Here's the deal -- you follow iMore on your favorite social networks, and we give you awesome accessory prizes... EVERY WEEK!

We know our loyal readers already visit iMore.com daily, subscribe to our RSS feeds and get the iMore Podcast on iTunes, but we wanted to do something a little extra to reward our loyal fans and grow our audience in some of the off-iMore social networking and content sharing sites that iPhone owners hang out and visit.

It's easy! All you have to do is follow iMore on Youtube, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook and as a thank you for doing so we're going to pick a lucky winner each month from among our iMore followers / subscribers / fans on each of these sites to win some great iPhone prizes! That's four winners each month - one picked at random from each site. All you need to do is click the links below to follow us on each site, and just keep following us! We'll pick our four winners on the last day of each month and announce them around the first day of the new month along with the prizes to be won for the new month. You can subscribe to all of Youtube, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook to maximize your chances of winning.

This month we're going to help you keep rocking til the end of summer with awesome Bluetooth speakers! See the list below for links to the sites and the prize you could win on each one.

• On Youtube - You could win Qmadix iharmonix Q-i-sound Stereo Bluetooth Speakers!
• On Twitter - You could win a Mr Handsfree Blue Beat Bluetooth Wireless Stereo Speaker!
• On Google+ - You could win a Jawbone JAMBOX!
• On Facebook - You could win a SuperTooth DISCO Bluetooth speaker system!

(And don't forget to follow our sensational staff -- they often have extra accessories and apps so you never know when they'll surprise you with something special -- @imore, @reneritchie, @GeorgiaTiPb, @llofte, @iMuggle, @chrisoldroyd, @bla1ze, @phishgirl7
)

We'll send out a reminder each week with ways to earn extra entries, so make sure to watch the blogs! Thanks for following, spread the word and good luck!!

Follow iMore and Win Contest FAQ/Details

Eligibility - Open worldwide. In order to participate as a follower /subscriber / fan of the iMore accounts in this contest you must have an account with Youtube, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. We'd love you to follow on us in all four locations (that maximizes your chances of winning) but it's not required. One, two or all four is fine. If you're already following us when this contest starts, don't worry, you're entered automatically!! You must also be a registered member of iMore to be eligible.

Announcing Winners - Winners will be chosen randomly each month. Winning usernames will be posted to the iMore blogs within the first few days of each new month. Winners will be contacted via the respective sites (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Youtube) and once initially contacted the follow-up will be conducted via email to work out details (address for shipping, etc.) on getting the prize. There is no rule against being able to win more than once.

There you have it! Be sure to tune into the blogs around the first day of each month for the winners' announcement and to see what can be won next month. If you have any questions, you can email me at michelle @ iMore.com - be sure to make the subject Follow iMore and Win Contest!

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ZEN and TECH is hosted by our very own Georgia, with a little bit of banter provided by yours truly. We don't always post it here on iMore because the subject matter -- how to center your inner geek and de-stress your connected life -- doesn't always directly relate to our focus here -- iPhone and iPads, and Apple stuff.

But Georgia is starting something new with ZEN and TECH that, while still not all about Apple, is something that I think could be of enormous value to a huge portion of our readership, listenership, and viewership.

Parenting.

There's absolutely nothing more important to the future of our world than our children, but while cars require licenses and gadgets come with instruction books, most of us aren't given a lot of help when it comes to the immensely more important job of raising our children.

Georgia's day job is as a therapist, and a highly successful one at that. When she's not reviewing the latest iPhone and iPad gear for us, or chatting on the podcast, she's helping people live better lives, and she's spent years specializing on children and parenting.

She typically charges a small fortune for her work but she's incredibly passionate about it, loves the Mobile Nations community, and wants to share her experience on the off chance (I'd say likely chance) it can help us with our parenting skills.

So, for the next few months, every other episode of ZEN and TECH will focus on parenting, with a ton of tips, and a lot of share experience and insight. If you can join us live, please do. She'd love to hear your thoughts and answer questions. Either way, if you're a parent, plan to be a parent, or are simply interested in the topic of parenting, subscribe to ZEN and TECH via the links above, and if you have friends, family, or colleagues that you think are or should be interested, please help us spread the word.

It's the most important series we've ever done.

iCloud automagically backs up all of the data on your iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. So, if you ever lose, replace, update, or simply restore your device, you can easily get back to right where you left off. Unfortunately, iCloud backup is so automagical that it can quickly fill up the 5GB Apple gives you for free, preventing future backups or forcing you to buy additional -- non free - storage.

Sure, you can go through and delete iCloud emails with hefty attachments, or be frugal about just how many -- and how large --documents you keep in the cloud, but you can also control just exactly what gets backed up, removing anything that's not urgent or important to you, and you can also manually delete old backups from devices you no longer have, or you simply don't need anymore. And that can instantly free up considerable, valuable space for the stuff you do care about.

How to delete an iCloud backup

Old backups, especially if they're for devices you've since lost, given away, sold, upgraded, or otherwise don't have anymore, can be a huge waste of your iCloud space. Likewise, even backups of the devices you do use, if they're several months old, might not be worth keeping around any more. Since all the iPhones, iPods, and iPads you've ever connected to your iCloud account share the same 5GB storage pool, cleaning out what you no longer need can give you back a lot of breathing room. It's easy to do, if tricky to find.

1. Launch the Settings app
2. Tap on iCloud

3. Tap on Storage and Backup

4. Tap on Manage Storage

5. Check out your current backups stored on iCloud. (Here you can see two iPhones, including one replaced at the Apple Store last week and so no longer needed).

6. Tap on the backup you want to remove from iCloud
7. Tap on Delete Backup

8. Tap on Turn Off and Delete

That's it, that backup has now been removed and your iCloud account should show a nicer, healthier balance.

How to manually manage what gets backed up to iCloud

Once you've deleted all the old backups you don't need any more, the next thing to check is what's being backed up now, and whether or not all of it needs to be backed up. For example, backing up the Camera Roll can use up a large amount of your iCloud storage. Since Photo Stream captures all the photo data anyway, and isn't counted against your total storage usage, turning off Camera Roll backup can save you considerable space. You will LOSE backups of videos, but those same videos can chew through your free iCloud data allotment anyway. Again, it's easy to see and control what gets backed up to iCloud, once you know where to look.

1. Launch the Settings app
2. Tap iCloud near the bottom
3. Tap Storage and Backup near the bottom
4. Tap Manage Storage
5. If you have multiple devices on the same iCloud account, tap on the name of your device
6. You'll see a list of apps currently being backed up to iCloud. Not all apps will be shown immediately. Too see them all, tap Show All
7. For any apps you don't really want or need to be backed up, switch the toggle button to Off

The Camera Roll above is 35GB. That could cost you quite a bit in iCloud storage fees. Turning it off, you save a ton of space. Just remember, while Photo Stream will keep your still photos safe, your videos won't get backed up so you'll have to take care of those yourself.

How to downgrade your iCloud storage

If you previously bought more iCloud storage space, and now, after having cleaned out your iClouds, you decide you don't any more, you can make sure you don't get billed again next time your payment comes due. iCloud billing is on a yearly cycle, so chance are you'll still get the extra storage you paid for for a while, but you won't get charged again.

1. Launch the Settings app
2. Tap iCloud near the bottom
3. Tap Storage and Backup near the bottom
4. Tap Buy More Storage
5. Tap Downgrade Options near the bottom
6. Login with your Apple ID password
7. Choose your new plan from the available options

The downgrade will take effect at your next billing cycle (one year after you bought the additional storage).

How to get more help with iCloud

If you still need help with any other iCloud feature, head on over to our iCloud Forum and ask away! And if you have any of your own tips on saving space in iCloud, leave it in the comments below!

• How to set up and use iCloud mail, contacts, and calendars
• How to set up and use iTunes in the Cloud
• How to set up and use iTunes Match
• How to set up and use Photo Stream
• How to set up and use Documents in the Cloud
• How to set up and use Find my iPhone
• How to set up and use Find my Friends

Ally Kazmucha and Chris Oldroyd contributed sections to this articles.

The Safe & Sound is an iPad case that looks to increase the volume of your iPad speaker. It hopes to make listening to music, making FaceTime calls or anything else that you may need the external speaker for a much better experience. The Safe & Sound has just appeared on Kickstarter and is looking for funding to make the case a reality.

The Safe & Sound case for iPad is a dual purpose hard shell case offering both protection and acoustic amplification that feels more like an extension of your iPad than just another accessory. With the Safe & Sound case, your iPad is safer and sounds better, without losing any of its functionality, including the use of a smart cover.

The key feature that makes the Safe & Sound case stand out is its acoustic sound box, which reflects sound waves back toward you off of a single smooth surface. This means that sound waves reach your ear with greater amplitude and little interference, resulting in clearer, louder audio, optimizing your iPad's built-in speaker.

If you like the look of the Safe & Sound amplifying case and want to help with its funding you can do that very easily. A pledge of just $15 will secure you one should they make it into production. The Safe & Sound currently has just over $1.2k of pledges but needs to reach at least $12.25k to reach its funding target; there is still 30 days left to go. As with all of these Kickstarter projects, just because a particular item reaches its funding total doesn't guarantee it will be made.

There is no doubt that from my experience that all generations of the iPad suffer from really low audio levels from the external speaker, other tablets and notebooks have seen some tremendous advances in audio over the last few years but not the iPad. Apple seems to ignore the problem hence the need for these types of devices that look to offer improved audio levels.

Do you think the iPad speaker is really poor or are you happy with its volume levels? Would you use a case like this to improve the audio level on your iPad?

Source: Kickstarter

Late Apple CEO Steve Jobs may have wanted to go all thermonuclear on Android over their alleged infringement of Apple's patents, but that doesn't mean they didn't try a pocketbook-based approach behind the scenes. If the current trial between Apple and Samsung over this very matter is any indication, there's a lot that happened behind the scenes that we didn't know about until now. Case in point: the release of a late 2010 Apple slide deck detailing a proposed licensing deal with Samsung that, if accepted, would have put this whole ordeal behind us.

The basic details of the proposed licensing agreement are that Apple wanted for $30 per smartphone and $40 per tablet from Samsung. There are some discounts available, though, with Apple knocking 20% off if Samsung were to cross-license their not-as-formidable patent portfolio back to Apple, a 20% discount for devices that have features that aren't "Apple Proprietary", and a 40% discount for smartphones that run an OS that's already licensed patents from Apple (i.e. Microsoft, not Google). In total that could bring the royalty per device down to $6, assuming it was a smartphone that runs Microsoft software and has key differentiating features from Apple's devices  (the proposal cites Samsung's BlackJack smartphone, with its Windows Mobile OS and hardware keyboard as an example). Considering that Apple's primary beef with Samsung is over Android, however, the best discount the company could manage would be down to $24 per device. The tablet licensing fee would also be reduced to $30 per device over the course of two years.

How that compares to other licensing deals in the mobile space, like Microsoft's dealings with HTC, Samsung, LG, Acer, and others, we're note entirely sure. It's been reported that Microsoft's licensing agreements range between $5 and $15 dollars per device, but it's never been confirmed (Samsung's been rumored to be on the high end of that scale). In fact, this is one of the few times we've been able to get the nitty-gritty details of what exactly one company was trying to ask of another for patent licensing.

As other court documents have revealed, Samsung between June 2010 and June 2012 sold 21.25 million smartphones and $1.4 million tablets, generating just over $8.1 billion in revenue. Assuming the vast majority of those were Android devices and only qualified for the 20% discount per Apple's proposal, Samsung would have been looking at licensing fees of $554 million during that time.

Half a billion is a relative drop in the bucket for Apple, with their $8.8 billion in profit - not revenue, that was $35 billion - just this past quarter. But for Samsung, $554 million is a big chunk of change for their smartphone business, while Samsung did register a profit of $5.9 billion for the last quarter, it's worth noting that Samsung also makes a wide range of consumer devices, including high-priced televisions, refrigerators, washing machines, and cameras. They do share an overlap with Apple in the smartphones, tablets, and personal computers space, but only in smartphones is Samsung's marketshare competitive with Apple's. But Samsung also produces a wide variety of smartphones, limiting the economies of scale that Apple enjoys by producing only a handful of different smartphones, and making the same model (see: iPhone 3GS) for years.

With that all in mind, we still don't know what exactly sort of profit Samsung's enjoyed off their smartphone and tablet success, but we can be all but certain their profits haven't been nearly as strong as Apple's when the company as a whole can't generate as much profit across their wide range of products. An approximately $250 million-a-year hit to Samsung's mobile electronics business would have likely been devastating to the division's bottom line, hence the lack of an agreement on Apple's proposed licensing terms.

Amusingly, Apple expected that Samsung would respond favorably to the proposed licensing terms.

Source: AllThingsD

Apparently more Apple users than usual are having trouble with Google's Gmail service over IMAP today, specifically a "mail service imap.gmail.com is not responding" error. Google's aware of the problem and looking into it, and in the meantime have posted some quasi helpful tips on minimizing the chances you Gmail will simply error-out on iOS. Personally, I'd recommend switching to Gmail over Exchange ActiveSync, but if you're a die-hard IMAP lover, you can check them out and hope for the best...

The sad truth is, Gmail's back-end service and Mail.app's front-end client have never worked very well together. Google has incredibly stingy bandwidth and simultaneous connection limits for a provider their size, and Apple is incredibly greedy when it comes to grabbing connections, and downright silly when it comes to re-syncing massive amounts of mail for seemingly no reason.

I've had frequent errors for 3 or 4 years now, and neither company has shown the slightest interest in fixing them. Then, and today, if you use Gmail and have Mail.app open on several machines or set up as IMAP on several iOS devices, you'll have problems. From the likes of Google and Apple, that's simply unacceptable. Gmail needs more reasonable usage limits and Apple needs to be more reasonable about using them.

So while it's all well and good that Google is aware of today's "mail service imap.gmail.com is not responding" problem and are working to fix it, the greater problem needs its fair share of fixing too.

Again, switch to Gmail over Exchange ActiveSync if you can, and if you can't, check out the helpful tips below...

Source: Gmail support via AllThingsD

We're aware of a problem where Apple Mail IMAP users are unable to sync with their Gmail account and are seeing a username and password error. We have found that a vast majority of users are exceeding IMAP bandwidth limits and are continuing to investigate.

In the meantime, please review the following suggestions help to reduce the chances of going over bandwidth limits. Avoid these actions that use up a lot of bandwidth:

• Don't store draft messages on the server. In Apple Mail, go to Preferences > Accounts > Mailbox Behaviors and make sure to uncheck "Store draft messages on the server".
• Avoid syncing all your mail to more than one mail program
• Avoid removing and re-adding your Gmail IMAP account to a program, causing your mail archive to be synced multiple times
• Avoid uploading a lot of messages to Gmail, for example by dragging-and-dropping messages from your local disk into a Gmail folder
• Avoid telling your mail program to save a copy of sent mail on the server, and then sending a lot of mail
• Check whether you have granted access to your Gmail account to any third-party software that could be downloading mail on your behalf. Check your account activity for any unrecognized activity. You may be able to revoke this access in your Google Accounts settings. If you gave these sites your Google password, you might have to change it to prevent them from logging into your account.

Found an interesting article you want to share with iMore? Have a burning question about that feature you just can't figure out? There is ALWAYS more happening just a click away in the forums. You can always head over and join in the conversation, search for answers, or lend your expertise to other members of our community. You check out some of the threads below:

If you're not already a member of the iMore Forums, register now!

Cygnett makes a wide range of cute, colorful, cool, and killer cases for the iPhone. They sent me a few to take a look at, and I spent a couple of weeks putting them all through their paces.

The Cygnett ICON Art Series case features exclusive Scarygirl art by Nathan Jurevicius. It's printed on both the back and sides over a soft-touch, slim-fitting case that's easy to put on and take off. The artwork is bright, but after two weeks of use the print started to wear off around the edges. If you like the decayed look, maybe that won't be a big deal to you, but if you love the colorful characters and artwork, you'll be as sad as I am that the art on the ICON Art Series doesn't last.

The Cygnett Workmate Pro is less about looks and more about shock-absorbing action. It features dual layers of silicone and polycarbonate and it's built to take more of a beating. They're not my favorite type of case simply because I'm a bit of a perfectionist and I find I can never quite keep both layers lined up perfectly, so I'm forever fiddling with them. The Workmate Pro does provide a lot of protection, though, while maintaining good access to all the ports, and avoiding a ton of excess bulk.

The Cygnett SKIN Textured Slimcase is designed to add some style and sophistication to your iPhone. Some may say it looks like reptile skin, but I prefer to think of it as Targarian Dragon skin personally. That reference alone should tell you how much I like the looks of the SKIN Textured Slimcase. I also like how easily it pops on or off. It is more slippery feeling than some of Cygnett's other cases, however. That might be due to the soft, almost squishy finish on the back.

The Cygnett Urban Shield is all brushed aluminum goodness. If you've read and watched my past reviews, you know how much I like the shiny, metallic cases, and the Urban Shield is no exception. It's light weight but not flimsy, strong but not brittle. It also has a soft touch finish on the sides for extra grip. I love that. Like the other Cygnett cases, the Urban Shield goes on and comes off easily, and provides ample cutouts for all your buttons and connections. The only downside is the large logo on the back. Some may not mind it, but I prefer a cleaner look (or at least not as obvious or busy a logo).

The Cygnett Apollo Hybrid Case aims to put the future in your hands, today. Well, okay, a "futuristic" anti-scratch, finger-proof polycarbonate layer wrapped around an impact-resistant silicone core. The silicone rises up to provide some protection to the front of your phone, which is great, but it isn't cut very generously around the ports, so the thickness could interfere with chunkier media or car dock cables.

The good

• All cases come with a screen protector and micro-fiber cloth
• Wide variety of colors, styles, and types of cases
• Excellent manufacturing quality

The bad

• Printing could be more durable
• Ports could be cut a little wider

The bottom line

Cygnett makes a wide variety of cases, and their products are of exceptionally good quality. You can find everything from simple, slim skins to rugged, impact resistant cases, in a variety of colors and designs. If you're looking for a new case to change up the way your iPhone looks, check out Cygnett.

$14.99 and up - Buy now