Laugh if you want, but we love Jamba Juice. We also happen to rather like PayPal, which makes it easy to spend the money we make selling our old junk on eBay that would be otherwise cluttering the house. So it would seem that being able to buy our Peach Pleasure or Strawberries Forever smoothies at Jamba Juice with our PayPal account would be a match made in heaven -- assuming there was one near us, which there is sadly not. But for those who do, enjoy! We hate you. (Just kidding!) Here's what else is happening for this Thursday, May 24, 2012.
Facebook Camera Now Available, So Why'd They Buy Instagram?
The big news of the day comes from Facebook, who has released a dedicated Facebook Camera app for the iPhone. And in record time, the app has been released and already received a 1.0.1 update -- so if you've already installed it, you might want to head back to the App Store to get current. So how is this different from Instagram, which the social network recently acquired? Facebook Camera promises that users can share photos on their network "faster than ever, and see all your friends' shots in one place." The free app allows sharing multiple photos, editing them complete with crop, rotate and filters ahead of time and tapping to tag friends and family. Seems pretty capable from a few minutes of poking around with it, and the price is right, so… you know where to find it.
T-Mobile Might Merge, But Outright Sale Not an Option
Bloomberg is reporting that T-Mobile USA owner Deutsche Telekom is ruling out a sale of the fourth-placed American carrier, but says a merger could be one option for the future. "We do not exclude any option for the T-Mobile unit in the U.S., also not a merger," Deutsche Telekom AG CEO Rene Obermann told shareholers at an annual meeting held in Germany today. "A complete sale is unlikely. You understand that I can't say more in public on T-Mobile USA." The comments come in the wake of the $39 billion sale to AT&T which collapsed under the weight of Federal regulatory pushback. At least one analyst views "a merger or some kind of network-sharing agreement with MetroPCS or Sprint Nextel" as a potential savior for the troubled carrier.
PayPal Hooks Up with More Retailers for Mobile Payments
While Google Wallet continues to stumble, PayPal has quietly been ratcheting up its retail partnerships in the background. According to The Verge, the company today announced deals with a dozen new retailers, including Office Depot, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker and -- quick breath here -- one of our favorites, Jamba Juice. The idea is to be able to pay at these retailers using a PayPal account rather than worrying about carrying credit or debit cards. The idea has already rolled out to The Home Depot and continues to expand its horizons. And say, did we mention Jamba Juice? Can't get enough of that place, folks. They even handed out free smoothies at today's PayPal event (as shown above), but we were sadly not invited. We weep...
Google Play Finally Gets In-App Subscriptions
Google is playing some catch-up "me too" today, announcing on its Android Developers Blog that in-app billing on the Google Play Store has been expanded to include in-app subscriptions, similar to the ones Apple has had in place with the App Store for some time. "Starting today, developers can use In-app Billing to sell monthly or annual subscriptions from inside of their apps," the blog notes. "All subscriptions are auto-renewing, for every app and game and every type of subscription product. Developers just set the price and billing interval and Google Play manages the purchase transactions for them, just as it does for other in-app products and app purchases." Developers can get started right away by reading the new documentation and downloading a sample app. Kudos to Google Play for bringing up the rear on this one.
Apple Releases Aperture 3.2.4 Update
It's a bummer, but there's still no Aperture 4 yet -- so what's am Aperture owner to do? Today, you can drown your sorrows by heading to Software Update or the Mac App Store and get downloading Aperture 3.2.4, an itty-bitty little update (that's a joke, son, it's like 635.54MB!) which "improves stability on Mac OS X Snow Leopard" as well as "addresses an issue that could prevent the Viewer from updating correctly after editing a photo using an external editor." Yup, that's it. Hope you don't have a metered broadband account, otherwise you might want to hold out for the next update...
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(Image courtesy of Twitter user @anujnayar)
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