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.
Instagram Direct
At a fairly low key event a few days ago Instagram announced a new service - Instagram Direct. This allows users to send photos and videos to individual users rather than posting to the public - essentially Snapchat but without the 'self-destruct' timer. The update is available to download now on Android and iOS.
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
Instagram Gives a Preview of Ads
In a recent blog post Instagram, the photo sharing social network, gave a few more details on it's controversial yet necessary plans to introduce adverts in to user's feeds. They gave a preview of how the adverts will look in your feed and gave assurances that they will be 'creative and engaging' adverts.
Instagram seem to be treading lightly with introducing these adverts and a big 'Sponsored' graphic shows above each advert so you know what it is. They'll also be allowing people to give feedback on the adverts to help ensure they remain relevant to you.
To give even more assurances Instagram are only allowing adverts from selected partners who already have a good standing in the Instagram community and I imagine all the ads will be vetted by the company before going live.
What do you think of adverts appearing in your Instagram feed. Is it a necessary evil or should they try and get revenue from other sources? Leave your comments below.
Twitter IPO
Twitter's latest IPO filings show that it's shares will be offered at between around £10 - £12 ($17 - $20) which values the company at around £6.8billion ($11billion). There's no doubt that this IPO will be watched carefully by those in both the technology and banking industries, especially following Facebook's bad IPO in May 2012.