Macgasm

Today is Black Friday, the day when normal men and women turn into turkey and Red Bull-fueled, deal-hunting monsters. Starting in the wee hours of the morning, these shoppers are on a mission: save money.

Needless to say, I’m hiding my family in our home, away from the windows, just in case things go south.

But there is good news for fellow nerds. Apple has posted its annual Black Friday sales details. As usual, these discounts are available at not only Apple’s retail stores, but online as well, meaning you can save some cash and not take your life into your own hands when you accidentally cut off a minivan of moms in the mall parking lot.

Here are the details:

• iMac ($101 discount across all models)
• MacBook Pro ($101 discount across all models)
• MacBook Air ($101 discount on 13-inch models)
• iPod nano ($11 discount on 8GB; $21 discount on 16GB)
• iPad ($41 discount across all models)
• iPod touch ($21-$41 discount, depending on model)

Additionally, many of Apple’s own peripherals are on sale, as well as numerous third-party accessories.

Happy shopping.

It seems that many do-it-yourselfers and incredibly smart designers are jumping on the bandwagon and designing stylish ways of wearing the new 6th generation iPod nano like a wristwatch.

I know we wrote about the Griffin solution only a week ago (see that story here). Regardless, there’s a new entrant into the Nano wristwatch game that deserves a long look.

Using their patented nanoclipz technology, iWatchz has just launched their site and the product line looks quite impressive.

The company’s first product line, the Q Collection, is available now in over 250 Apple stores nationwide or from the company’s website. Talk about perfect Black Friday timing!!

The silicone bands come in eight colors (black, red, white, grey, pink, blue, green and orange) and cost a very affordable price of $24.95.

“When we developed the nanoclipz system we had several goals in mind. The product had to be stylish, simple to use, affordable, and had to ensure the iPod nano would remain secure while still giving the user access to all the functionality of the device (earphone jack, buttons, and charge/sync port),” offers the company president. “We are very excited to bring this product to market in time for the holiday season and are well prepared to ensure users can get their hands on our product immediately.”

Great looking product, and huge congratulations on getting shelf space on Black Friday in Apple retail stores.

Photo Credit: iwatchz

Word is out: Apple’s takeover of the old HP campus is complete. HP, all your base are belong to Apple. Apple Inc. has allegedly ponied up 300 millionish dollars to acquire the 98-acre lot. The old HP campus is double the size of Apple’s current lot.

The Cupertino mayor seems pretty pumped about the purchase: “we’re very proud to have Apple’s headquarters in our city. It’s not just a company. It’s the company.”

Neither Apple, nor HP have commented on the price that they settled on for the purchase, but experts have pegged its value around the $300 million mark. No one knows what Apple plans on doing with the new space they’ve acquired, but they now own quite a large chunk of land in Cupertino.

What do you think? What would you put in the space?

Article Via Mercury News

We pretty much love all things Twelve South at Macgasm. It’s no secret. My iPad case is a BookBook, I have a BookArc for my Laptop, Susan loves her Compass, and the BassJump keeps the beats pumping in our office.

We’re probably bigger fanboys of TwelveSouth’s stuff than we are of Apple’s at this point. That’s why we got excited when we heard that Twelve South has lowered the price of their BookArc to $29.99 USD, and they’re now offering up free shipping for a limited time.

This would make an excellent gift for any iPad geek over the holidays. Frankly, getting anything off the Twelve South website would probably be a “hit” for that special someone over the holidays.

Article Via Just Another iPad

Sharing an iPad within a family has its share of negatives. We’ve talked at length about the lack of multi-user support on the iPad in the past, so I’m not going to rehash the problem here. If you’re interested in that article you can read it here.

It seems like at least one app developers was paying attention to that article, because I woke up this morning to an email that had this to say: “I read a post you wrote for Macgasm in April wishing there was support for multiple users on the iPad. I’ve been working on something close to this for a few months now and finally today the app is released.” That blew my mind a little bit. I thought it would be important to actually point out this application to you guys.  Sure, it’s partially because we’re trying to support the community, but it’s mostly because we need to have a bigger dialog on this problem.  The iPad needs multi-user support.

On That Note

Michael O’Brien over at MechanicalTeeth has spent the last couple of months trying to solve this problem. His solution: Switch, a multi-user web browser. Sure, it doesn’t solve the problem with any other apps, but it lets you have some privacy while you surf the internet on your iPad.

Each account/user will get their own history, bookmarks and tabs, and each account can be password protected. There’s even a guest account that will delete the histories when you logout.

It’s a fantastic idea, and hopefully this sets the stage for other developers. We’re going to be putting the app through the paces and have a full review for you shortly.

Switch sells for $4.99 on the App Store.

Image from OTG Management

Waiting time will now seem much quicker for those without personal iPads, if they are lucky enough to be one of the 135 people to get access to the free use iPads that Delta is offering when flying through JFK.

Delta has just installed 135 iPads near restaurants at three of the airport’s gates. These include Croque Madame, a French restaurant at Gates 21 and 22 in Terminal 2, and Bar Brace, an Italian restaurant at Gate 15 in Terminal 3.

The iPads are there to encourage you to order food from the restaurants, made easier because the iPads have menu apps installed. I know it will be seen as a gimmick,  but it would be fun to just order food at the airport using the iPad and have a server bring it to you. The management at these establishments do say that you do not need to make a purchase to be able to use the iPad, but hey, food and iPad while waiting for a flight sounds pretty perfect. They all have wireless internet as well, totally free of charge.

Article Via Cult of Mac

Photo Credit: abir82

According to the Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Apple has been hiring a number of enterprise sales staff from the BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. In the last 18 months, 5 individuals from RIM have jumped ship to join Apple. The move signals a more overt push into the business market, a segment which Apple has traditionally been passive about reaching.

In Apple’s recent earnings conference call, CFO Peter Oppenheimer revealed that 80% of Fortune 500 companies are deploying the iPhone or considering doing so. That’s a pretty strong endorsement of the attention that Apple is getting from businesses, and with more focus on the market provided by the recent hires, that number could increase.

RIM and Apple have been engaged in a war of words over the last few months, with Steve Jobs citing iPhone sales beating RIM, and casting doubt on the as yet unreleased smaller 7-inch tablets during the earnings call. RIM CEO Jim Balsillie criticized Apple at the recent Web 2.0 conference, calling Apple’s app strategy unnecessary, saying “you don’t need an App for the web.” RIM also released a video demonstrating its PlayBook tablet besting the iPad in web surfing speed. Of course, you’d need that speed if you don’t have any apps for your platform, wouldn’t you?

Apple and RIM in competition? What is the world coming to? It used to be Apple vs. Microsoft, but now it’s Apple vs. Google and Apple vs. RIM. It’s just a sign of the huge focus Apple has on mobile right now.

Article Via 9to5Mac
Photo Credit: Mustard Faith

iDygest is a free app that will provide a summary of mac news stories. It finds articles that have the most sources, and you get a sentence or two from each site. All sources are referenced, so it is a great way to find current hot topics.

The version I used is 1.5, and it is for iPhone and iPod touch. There are some great things about this app if you’re looking for the most talked about news relating to Apple. When you launch the app, you get a view of the stories that were already downloaded, so that way you can read it offline if you need to. If you want the newest entries, there is a refresh button at the top, though some folks are asking for a pull-down to refresh option.

What it presents to you initially are the top 10 stories. It pulls in the news from the sources that have covered it, and then gives you the information from the sources in one post.

You can tweet the story out, email it or open it in safari for wider reading. This works really well if you are someone who wants the Apple news, but you find that your RSS feeds are getting a bit full of the same news.

The app has five tabs on the bottom, but all you need are the first three actually. The ‘Top 10′ and ‘Latest’ of course are what the app is all about, but there is also a ‘Luminaries’ tab. This you may want to check out, because it has posts from Ihnatko, LaMarche, Gemmell and McAllister to name a few. It was the most interesting part of the app for me. The other twotabs are just for the app really: ‘About’ and ‘More Apps.’

You can also search within the app to find particular stories. This is a great way to see a lot of interesting articles, and doing generic searches like iPhone or apps gives you tons to read.

Unfortunately, because of the way the stories are pulled together, the news feels a bit disjointed. It isn’t like reading an article someone wrote; it is literally one or two sentences from each source (proper footnotes referenced). Because of this, it feels like you are skimming the news, and you most likely will want to click through to one of the stories it links to if you want the full story or more complete details.

I think if you are someone who has Apple news RSS feeds set up and are an avid reader of Mac news, then you will know all this stuff already, and you will most likely know it before the app tells you.

However, for folks who just want the news about Apple and don’t want to mess around with tons of duplicate stories, it really is a great idea. In a way, it feels like someone has taken the effort to go through your feeds for you, mash the story together and then present it for reading. This could prove to be a big time saver for the enthusiast. Also because it is all referenced so well, you can then take the story further if you want to by clicking on the links they provide.

Overall I will be keeping this on my iPhone and will look at it when I haven’t had a chance to check Apple news in my feeds. It’s a great way to keep up to date on the most important stories surfacing and will provide you with hours of interesting reading.