big developers in the console world, most notably with its Gangstar (aka GTA clone) and NOVA (aka HALO clone) series.

We don’t learn a whole lot from the trailer itself, but it does appear much of the action will be taking place in Venice, Italy this time around. Despite the shameless similarities to other big franchises, those excited for the upcoming Modern Combat 5 will seemingly have to wait until E3 to hear more about when and for how much it will be coming to iPhone, iPad, and Android.

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Former Apple employee discusses the App Store review process

There are many examples of flaws in Apple’s App Store review process. We know Apple is quick to reject apps that mimic the core functionality of iOS, such as Voice Answer, Find My Facebook Friends, or Airfoil, but those developers all made tweaks to their apps and were later accepted into the App Store. Perhaps a bigger problem is apps sneaking their way into the store as offensive or stolen content. We came across an example of each with two apps recently accepted into the App Store: Bulimia Duck (pictured above), which is a Yelp-like restaurant finder with an obviously offensive name, and Dragon Ball Z Jump, which is a hybrid of stolen IPs including Dragon Ball Z and popular iOS title Doodle Jump. These are just two examples of the type of apps making their way into the App Store every week.

Today, we get a bit of insight into what goes on behind the scenes during Apple’s review process. A former senior engineer at Apple, Mike Lee, talked to Business Insider about the app review team:

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