Following the international launches, Apple has kicked off its Black Friday sale in the U.S. Online Apple Store. The selection of products on discount are the same as the international stores. The discounted products are listed:
Both Best Buy and MacMall seem to have deeper discounts on select products in their base configuration. The other thing to consider is that Apple and Best Buy will charge sales tax in most states due to their national retail presence.
AT&T is now offering refurbished iPhone 5 devices at a $100 discount from their usual price. The new offer was noted by 9to5Mac.
Customers are still required to sign up for a 2 year contract, as with the regular iPhone 5.
AT&T appears to be offering all permutations of color and size. The discount across the board for the refurbished units is $100 from the up front cost.
Black Friday is about to officially kick off, and the App Store developers also use this as an opportunity to promote their apps by dropping their prices. Sister site AppShopper.com tracks all price changes on iOS Apps and Mac Apps in their respective App Stores. Here's a selection of some of the more notable sales for iOS and Mac App Stores, as well as other online and boxed software sales.
Games are huge category on their own making up a large portion of the activity on the App Store. TouchArcade has rounded up the various sales from major developers and notable indie developers:
ThinkGeek has posted their set of Black Friday deals. Relevant to iPhone and iPad gamers are sales on their iCade, iCade 8-Bitty Game Controller and the JOYSTICK-IT for iPad. ThinkGeek is an affiliate partner of MacRumors.
The iCADE is an arcade cabinet housing for the iPad:
Normally priced at $99.99, the iCADE is presently 30% off at $69.99. The iCADE connects to the iPad via Bluetooth and is compatible with over 500 games.
The iCade 8-Bitty is the Nintendo controller styled handheld version of the iCADE for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch:
The iCade 8-Bitty normally sells for $29.99 but is on sale for 33% percent off at $19.99. It also connects via Bluetooth and shares the same game compatibility as the full-sized iCADE.
Finally for $7.49 (50% Off), ThinkGeek offers the JOYSTICK-IT Arcade Stick for iPad. A physical joystick that attaches directly to the screen to offer a real control.
The JOYSTICK-IT works with thousands of different game apps. Any game that has an on-screen control pad of some kind is perfect for the JOYSTICK-IT. Simply run your game of choice, place the JOYSTICK-IT over the on-screen control pad and push down. The JOYSTICK-IT sticks to the glass of your display and is ready for action.
Apple has launched its one day Black Friday sales in Australia and New Zealand. The discounts available are for the following products:
- iPad with Retina Display. A$ 41.00 Off - iPad 2. A$ 31 Off - iPod touch. A$ 31 Off - iPod touch 4th Generation. A$ 25 Off - iPod nano. A$ 11 Off - MacBook Pro with Retina Display. A$ 105 Off - MacBook Pro. A$105 Off - MacBook Air. A$105 Off - Various Accessories
Discounts should be comparable for U.S. customers and on the exact same products. Apple's U.S. sale should kick off around midnight tonight on Apple's online store. Both Best Buy and MacMall seem to have deeper discounts on select products in their base configuration.
BestBuy launched its Thanksgiving Weekend, Black Friday and one-day-only "Doorbuster" sales today. Most of their sales run from Thursday to Saturday. These include discounts on many Mac products that are better than the ones from MacMall posted yesterdaty. We've highlighted the deeper savings here on several Apple notebook models:
Online retailer MacMall has kicked off their 60 hour Black Friday sale just now. The sale runs until midnight on Friday. Traditionally, 3rd party retailers have offered better discounts than Apple once sales tax is taken into account. MacRumors is an affiliate partner of MacMall.
Their full sale list covers both new and previous generation products. We've pulled out the current-generation products of interest and their respective discounts:
Discounts on the MacBook Airs are notable for a percentage of their total price, while the 15" Retina MacBook Pros have the largest dollar amount in savings.
When looking for the cheapest price, it's good to know which retailers charge sales tax automatically. MacMall charges sales tax in California, Illinois, New York, Tennessee, Minnesota, Georgia, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
We expect to see additional Black Friday sales at Apple's online store though that doesn't kick in until Black Friday itself. We will also cover other sales and discounts. Please send in any notable Apple-related sales.
According to a post on the MacRumors Forums, Apple is asking record labels to submit pictures and galleries of their artists to iTunes for use in iTunes 11's new Music Store layout.
This email was sent to artists by German music distribution service Feiyr. iTunes 11 was delayed at the end of last month and is supposed to ship by the end of November.
Apple is once again selling OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard on the Apple Online Store for $19.99. The return was noticed by the French site MacGeneration. Apple had pulled Snow Leopard from its site after Mountain Lion was released earlier this year.
This is significant because Snow Leopard is required to run the more recent versions of iTunes that newer iOS devices require, and it is also the last OS X operating system that could only be purchased on physical media.
For users who want to upgrade from Leopard to Lion, they need to purchase Snow Leopard in order to gain access to the Mac App Store.
Note that this is not the most recent generation iPad, so the $50 off price is a little disingenuous. If you are willing to purchase a refurbished iPad, these models are available from Apple's online store for deeper discounts.
Just ahead of Black Friday 2012, StackSocial has launched their Mac Utility Bundle which includes 5 Mac Apps for $59.99. The total retail value for the included apps are $245. The apps include
- Parallels Desktop 8 ($80) - Run Windows on your Mac - Snagit ($50) - Record screen videos - VirusBarrier X6 ($50) - Virus protection - MacOptimizer ($29) - Disk utility - Rubbernet ($36) - Monitor network-enabled apps
The $59.99 price represents a discount on full price of Parallels Desktop 8, but also includes these other apps. Meanwhile, Parallels seems to be offering their own discount to the same $59.99 but on their one app alone.
AppleInsider reports that Apple has nearly caught up with demand for the iPhone 5. This is based on data gathered by Piper Jaffray in nightly checks of 100 retail Apple Stores.
"As we get closer to the holiday, we believe consumers will likely have the ability to walk into an Apple Store and walk out with an iPhone 5 within the next two weeks," Munster said.
Available stock of the iPhone 5 has varied by carrier. Sprint models have been more readily available, while Verizon more scarce. But recently, all models are becoming more available:
Meanwhile, there's also been evidence of improved supply on Apple's own online store with shipping estimates for new iPhone 5 models dropping to 2 weeks for the first time. Previously, iPhone 5 ship dates were out as far as 3-4 weeks, improving to 2-3 weeks last week, and now at 2 weeks.
Bloomberg reports that Apple's ambitious Spaceship-like campus will likely be delayed until 2016. The project was originally revealed back in June and was presented to the Cupertino city council by Steve Jobs himself.
Apple Inc. (AAPL) said the construction of a new spaceship-like headquarters with a circular design in Cupertino, California, won’t be completed until mid-2016, later than originally projected, as the company revises its plans.
The new campus was originally targeted for completion by 2015, but November filing made city approval unlikely by the originally planned dates.
Bloomberg reports the new plans show no major changes to the original campus plans, but does include some additional parking, more landscaped area and other small changes. The main four-story building remains the same circular shape as shown above.
AT&T appears to be quietly extending FaceTime-Over-Cellular capabilities to all their iPhone customers. Earlier this month, AT&T announced that they would allow any customer "with an LTE device" on a "tiered data plan" to use iOS 6's FaceTime over Cellular feature.
This, however, excluded a number of customers, including those with grandfathered unlimited data plans as well as those with the iPhones 4S. (Note, iOS 6, itself, can only supports FaceTime-over-Cellular on the 4S, 5 and iPad 3rd Gen or higher)
Tonight, Forum user kre62 noticed that both his iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 with unlimited AT&T data plans now support FaceTime over cellular.
In a recent thread we were discussing AT&T members getting facetime with LTE devices and tiered plans. However I noticed today that I have facetime over cellular and I have an unlimited plan on my 5.
I just turned off my other phone, a 4S and turned it back on, only to find the switch flipped to ON for facetime over cellular. Both phones work perfectly over cellular.
I also checked a few coworkers phones, all now have FT over cellular.
This finding has been confirmed by a numberofusers in this discussion thread -- though some users have been unable to activate it so it may still be rolling out to some areas. AT&T had said the original rollout for tiered plans could take 8-10 weeks. Most of the positive responses have been those with the iPhone 5 and grandfathered unlimited data, but the original poster also had luck with an iPhone 4S.
Some users have had to completely restart their phones for the service to go into effect. There still remains a possibility that this is an oversight on AT&T's part. We are reaching out to AT&T for clarification on their policy.
Apple just posted two new iPhone 5 television ads. The ads are entitled 'Orchestra' and 'Turkey'. Orchestra focuses on the microphones that Apple uses to reduce background noise during calls. Turkey shows off the Shared Photo Stream feature of iOS 6.
Excuse me, maestro? Bring it down please! Better. That's what happens to background noise when you're making a call on this. This microphone here picks up the sounds around you and helps turn them down. So when the world gets noisy, calls sound better.
Well, it's that time of year again. You know, picture taking season? And, with Photo Stream, you can share all the photos you want. With just the people you want. It's as easy as pie. Mmmm… pie.
TheNextWeb now reports that that iOS 6 resolves this issue by forcing all devices to re-enter credentials if your Apple ID settings change.
According to a source with knowledge of Apple’s steps to correct the matter, the issue has been fixed in iOS 6 through a variety of checks placed on iMessage. The most important of these is that Apple now uses its push systems to force a user to re-enter a password to use iMessage once your Apple ID credentials have been changed.
Now, if your iPhone is stolen, simply changing the password of your Apple ID will force the stolen device to prompt for a password in order to continue receiving and sending iMessages from your account. In addition, wiping your iPhone remotely using Find My iPhone will now disable the stolen device from receiving iMessages.
According to a survey done by Nielsen, U.S. consumers aged 6-12 are significantly more interested in purchasing Apple's iOS products over the next 6 months. The new Nintendo Wii U took the #2 spot, but lagged well behind the iPad. Meanwhile, the iPod Touch, iPad Mini and the iPhone rounded out the rest of the top 5 most wanted products for this age group.
Approximately half the children surveyed expressed interest in the full-sized iPad (up from 44% last year), and 36 percent in the new iPad Mini. The iPod Touch and iPhone are also coveted devices among these young consumers (36% and 33%, respectively). Kids are also likely to ask for dedicated gaming hardware this holiday, with 39 percent excited to own Nintendo’s just-released console offering, Wii U, and 29 percent indicating they want a device from that company’s portable DS family. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3 also proved appealing, with approximately one-quarter of kids 6-12 saying they want these high definition consoles.
Nielsen also surveyed persons aged 13+ and found the iPad also topped that list. The remainder of the 13+ year old list was less dramatically in favor of Apple than the 6-12 year old group.
In a separate survey of (presumably) adults, Reuters found that one third of U.S. consumers were thinking of buying a tablet this holiday season. Amongst those who wanted a tablet, the iPad was again the most popular with 25% of respondents planning to purchase one. Second and third place went to the Kindle (15%) and Samsung (15%) tablets. Finally, Apple's new iPad mini came in at 8% amongst respondents.
Apple has released a minor update to OS X Mountain Lion, fixing "an issue with Keychain that can affect 2012 Mac systems." The update weighs in at 26.65MB and can be downloaded through Apple's support site or the Mac App Store.
About OS X Mountain Lion 10.8.2 Supplemental Update 2.0
This update addresses an issue with Keychain that can affect 2012 Mac systems.
This update is recommended for all Mac systems introduced in 2012.
Black Friday is about to officially kick off, and the App Store developers also use this as an opportunity to promote their apps by dropping their prices. Sister site 
Apple is once again selling 
Last December, an apparent bug 
Apple has released a minor update to OS X Mountain Lion, fixing "an issue with Keychain that can affect 2012 Mac systems." The update weighs in at 26.65MB and can be downloaded through 
