(Reuters) - Facebook has tied up with Reliance Communications to provide basic internet services on mobile phones for free, making India the first country in Asia to get Facebook's Internet.org service.

The companies will first offer the app in seven of India's 22 regions, or zones and it will then go nationwide in the next 90 days, Gurdeep Singh, chief executive of Reliance's consumer business told reporters.

The service is run by Internet.org, the non-profit organisation whose backers also include Ericsson , Nokia, Samsung, Qualcomm and Opera Software, which has the declared aim of making basic Internet services available to the two-thirds of the world's population which is not yet connected.

The app, aimed at low income and rural users, will offer free access via mobile phone to more than 30 pared-down web services, focused on job listings, agricultural information, healthcare and education sites in seven regional languages -- as well as Facebook's own social network and messaging services.

It will be available to all of Reliance's 106.3 million subscribers who have handsets capable of handling internet traffic.

Singh declined to comment on who will bear the cost of carrying this data traffic for free.

Mobile phones sales have been booming in India, the world's second-biggest mobile market, with smartphone sales surging 90 percent in the October-December quarter. But less than 20 percent of the country's population can access the Internet -- leaving over a billion people offline.

Facebook said it had worked with Reliance Communications since last October to address barriers to connectivity.

Both Reliance and Facebook said they also expected to benefit from the venture over the longer term. India has the world's third-largest population of Internet users, and could take the number two spot this year.

"It gives us a great lever in terms of our proposition differentiation at the point of sale ... which will help us accelerate our acquisition journey of good quality, sticky customers," Singh said.

Singh said the company has beefed up infrastructure to meet the anticipated increase in data traffic, but did not give details on the amount it had spent.

"We address the affordability of data by having beneficial services and then we'll make it scalable for our partners so that once these users want to use more, they just buy the regular (data) plan," Markku Makelainen, Facebook's director of Global Operator Partnerships, told Reuters.

"One of our goals is to have a profitable partnership."

Facebook has partnered with more than 150 wireless providers over the past four years to offer free or discounted access to its social network, but the new Internet.org app is the first time the company has added services beyond its own website.

The service comes to India following similar launches in Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana and Colombia.

(Editing by Clara Ferreira Marques and Greg Mahlich)

Design

Apple's design overhaul is much-needed and as much as many could have hoped for - taking a number of cues from the iPad Air to bring a metallic, almost ceramic, shell that feels simply brilliant in the hand.

Say what you like about Apple, it's a brand that's always put design at the forefront of its new handsets. Even the iPhone 5S, probably the most unimaginative of all of Cupertino's handsets, had a strong build that screamed quality in the hand, giving the user the instant feeling of something worth spending a lot on.
The iPhone 6 pushes that idea to the next level, losing the sharp edges in favour of sleek and rounded sides that make the device much more pleasing in the palm. It just feels so thin, but doesn't have the overly-lightweight feeling of the iPhone 5S.

There is a worry that this is a slippier handset than before thanks to the more rounded nature of the design, but then again with Apple (apparently) upgrading the glass in the screen to something that can withstand many, many more bumps and bruises before shattering, that might not be the horrid experience it might once have been.
The larger screen is certainly an improvement on the previous models - while I think 4.7-inches is going to be a tiny bit small for those that have lusted after their friends' Galaxy S5 devices with the 5.2-inch screen, it's still a very good size for one hand.

If it wasn't, then why would Sony have launched the Xperia Z3 compact and Samsung the Galaxy Alpha, both within 0.1-inch of the iPhone 6's screen size? The issue with the iPhone 5S, with the cramped screen making it almost impossible to peck out the letters on the keyboard, has now definitely been alleviated.
It's not got a great resolution, at only 1334 x 750 it's essentially 720p, but the new Retina HD screen looks brilliant. So much so that I thought I was picking up a dummy model to play with.
And if you're so desperate for the larger resolution, there's always the iPhone 6 Plus to be looking at, despite that being more of a phablet / Note 4 rival.

The upgraded resolution is a good jump for Apple, but not quite enough really for the spec fans. While I think the brand had it right a few years ago when it launched the Retina display, times have moved on.
Some people say that the Full HD / QHD displays on offer today from Sony, Samsung and LG are overkill, but there's no way that you won't see the difference in sharpness if you put the iPhone 5S and LG G3 next to one another.
However, it's the same PPI as the iPhone 5S, so the iPhone 6 might not stand up to sharpness tests next to the best the Android world has to offer.
It must be tremendously frustrating to create a quality, well-selling app and then find the resolution you coded for is now old news. The good news is that while you're spending hours making an iPhone 6 version, the phone can scale old apps to still work.