Apple

We're inching closer and closer to Apple's big iPhone unveiling on the 9th of this month and while there's little doubt what we will be treated to product-wise, questions still swirl around what Apple is up to with a new structure that it is building at the Flint Center at De Anza College in Cupertino.

Every year, extreme Apple enthusiasts (I think they're known as fanboys) queue up outside the company's retail outlets across the world to be among the first to get hold of the next iPhone. Even though we're still one week away from the announcement of the iPhone 6 - perhaps two or three weeks from the actual retail date - certain folks are already setting up camp at the flagship 5th Avenue store.

Mobile payments became all the more rage when NFC was first introduced with Android devices, since the technology offered possibilities for users to fully leverage not just Google Wallet, but mobile payments in general. A lot of consumer brands were quick to jump onto the bandwagon, but a lot of them held back as well, particularly in the U.S. One factor behind this could be the fact that the U.S. market is dominated by the iPhone, and the Cupertino tech giant has so far held back from adapting the NFC technology. That all is expected to change with the iPhone 6, which, in all likelihood, will feature an NFC chip manufactured by XNP. Now, McDonald’s joins the foray of companies that are implementing mobile payments across its outlets, indicated by an internal memo released today.

We're now just over one week away from the iPhone 6 event, and during the next seven or so days, we're braced for a bunch of leaks as Apple tries desperately to keep those intricate details under lock-and-key. It stands to reason that, with a 5.5-inch display, the larger of the two new iPhone sizing configurations will need a much larger battery than that of the iPhone 5s, and having previously heard that the Cupertino company will almost double-up to a 2,915mAh offering, a new sighting has corroborated this notion.

The iPhone 6 looks set to be announced by Apple next week, and it seems like every retailer and carrier is getting involved in hyping it up. O2, a major network operator in the United Kingdom, has joined in with the fanfare by posting a newspaper ad that refers to a secret, unannounced device, and although it could refer to a number of upcoming handsets, it's clear that iPhone Fever is now gripping one of the UK's foremost carriers.