What Tech IPOs Can We Expect in 2014?

Well, 2013 has certainly been the year for tech IPOs. Facebook shares have jumped 116%, Google, Twitter and Amazon are each up almost 60%, Yahoo climbed over 100% and even AOL shares grew by over 50%, this doesn't even include the likes of LinkedIn and Netflix who also had a bumper year on the stock market. This leaves us thinking that 2014 is likely to be another great year for tech IPOs but which companies can we expect to go public in the next 12 months?

First in the limelight is the Alibaba Group. China's biggest e-commerce company, a mix between Amazon and eBay, on one day alone in November they topped $5.7 billion in sales across the group. Now, the company is looking to go public on the US market and it's expected to be the biggest tech IPO of all time, possibly worth $100 billion.

Next up is Dropbox. The cloud storage company with over 200 million users recently valued itself at around $8 billion and with a healthy business plan that doesn't revolve around the fluctuating advertising market it's probably not far off. Dropbox's biggest issue is competition from the likes of Microsoft who already have business users in the palm of their hands.

The mobile payments company, Square, has recently been talked about with regards to an IPO. It's founder Jack Dorsey, who also co-founded Twitter, has supposedly been in talks with bankers about going public in 2014. The company was recently valued at just over $3 billion and has a more than healthy share in the mobile payments market that it helped revolutionise.

There's a whole host of other possibilities including the likes of Spotify, King, Rovio, and Pinterest but one we're not likely to be seeing is Evernote who's CEO, Phil Libin, says he doesn't expect the '100 year start-up' to IPO before 2015.

Will you be investing in any of the tech companies in 2014 or do have a thought on who might go public? Leave your comments below.

Apple Strikes Deal with China Mobile

Apple has struck a deal with China's top mobile phone network, China Mobile, which sees them now offering the iPhone 5s and 5c to it's 760 million customers. The deal is expected to be worth 10s of millions of devices per year for Apple who's stocks jumped to almost $570 on the news.

This App Pays You to Go To the Gym

We've all done it at some point in our lives - joined the gym and only used it a few times before getting bored. With the new year just around the corner (scary I know) there'll be a huge swathes of people doing it all over again. One app developer now believes they have the cure to this problem - pay people to use the gym.

The app is called GymPact and it's a great idea. It rewards those that exercise and punishes those that don't. The idea behind GymPact, available for free on Android and iOS, is that you pledge an amount of money (you decide how much) and how many days you'll visit the gym or workout at home or outdoors. If you complete your pledge for a certain week then you get paid but if you don't you get charged a certain amount. The money from non-exercisers is distributed to those who do exercise.

Currently, payments are around 30 cents (they're American) per workout completed so if you're good you could earn enough to cover a fair amount of your gym membership.

http://youtu.be/1ZoRT9iYPn4

Round-up of Apple Announcements

On Tuesday this week Apple made a series of product updates and new announcements at their event in San Francisco. Here's a quick roundup of the important things they announced. 1. Mac Pro

We already knew most of the technical details of Apple's new Mac Pro desktop but what we didn't know was the price or a time-frame for release. We got these answers on Tuesday. The revolutionary new desktop will be available in December and will start at £2,500 for a 3.7GHz Quad-Core with 12GB RAM. The standard 6-Core is priced at £3,299.

2. iPad Mini Retina

This is the one that a lot of people have been waiting for. From the

moment the first iPad Mini was announced this time last year everybody has been waiting for it to be fitted with a Retina display. The new iPad Mini is coming towards the end of November and is priced from £319 up to £659 for a 128GB with Wi-Fi and Cellular. The iPad Mini with Retina Display also features Apple's new A7 and M7 chips which give massively improved speed and graphics.

3. OS X Mavericks

This one got a great round of applause from the audience and all of those watching online. Apple announced that their new desktop operating system - OS X

Mavericks - would be available completely free to all Mac users no matter what version they're currently on. They also had a massive dig at Microsoft who are charging around $100 for their latest operating system. OS X Mavericks comes with a range of updates including much better multiple display support, iBooks, Maps and a lot more.

4. iLife and iWork Updates

Again, this is something that we knew a little bit abou

t from Apple's developer event (WWDC) back in June this year. We did learn though that all of iWork and iLife apps have been refreshed with new graphics and UIs. We also saw a little bit more of iWork for iCloud which is Apple's answer to the fantastic Google Docs. It was also announced that all of these apps would be available for free with all new Macs and iOS devices - saving you a small fortune.

5. iPad Air

This was primarily an iPad event and so of course the regular iPad had to have an update. Not only did itget updated hardware but it got a new name - iPad Air. As I'm sure you guessed it's lighter, thinner and faster than the previous version, mostly thanks to the new A7 chip. There's a also a smaller bezel - 40% smaller in fact - around the screen, which makes a huge difference when compared to older version of the iPad.

What did you like or not like from Apple's announcements? Leave your comments below.

iPad Event set for 22nd October-314

On Tuesday this week Apple sent out invitations to the media for an event on 22nd October in San Francisco. It's highly likely that a new iPad and iPad Mini will be launched along with a possible announcement on OS X Maverics, and who knows what else.

As the wording on the invitations suggest there'll also be an update to the iPad's smart cover too - perhaps an integrated keyboard or something much more innovative and interesting.