Apple has posted a new iPhone 5 TV ad, highlighting the new “Do Not Disturb” feature in iOS 6. The feature allows users to decide whether they want to schedule silent hours at different times of the day. The feature also allows calls from a certain group of people to come through, while rejecting calls and messages from all others.

Repeat calls from one person will come through on the second attempt despite them not being on one of the selected lists. Apple’s ad for the feature, called ‘Dream’ stars professional tennis players Serena and Venus Williams. The ad is from the point of view of the narrator who is having a dream where he is winning a ping pong match against the two sisters.

Ever had a really cool dream? I’m having one right now. I don’t want to be disturbed. And I won’t because before I went to sleep, I set this. Now my iPhone knows not to ring unless its important. Cause disturbing this would just be… Wrong.

This is the first time that Apple has promoted an iOS 6 feature, other than Siri, with celebrities. Apple’s iOS 6 has been plagued with issues since its release, mainly with Siri and the company’s new Maps application, which also led to the ousting of iOS chief Scott Forstall. In a strange twist, ‘Dream’ was posted on the same day ‘Do Not Disturb’ failed to turn off for thousands of users. It is unclear whether this glitch was because of the New Year and when it will return to normal.

Even so, Apple is beginning to focus on some of the other features in iOS 6 as it works to fix Maps, Siri and other bugs that are affecting the latest version of the software.

{Via MacRumors}

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}

The expectation was that Apple were waiting for iOS 4.2 to land, but Ping is now available thanks to an update to Apple’s iTunes Store. It’s not the first time Apple has updated features from the on-device store without needing a software update, and is clearly one of the benefits of operating a web-based solution.

To access Ping on an iPad, fire up the iTunes app and tap the newly arrived Ping tab. In there you’ll find all the usual Ping goodness, including who you’re following, who follows you and so on.

The only issue now is, does Ping provide enough functionality to make it worthwhile, even with support on the iPad.

This one centers around Apple’s oft discussed cash hoard. Many believe that Apple sitting on piles of Billions of Dollars is unhealthy, and that they should use that money to grow their business. Some of these people work in Wall Street, and constantly mess up their predictions on what Apple’s future is too.

Apple do have a habit of going shopping from time to time. Most recently they bought various ARM related semi-conductor design boutiques to spearhead their own ARM based silicon development. Which resulted in the Apple A4 SoC used in the iPhone 4, current iPod Touch and the iPad.

Prior to that they bought some search and music related companies. Which are believed to be forming part of their future mobile search, product and lifestyle services for iOS devices.

And many years ago now they bought a small software company that produced the foundations of iTunes. But all these acquisitions have similar traits. They are small, relatively cheap startups, who are experts in a niche field.

Last week, Steve Jobs had Mark Zuckerberg (of Hollywood geek movie “The Social Network” fame, oh and the creator of Facebook) over to dinner at his place, and even went for a stroll with him. Most right thinking people thought it may well be related to ongoing negotiations regarding Facebook integration into Ping.

I wondered to myself if Steve was actually also going to give Mark some fatherly advice about being a tech firebrand in charge of such a gargantuan company. Perhaps even warn him about ways that he, the “visionary”, could be ousted from the board of his own company one day by a salesman, and his own fellow board members.

But some throw away comments from Steve Jobs have been analysed to death by Peter Kafka over at AllThingsD, and then regurgitated by a few other tech sites and the whole thing has snowballed into a rumor that Apple are in talks to buy Facebook.

Here is what Steve said when asked about Apple’s big pile of cash…

“We strongly believe that one or more very strategic opportunities may come along that we’re in unique opportunity to take advantage of because of our cash [and we want to keep our powder dry] because we feel that there are one or more [opportunities in the future].”

This could literally mean anything. Heck they might even be hoping to buy Google or Microsoft. But handing over Apple’s entire bundle of liquid assets to obtain Facebook is not going to happen. Apple could give away far less and have Facebook integrated into their iTunes, and even the entire iOS / OS X ecosystem.

Apple are not going to buy Facebook. Period. And even if they did want to (I can’t believe I even typed that) then Mark wouldn’t sell.

Of course, Steve could be planning to buy Facebook to simply shut it down. And if that is the case then I’ll happily chuck my shares in AAPL into the pot to help, if need be. You’ve got my email Steve.

Do you think Apple will buy Facebook? Have your say in the comments…