Slideshow: Apple's Giant iPad, iOS Beat Android And More From The Final Week Of December

It seems that the giant iPad rumors aren't going anywhere.

Apple is reportedly developing a 12.9-inch model that will be released in October 2014.

If true, this would be a month earlier than the usual November iPad release schedule.

Of course, there was a time when the iPad received annual updates in the spring, but those days appear to be long gone.

The iPhone and iPad are the gifts that keep on giving -- to Apple.

On December 25, 2013 (Christmas Day), IBM Digital Analytics Benchmark found that iOS devices accounted for 23 percent of online sales.

Android devices, on the other hand, accounted for only 4.6 percent of online sales.

After months (years?) of waiting, Apple is finally bringing the iPhone to China Mobile.

The highly anticipated deal will commence on January 17 when the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C are delivered to the world's largest carrier.

Amazon, the largest online retailer in America, shipped a record-breaking 36.8 million items during the holiday season.

The company also added more than one million Prime subscribers during the third week of December alone.

These customers were surely looking to cash in on the free Prime two-day shipping.

Following the announcement that China Mobile and Apple were together at last, Benzinga reached out to analysts to get their take on the deal.

James Kelleher, Director of Research & Senior Analyst at Argus Research, told Benzinga that Apple could sell as many as 30 million additional iPhones in 2014.

Shebly Seyrafi, the Managing Director at FBN Securities, was a bit more conservative in his estimate. He expects Apple to sell 17 million additional iPhones in the New Year.

In an attempt to guide its future for a better tomorrow, Answers.com raised $300 million from an existing slate of investors.

The company poured a significant amount of that money into the acquisition of ForeSee, a customer experience analytics firm that's based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Famous for its research, ForeSee launched a Word-of-Mouth Index to improve the results of the Net Promoter Scale.

In doing so, the company learned that Apple may have overstated its negative customers by 225 percent.

It seems that Apple is on the cusp of a huge payday.

The company is expected to negotiate a deal with government officials in Turkey that could be worth $4 billion.

Turkey is reportedly interested in acquiring $4 billion worth of iPads to improve its education initiative.

T-Mobile has created an interesting promotion: free access to Facebook.

Here's how it works: starting in January, any T-Mobile GoSmart customer will be able to access Facebook for free. No data plan is required.

In other words, customers who have the cheapest and most basic plan ($25 per month) will be able to use Facebook even without a data plan.

In 2012, Best Buy was vehemently against the idea of becoming a showroom for Amazon.

This year the retailer has been embracing its status as a showroom, hoping to lure customers in the process.

Thus far, this hasn't worked as well as the company may have hoped.

Data from 16,000 posts on Twitter and Facebook sow that consumers tend to like Best Buy's new approach to showrooming.

Unfortunately, Best Buy has failed to convert more showroom customers into actual paying customers.

The preceding stories were just the beginning. Check out these other hot tech stories right here on Benzinga.

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