Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Ubisoft has released a multiplayer version of its popular Assassin's Creed II game exclusively for the iPhone and iPod touch."

Head on over to the iTunes Store and download this normally $2.99 USD game for free, but only for approximately 48 hours. This version allows you to compete with up to three other player-controlled assassins via Wi-Fi connection. This is part of a 48-hour launch promotion.

"Macworld Expo 2011 attendees hoping to save a few dollars can take advantage of free registration through March 8, 2010. The free registration offer is open to all expo attendees, but doesn't include special conference track passes."

Next year Macworld kicks off January 25th, with the expo floor opening on January 27th, and will be held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. You can find more info at the Macworld Expo site or go directly to the registration page.

"Two of the App Store's biggest hits last year have finally dropped free versions of their apps to try out. Of course, odds are probably slim that you haven't played or heard of these two yet, but just in case you were waiting to try them without paying, now is your chance."

I'm a Call of Duty fan, so of course I bought this for $9.99 USD when it came out, and I must say it is well worth the price. Well now you can try it out for yourself for free. You only get three rounds of play but that is plenty enough to get hooked. Rock Band is also jumping on the free bandwagon, offering their normally $6.99 USD priced program as a free "lite" version that only features one song from the Foo Fighters called "Learn to Fly." If you don't like this song, you can also try out Guitar Hero's free version that has "Born to be Wild" as the featured song. I'm a big fan of this concept, offer a limited version for free so you can see if you like it, and if so, get a lot more with the paid version.

"Bare Bones Software has released TextWrangler 3.1, an update to the text editor. The new version introduces a newcommand-line tool, "twfind," which provides access to the app's multi-file searching from the Unix command line."

This is a great little text editing program, and best of all Bare Bones offers it free. The latest version requires Mac OS X version 10.4 or later, and its Universal so it works on Power PC or Intel Macs. If you are curious just what did they do to update this program, check out their release notes here. 

"A group of developers plans to launch has launched FreeAppaDay.com, a Website that will offer paid iPhone programs for free for 24 hours. The program, which kicks off next week, results from the efforts of developer ICS Mobile; OpenFeint, the leading iDevice social gaming network; Tapjoy, a mobile advertising and promotion firm; and Blacksmith Games."

I checked out the site at FreeAppaDay and they appear to have started the program already. For 24 hours, they will offer an iPhone/iPod Touch app for free for 24 hours. Every 24 hours the app changes so you get exposed to a variety of different gaming apps in different genres.

"Apple has introduced an all-new seasonally-sanctioned free app, iTunes 12 Days of Christmas. The app is available now in most territories and constitutes the official app of the company's hot 12 days promotion, during which iTunes users will be able to download fresh free content each day between December 26 and January 6."

This free app is only available so far in the UK iTunes Store, no word yet on when it will be released in the US or other countries. Direct from Apple, "'The official app of the iTunes 12 Days of Christmas promotion offers customers a free download every day from December 26 through January 6 (includes music, TV, apps and movies)," the company promises. For maximum benefit, sign up for Push Notifications to remind you when each new download is available and connect to Facebook to recommend the free download to friends. All this great new content is sure to while away the post-Christmas blues,' Apple has said in a statement."

"The website "iFixIt" has been a goldmine of information and how-to instructions for repairing various models of Macintosh that have been released over the years, starting with the "Pismo" PowerBook G3 in 2004. Their take-apart manuals have been filled with detailed photographs and illustrations that clearly show the steps for replacing parts, and accessing components for servicing. On December 15th, they licensed all of their repair manuals to the public for free."

Quite possibly "the largest free release of repair documentation ever," iFixIt announced the gift yesterday on their blog. They do have a ton of information, with manuals for 91 Mac models, 34 iPods and several iPhones. Nice resource and now under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA License you can access it for free.

"Hard to believe anyone who does the Christmas thing would be lacking in basic music like Silent Night or We Wish You a Merry Christmas, but do you have Sarah McLachlan or Weezer singing your carols?"

If you don't, iTunes is making it easy for you by offering them, as well as 18 other artists, in their iTunes Holiday Sampler pack. In keeping with the Spirit of Christmas, they aren't even charging for the 20 songs. If you are curious, they have a website set up that lists all the songs in the pack, and it is available now for download in the iTunes Store. Sorry, this is only available for US and UK customers.

We've got another great contest for you, and this time because it's an accessory that works with so many different products, it's a network-wide contest. The prizes? I'm giving away three pairs of SHURE SE210 Earphones (MSRP $179.99 USD), courtesy of the generous folks at Shure. Our very own David Tucker reviewed this earphones back in September, and he loved them - so I'm sure the three winners will as well. The SE210's feature a noise-isolating sleeves that block 90 percent of the ambient noise, and the more noise you can block out, the more you can enjoy your tunes.

What do you have to do to win? Simply post a message in this discussion thread telling me which type of device (or devices) you'd use the headphones with. A Windows Mobile smartphone? A Zune? An iPod? An iPhone? A netbook or laptop? That's it - one post per person, and the contest closes on Tuesday the 15th of December at 12pm GMT -7. This contest is world-wide; I'll be shipping you the prizes myself.

Remember that all first posts in our system are held in moderation, so if this contest entry is your first post, please wait up to 48 hours before getting concerned if your post hasn't shown up yet - it will. Winners will be contacted via private forum message, so ensure that you have email notifications turned on. Winners will have 72 hours to claim their prize.

Let's see those entries!

UPDATE:The contest is now closed, and the three winners are GqSkrub, webguy248, and deenoo. Thanks to everyone for entering - it was great to see so many entries! And big thanks to SHURE for donating the prizes!

"Agile Web Solutions announced on Tuesday that it is offering 1Password touch Pro for free a limited time. The password manager for the iPhone and iPod touch is regularly priced at US$7.99."

The limited time ends on December 1st per the iTunes posting, so if you were thinking about getting it now is the time.

"Bored of your voice? Take your pick from a choice of 17 new ones! With Voices, you can record a quick voice memo as various characters,then share the best ones through the app with your friends and family with just a couple of taps."

This app for the iPhone (works with iPod Touch but you have to have an external mic) is new and as part of the promotion they are giving away a copy of the associated desktop app called Voice Candy. All you have to do is tweet about it on your Twitter account. The associated app Voices is $0.99 USD in the app store.

"We like to think of our job as helping to introduce the great indie software out there to you guys, the Mac users."

And as part of their job, they are offering the above six software titles for free. Well, actually five for now, as Mariner Write won't be offered until they hit 500,000 participants. You can check them out at MacHeist, and during the duration of the giveaway, they are also offering the iPhone app Convert for $1.99 USD. If you don't have Convert, this should be your prompt to at least give it a look. I think it is one of if not the best unit converter out there for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

"Volkswagen knows something other car manufacturers don't: they needn't spend millions of dollars on commercials, billboards, and product placement to launch a new car. They just need to make an iPhone application, like Volkswagen has for their latest model, the 2010 GTI, and the money will follow."

The money won't flow from the app they released for the iPhone, that one is free! This is lite version of Freemint's Real Racing so it has fewer tracks and you can only race, obviously, a VW GTI. And by going to the winners circle in the app you can enter to win one of six snazzy Special Edition GTIs, like the one pictured above. You can also enter via the VW website. The weekly contest ends in, well, six weeks, after the last of the cars has been given away.

"Like products in the real world, iPhone apps often go on sale. But those deals are hard to find and usually don't last long. Free iPhone app PandoraBox can help you track down the latest and greatest sales on iPhone software."

This app lists several categories such as On Sale, Featured, New Apps and Favorites, and you can further split them up into free and paid. Another app that is similar is called Bargain Bin, however that one uses Push to give you updates on items in the app store.

"PocketBible has been approved for sale on the App Store. Depending on where you live, it might be available already."

During the introductory period at least, this is a free app. I know some of you have been waiting for this for awhile, and now it is finally in the iTunes store. From the reviews I've read, this appears to be a very useful app. I believe this used to be web based iPhone program, and was finally released in this iPhone version.

"Everyone's favorite app bundle/puzzle game, AKA MacHeist, is back! MacHeist, now in its third year, combines a pre-bundle game, where users solve puzzles to unlock free apps and bundle discounts, and an actual bundle of apps, which go on sale at the end of the heist."

Seems like a fun way to get in on some free applications. I signed up today, and when I checked out the loot link they already have a couple free programs to download. One is called Shovebox, a nifty application that sits on your menu bar allowing you to capture bits of information in a variety of ways. According to the site they will soon have an iPhone app to go along with the desktop application. It's a $25 program so not bad for just signing up for the heist.