iPhone

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.

Apple may yet to have announced the impending iPhone 6, but China Mobile, the nation's foremost carrier, is already taking pre-orders of the device. Although it seems strange for a network operator to begin making such moves a full week before announcement, it's not uncommon as the scrum begins to gather in the army of consumers, and although prospective iPhone 6 owners on China Mobile can select from the 4.7-inch or 5.5-inch models, key details and actual images of the device are, rather unsurprisingly, off the agenda for now.