December is here and the Christmas season is racing toward us with unprecedented speed. That's even more reason to slow things down a bit and soak up tech news from the world around you before it passes you by. And hey, look at that -- there are five stories to get you all caught up from the weekend in one convenient place. Won't you join us and partake of them now…?
Chinese iPhone and iPad lovers won't have much longer to wait for the latest generation of Apple products, as the company announced Friday that the iPad mini and fourth-generation iPad will be heading to China on Friday, December 7, followed a week later on Friday, December 14 by the iPhone 5. All three products recently jumped through the regulatory hoops necessary to sell the devices in China, who will join the 42 other countries already offering the new iPads and the 47 countries currently offering the iPhone 5.
The Next Web is reporting that Apple may wield more power over its carrier partners than than previously thought. According to a spokesperson with Switzerland's Swisscom, Apple apparently "only enables 4G access after testing their device on an operator's live network." That means Apple's cellular-equipped devices are actually tested twice as thoroughly as the competition, given that carriers do their own first round of exhaustive testing before any device is sold on their network. NorthStream founder and CEO Bengt Nordstrom said the move proves "who is running the industry," noting “Apple have put themselves in the driving seat; it’s really changing the game quite a lot.”
Evernote has been extremely prolific in recent weeks, serving updates across almost its entire product line. Last Friday was no exception, as the company announced yet another new Premium feature which doubles the maximum size of a singe note from 50MB to 100MB (free users continue to have a 25MB limit). "That means you’ll be able to get more notes, more files, more presentations into a single note than ever before," the company's Noteworthy Blog elaborated. "Don’t forget, a single note can have lots of attachments."
9to5Mac is reporting that Apple is starting to roll out variable amount iTunes gift cards at retail, which one unnamed supermarket chain actually put on the shelves Friday. Rather than buying a gift card for a fixed amount, these cards can be gifted for any amount from $15 all the way up to $500 whenever the cashier validates the card. This is similar to how other companies' gift cards already work, so it's not too surprising that Apple is moving in this direction, especially just ahead of the holidays. Now the only question that remains is: Which high-roller reader is going to buy us the $500 gift card?
The Yahoo! Messenger Blog announced some upcoming changes to its service on Friday night, and the news isn't so good if you've been using the service with Windows Live Messenger. Because Microsoft is integrating their own Messenger with Skype, Yahoo! Messenger will stop working with Redmond's version come December 14, 2012, That's the same day Yahoo will also shut down their public chat rooms and Pingbox features, and come January 30, 2013, the Yahoo! Voice Phone In and Phone Out services offered in conjunction with Jajah will also be put out to pasture. Yahoo! fans will still be able to make calls between Messenger accounts after that date, but calling to regular phone numbers will be out.
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