It's no secret that Apple is looking to make a lot more of its Apple Store app than it has so far. Over the past few years, it has been used to place orders, pay for purchases wirelessly when in the Apple Store, and to check out the latest products released by the Cupertino company, but in more recent times, we've seen Apple promote the app by giving away free stuff. With this this in mind, as well as the fact that the holiday season is now upon us, Apple has released a playlist of Christmas-themed songs from famed artist such as Mary J. Blige, Kool and the Gang and Kelly Clarkson, and all are available for free through the Apple Store app.
Famous faces make for great advertisement fodder when the right celebrity is used to promote a product, and with Samsung's strange, enigmatic promotion of Galaxy devices through a lengthy football (soccer)-themed campaign, picking a star like the legendary German forward Franz Beckenbauer to be head coach of the so-called 'Galaxy 11' seemed an informed decision.
Since the introduction of Siri back with the iPhone 4s two years ago, production car manufacturers have sought to offer consumers better integration with their smartphones, and Honda has long since been an advocate of the Siri 'Eyes Free,' integration of which the company announced last week for select models on its production line. But following the lead of many other companies in harnessing Siri's voice-recognition capabilities isn't the only trick Honda has up its sleeve, for now, the Japanese company has revealed that the 2014 Honda Civic Coupe and 2015 Honda Fit will be sporting even more integration by way of 'HondaLink' technology. Details, as ever, follow after the break.
The iPad mini with Retina display was announced alongside the vastly revamped iPad Air, but while the reception to each new Apple slate has been one of general positivity, the talk of a larger iPad with 12.9-inch display has not slowed down one bit. It has been reported that there could be two different configurations of the bigger iPad, and a theory as to the reason behind this - as revealed by PadNews - is that one of the displays would be of a standard 2K variety, while the other, higher-end model would boast a 4K panel.
Apple applies, and is granted, it's fair share of patents. As with any large technology company, the iPhone maker isn't shy about asking for a patent on anything and everything it comes up with that it thinks might be of use later on, which means that just because there's a patent application for something, it isn't guaranteed to make it into a shipping product.
PayPal is used by millions as a convenient way to send money around the world. The eBay-owned company is seen as the de facto payment method for transactions through the Web's favorite auction site, but in recent times, we've seen a marked effort from PayPal to expand its range of services. As a part of this movement, PayPal has today launched its very own digital gift store, and although it plans to work with many companies and merchants in the future, the launch of the service sees Apple as its main partner.
The holiday season deals kicked off this weekend and for large parts of today due to Thanksgiving, and with more festivities coming up during the next couple of weeks, it's a great month to be a tech fan. In the spirit of things, Apple has announced that it will ship items for free up until and including December 22nd, without any minimum spending requirement. Also, the company revealed the latest dates one can order certain items for receipt before December 24th, while extending its returns policy to January 7th for items purchased from November 1st to December 25th.
Windows and OS X have been competing for years in the battle of the two major desktop platforms, and although Windows has been comfortably ahead since the beginning of time, Apple's Mac operating system has certainly made some headway in more recent times. Microsoft's Windows 8.1 and OS X Mavericks 10.9 are the latest entrants to the market, and although, as noted in the headline, Windows 8.1 has just sneaked ahead of Mavericks in terms of reach, the latter's 2.42% market share has now surpassed that of each of its predecessors.
Cyber Monday has finally arrived. Millions of consumers all over the globe are expected to utilize their existing technology to scour the Web for the best Cyber Monday deals out there, with the aim of grabbing some new gadgets at bargain prices. Reductions and money-saving deals aren't exactly alien in the tech world, but Cyber Monday has historically presented consumers with much deeper discounts. To get you up and running, we have scoured the Web for some of the best Google, Microsoft and Apple deals available during the course of the day.
Charging our iPhones is something that we take for granted. In fact, in a post-iOS 7 world it's something that many of us find ourselves doing much more often than we would like, and that's only going to continue with more and more apps multitasking and asking to keep track of our location in order to offer enhanced functionality. If you've ever used Google Now over an extended period of time on an iPhone, then you'll know what we mean.

