Starting today with Facebook Gifts, you can instantly gift your friends iTunes digital gifts and recommend albums, movies, games, apps, and more available on the iTunes Store.

Search for a specific song or album to recommend, or let your friend decide. iTunes digital gifts are available for $10, $15, $25, or $50.

According to AllThingsD, the partnership between Apple and Facebook includes Facebook into a $260 million dollar business for third-party businesses which equates to about 13% of total sales.

So that adds up to around, say, a $260 million-dollar market size for physical iTunes cards split among participating retailers, of which Facebook will now be an active participant. That pie is small compared to Facebook’s overall revenue ($3.71 billion in 2011), but another digital product with less overhead and high demand is definitely a win for Facebook’s Gifts department

This partnership will help both Facebook and Apple, which have had issues working together in the past, particularly during negotiations over Facebook being integrated into Apple’s iTunes based social network, Ping. Ping was Apple’s failed social media experiment and frayed the relationship between the two companies.

However, the two companies worked together to integrate Facebook into iOS 6 and OS X Mountain Lion. Now, Facebook can benefit from selling the iTunes gift cards through its service and Apple can benefit from increased sales of the gift cards, as well as more iTunes users.

{Via MacRumors}

Early last week, reports of Apple Inc. (AAPL) opening a third store in Beijing were published, with photos from chinese site MicGadget showing the entrance of the new store under construction. On Sunday, Apple confirmed that they are going to open the third store in Beijing, located on the iconic Wangfujing Street. The Cupertino, Calif., company confirmed that the store is scheduled to open at 10am this Saturday, as with all other Apple grand openings.

China is a major market for AAPL, as the company has experienced massive growth in numerous Asian nations including China. Apple CEO Tim Cook reiterated numerous times in past earnings calls that China is very important to Apple’s growth worldwide. According to 9to5Mac, Apple is also planning to open a massive data center in Hong Kong during the first quarter of 2013, allowing the company to expand and integrate more into the country and support its international users.

By opening the new store, Apple is looking at growth in sales, as the company receives a large part of its revenue from China, Japan and other Asian nations. During the grand opening, Apple typically gives out free commemorative t-shirts to the first 10,000 visitors and has even given out goody bags in its retail stores in China, consisting of gift cards, iPod Shuffles, and even iPads.

{Via 9to5Mac — Image Credit: MicGadget}

Late last month, following the release of iOS 6, Starbucks promised its customers that Passbook support would be arriving at the end of September. Although the Seattle based company was slightly late on its promise, support for Apple’s Passbook was added in an update to the Starbucks iPhone app.

Customers can now store gift cards and use QR codes on the phone to quickly pay for food and drinks. Although this was already a feature in Starbuck’s app, it will now be synced with all of a user’s gift cards and boarding passes, allowing them easy access to them at any moment.

Passbook gives Starbucks customers updates when they are near their favorite stores and automatically puts up a notification with a link to the gift card for payment. Other apps that use the Passbook feature include Ticketmaster, American Airlines, Fandango, United Airlines, Lufthansa, Major League Baseball, Eventbrite, and McDonalds.

The Starbucks app is available in the App Store [Link] as a free download and can detect when iOS 6 is installed, prompting the user to install the app on Passbook.

{Via MacRumors}

Last August, Apple launched a buyback program for old iPhones, iPads and Macs and partnered with its long term recycling partner PowerON. The program offers users an Apple gift card for the value of the device, which can be used at any of the company’s retail locations as well as the online store.

The Cupertino company also gives users the options to recycle the device without any charge or compensation if they choose. On Wednesday, ahead of iPhone 5 release date, Apple updated their Reuse and Recycling page to include the iPhone 4S, offering up to $345 for the device. A slightly used black iPhone 4S would receive about $280 in the form of a check.

According to AppleInsider’s report, the addition of the iPhone 4S comes only weeks before Apple is expected to announce the release date of the next generation iPhone 5 on September 12th and release on the 21st. Although the online prices for the recycled devices are estimates, most device owners are receiving more than the initial $200 the put in for the 4S. PowerON also recycles newer PCs for Apple Gift Cards through its recycling program.

If you’ve been waiting to upgrade to the sixth gen iPhone then this recycling program is a great option to get a good deal on your used iPhone. Apple’s all-new iPhone expected to launch in the coming month.

Over the past year, Apple added a number of new applications to its App Store and ported over some of its existing Mac applications over to the iOS platform, such as iPhoto, GarageBand, and iMovie. Late Tuesday, Apple posted updates for all of the following apps: iPhoto, GarageBand, iMovie, and Cards.

iPhoto received a minor update for bug fixes and enhancements, as well as a minor UI tweak, adding a button to allow users to send out journals uploaded to iCloud. This would allow users to share the journal with one click. Cards, a rather simple Apple app, allows users to amake and send physical cards, straight from the app and integrates into Apple’s iOS ecosystem with the use of iTunes gift cards and such.

Any noticeable changes for the Cards app is currently unknown. iMovie received a minor fix allowing users to add their own personal movie soundtracks to a project, as well as minor stability improvements. GarageBand received the most stability improvements, fixing a bug that crashed the app when users tried to upload songs to iCloud or attempted to connect to SoundCloud.

These stability and UI improvements will likely continue over the course of several months, and as iPad and iPhone generations pass, until the mobile app operates very similar to that of the desktop.

{via CNET}

One of the things that iPhones and other iOS devices have done is made it easier for people to keep in touch with each other. Now that includes beautiful, high quality note cards as well.

Cards {Free} is a new app that requires iOS5, but works on iPhones, iPod touches, or iPads. It offers 21 choices in several different themes such as Thank You, Holiday, Birthday, Travel, etc.

Once you’ve decided on the style of card you wish to send, you can add a photo by either taking one right within the app, or you can select one from your photo gallery. You then go on to change the message on both the outside and the inside of the app. There are not a lot of options for editing the design, but that may be an advantage since it keeps things simple and quick.

Lastly you add the addresses to your card, both the sender’s and the recipient’s. The placeholders are tied to your address book, so you can simply select someone from your list and their information is put in place. Or you can type it in yourself. And the address is checked against the (U.S.) postal service database to make sure it will get to where it’s going.

After that it’s simply a matter of pressing the “Buy Now” button and your beautifully made, high-quality card is on it’s way. To top it off, you’ll receive a notification on your iOS device when your card is delivered. All this quality and service comes reasonably priced. If you’re mailing it within in the U.S., it’s just $2.99 or if you’re more globally connected it will cost you $4.99 – about the cost of a regular greeting card, without requiring the trip to the store and the post office.

With creating and sending greeting cards being this simple and reasonably priced, you simply have no excuse not to keep in touch with even those less technology-connected individuals.