Telegraph reports that Black Eyed Peas star Will.i.am will be launching an iPhone accessory next week that promises to boost your iPhone's camera significantly.
The first product from his new consumer electronics and app venture i.am+ is an accessory that clips onto an iPhone and transforms the eight megapixel smartphone camera into a 14 megapixel camera, which it is claimed dramatically enhances the clarity and definition of your photographs. Speaking exclusively to The Daily Telegraph, he says: ‘We have our own sensor and a better flash. You dock you phone into our device and it turns you smartphone into a genius-phone. We take over the camera.’
Few details are offered, but it is described as interfacing to the iPhone through the dock-connector and has its own camera and flash hardware.
As Black Friday continues, there have been a few notable discounts on MacBook Pro and Air models during the day, including one discount as high as 20% on the 13" MacBook Pro.
Amazon's discounts, in particular, can be very volatile and can change quickly. See our full roundup of all other interesting discounts on Black Friday.
Technologizer's Harry McCracken has unearthed some photographs taken by Paul Terrell of the Byte Shop in Mountain View, California in 1976. At the time, the Byte Shop was one of the only computer stores in the world, and ended up being the first dealer for an upstart company called Apple Computer.
According to Terrell, Jobs and Wozniak came into his shop with the first version of the Apple-1 asking him to sell it to his customers. Here's an early photo of the circuit board hooked up to a keyboard and monitor.
They called their machine the Apple-1, and it was a bare board; any buyers would have to solder on the necessary chips themselves, then supply accoutrements such as a power supply, keyboard and display.
Terrell was intrigued, but told Jobs that what he really needed were fully-assembled computers. In fact, if Jobs could come back with an assembled version of the Apple-1, the Byte Shop would buy fifty of them. Jobs did, and the Byte Shop became the first Apple dealer (it eventually offered the Apple-1 in a wooden case with keyboard and power supply).
Terrell eventually paid $500 each for 50 Apple-1's, which history says sold for $666.66 each at retail. There are more pictures, and some additional backstory, at Technologizer.
Note: Black Friday sales continue through the weekend for most retailers. Apple's sales have ended. Most app and software sales below will last until Monday. We've updated our chart below as of Nov 26, 2:30AM Eastern.
Black Friday kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving and offers customers short term sales on many products. While Apple did participate, their discounts tended to be smaller than other 3rd party retailers.
Sales Tax
National retailers such as Apple and Best Buy charge local sales tax on all orders. So, the advantage of using other online-only retailers is not getting charged that sales tax at the time of order (though you are typically expected to report it later). Local sales taxes are automatically charged for the following retailers in the following states:
- Apple, Best Buy: All States - MacMall: California, Illinois, New York, Tennessee, Minnesota, Georgia, North Carolina, Wisconsin - Amazon: California, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Washington
If you are in one of those states, it may make sense to look elsewhere or simply buy locally anyway if the savings are comparable.
Discounts on Apple Products
Apple offered their own modest discounts on specific Apple products. Here is a chart of the most competitive 3rd party Apple retailers:
iOS and Mac App discounts are ongoing and can be seen in real time at AppShopper.com. We'd previously compiled a large list of the more interesting ones:
- Long list of iOS and Mac Software discounts - MacUtility Bundle ($59.99) - Parallels Desktop 8, Snagit, VirusBarrier X6, MacOptimizer, Rubbertnet ($245 Value) - MacLegion Bundle - ($49.99)- TechTool Pro, Freeway Pro, djay, Capo, Fantastical, RipIt, iRip, Beamer, Copy Paste Pro, Code Collector Pro ($548.80 Value) - iStack Mac Bundle 2.0 ($49.99) - Camtasia 2, Circus Ponies NoteBook, CrossOver XI, FX Photo Studio Pro, LittleSnapper, Printopia, xTeam, MoneyBag, Habits, SyncMate Expert, Build iPhone & iPad Games Without Programming. - MacGameStore - Up to 80% Off on Mac games
- Fry's has 13" Retina MacBook Pro for $200 Off ($1699->$1499). (In Store Only now) - Das Keyboard (Mechanical Keyboard) 20% Off
Please note that prices may fluctuate during the day. Several of the vendors listed are affiliate partners with MacRumors and referred sales may benefit the site financially. Please send in any notable sales to tips@macrumors.com.
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.
Telegraph reports that Black Eyed Peas star Will.i.am will be launching an iPhone accessory next week that promises to boost your iPhone's camera significantly.
Black Friday kicks off on the day after Thanksgiving and offers customers short term sales on many products. While Apple 
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 
