Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"For those of us who were followers of Apple back in the 80s and 90s, there was no single person who defined the enthusiasm and overall attitude of the company more than Guy Kawasaki. Guy was part of the team responsible for the original marketing of the Mac, and is credited with the use of evangelism in tech marketing to create a passionate following for a product."

I still have my copy, autographed by Guy Kawasaki when he was doing the book tour for the release of this book, and now you can get a copy without having to stand in line. Just make sure you are following him on Twitter, then go to the verification site to download the free eBook of The Macintosh Way.

"Rejoice, iPhone 4 owners, because the bandaid to solve your antenna problems is coming. We got confirmation that the first free Apple bumpers are now shipping."

I just got my confirmation email about my bumper shipping as well. So this is well ahead of the timetable they give you via the app, which is 3 to 5 weeks. Anybody out there order something other than bumpers and get an email also?

"Customers who had already bought iPhone Bumpers before Apple offered free cases to all iPhone 4 users have started to receive refunds from the company."

And now the free case program has started via an app from iTunes. The process, outlined on the Apple site [link] is pretty simple. Download the free app [link], sign in to your iTunes account and select your free case. Seems pretty simple. Not so sure yet how it will work on accounts with multiple iPhones such as ours but I guess I'll soon find out!

UPDATE: Macworld has an article [link] telling you everything you need to know about the program in case you have questions.

"After days of being pilloried for the iPhone 4's antenna problems, Apple CEO Steve Jobs took to the stage in Cupertino, California to respond."

Image Credit: CNET

And he responded with an offer most won't refuse: a free case or bumper. Starting at the end of next week you will be able to go online and submit your request at Apple for a bumper or another approved case, and if you already purchased a bumper you can apply for a refund.

Read more...

"The iTunes App Store offers downloads of iHandy Level for iPhone / iPod touch for free."

Free is a very good price, and it just so happens that iHandy's Level [iTunes link] fits that bill. The app is one of 5 in the iHandy Carpenter app [affiliate link], and no word on how long this will last. Looking at the iHandySoft website [link], I can see how they get their name as the apps do look like they would come in "handy."

"Today, Macworld announced via e-mail that free registration for the 2011 conference is now open."

And if you register [link] by July 26th 2010 (the date in the article is wrong, it should read July not June), your registration is free.

Pretty good deal they are offering at iPhone Life, fill out the form here, and you get a free print AND digital version of the iPhone Life magazine. If you decide you want to continue the subscription, you'll get 6 more issues of the print and digital version for $15.97 USD, which is 40% off the normal subscription rate.

"Mmm... nothing like the smell of a warm caramel macchiato in the morning being masked by the smell of fresh greenbacks being burned, right?"

Nothing better than free Wi-Fi with your coffee, unless it's one of those blueberry muffins. Anyway, two clicks and you get free Wi-Fi at any Starbucks in the USA or Canada starting today. Good luck finding a seat now!

"There's big Starbucks news today that may help customers more easily swallow those venti lattes which can cost more than $5 in some places - the chain is going to offer unlimited free Wi-Fi at all its U.S. locations starting July 1."

They are calling it the Starbucks Digital Network, and instead of having to purchase something tied to your Starbucks registration to get a few hours of wi-fi, starting on July 1st you will get unlimited free wi-fi access. Starbucks is teaming up with Yahoo! to create the portal, and they will offer access to various content providers including, among others, Apple iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA TODAY, The Wall Street Journal, Yahoo! and ZAGAT.

"Now here's a great deal if you're traveling: Until July 10, 2010, you can use the promo code SAVE25 to get 25% off your GoGo Internet in-flight Wi-Fi session."

All you have to do is look for the "gogoinflight" signal at 10,000 feet, open a browser, and enter promo code SAVE25 on the payment info page to get 25% off your in-flight Internet signal. You can also use code TRYTHIRTYDAY, which will give you $5.00 USD off of a 30-day GoGo pass. GoGo has a variety of pricing options from $4.95 USD for a single flight up to 1.5 hours to $39.95 USD for 30-day pass for unlimited usage on any flight. Not a bad deal if you travel a lot and want to save a few bucks.

"No, we're not talking about the gazillions of classic texts available from stalwart sources like Project Gutenberg or the oft-times fuzzy tomes available from Google Books. We're talking high-quality, newish E-Books from your friendly neighborhood giant behemoth of a bookseller Barnes & Noble."

This promo started about two weeks ago, and has three weeks left, ending approximately on June 20th. All you have to do is bring a Nook, or any eBook reader with the Barnes & Noble software installed (ie iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, etc), into one of their brick and mortar stores, and you get a code for a free eBook. The books they plan to give away in no particular order are Alexander McCall Smith's "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," Jim Butcher's "Storm Front," Chris Anderson's "The Long Tail," Elizabeth Berg's "Home Safe," and Lee Child's "One Shot."

"It's that time of year again! Apple's throwing a bone (or, alternatively, trying to lock-in) green undergrads heading to college for the first time with their annual "Back to School" program, which nets eligible students a free 8GB iPod Touch (or $199 off any other iPod)."

The promo runs through September 7th, and your "free" iPod is actually in the form of a rebate so you will have to wait for about 90 days before it actually becomes free. And you have to meet some eligibility requirements as well as purchase from the Education Store at Apple.

"QuoteDeck version 2.5 is a complete overhaul of the popular Get Wise iPhone app. Along with the new name and new design comes more quotes, more features, and more power. We added 5,000 quotes for over 30,000 total, mostly from the world's most famous athletes and comedians. Over 250 new backgrounds, 100 table themes, new quick themes feature to instantly change the design, improved layout, integrated streaming of @HollywoodQuotes from Twitter, search tool upgrades, speed enhancements and more."

It gets average reviews in the iTunes store, but those aren't the most reliable in my book. But bottom line is, if you like having a resource for quotes, this is one option and it's free so no risk.

"Gameloft makes some of the biggest App Store gaming titles, and they're celebrating their ten year anniversary."

And the announcements look like the screenshot above. Follow Gameloft on Twitter to get your updates and they give you two hours to get the games for free from iTunes. Per Gameloft, "For two hours every day, from May 10th through May 21st, with the exception of the weekend, one Gameloft iPhone/iPod Touch game will be available for free. There will be unlimited downloads allowed during the two hours. Ten different games will be given away during the promotion. The specific title and hours for the giveaway will be revealed daily on @Gameloft's Twitter feed. The daily reveals will occur at random times so participants are encouraged to follow Gameloft on Twitter to be the first to know."

Sounds easy enough right?

"Are you sick and tired of wasting $.99 - $1.99 at a time trying to find the perfect calculator app for your iPad? Hopefully your search can end right here and right now without having to spend another dime. Calc XT, an iPad-optimized calculator and note-taking app, is available for free for the next two days to celebrate its release."

Normally priced at $0.99 USD in the iTunes Store, for today and tomorrow it is being offered free as a promotion on it's release. Full-featured in portrait and landscape modes, and if you do have it in landscape mode, it displays a notepad to the right of the calculator. Notes are taken by dragging your finger across the screen. You can also change the pen color from black to red. The notes you create can be copied or you can send them off via email. Free is a very good price.

"WinX DVD Ripper for Mac is an all-in-one DVD ripper designed to make perfect 1:1 DVD copy to hard drive and rip your DVD movies on Mac OS to iTunes, MOV, MP4, FLV, etc that playable on iPad, iPod, iPhone, Apple-TV, PSP and much more. It also supports extracting music from the DVD files and saving as MP3 format. With this Mac DVD ripper. Most important, it enables users to rip DVDs of new generation copy protections with the fastest speed."

And best of all they are offering this as a free download, but only if you go to this page and use the special code. The giveaway started on April 15th and will expire at 12:00AM GMT on May 1st, 2010. This is the full version of the program so if you want to give it a try, now is the time to do it!

"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.