“300 Bowl” price drop in honor of “National Bowling Week”
Like most people, odds are you’ve probably called in sick to work today because you’ll be celebrating “National Bowling Week” all week long, and who can blame you? Well, here’s a little something extra to get excited about, in honor of NBW (as it’s known in the industry) TheWay, LTD is dropping the price of its 300 Bowl iPhone game to $1.99 from $3.99.
I have only putted around with the game for a few minutes, but all I’ll say is the drop to $1.99 is certainly a good first step towards where this app should be priced.
Why Apple’s got the “.Mac/iLife 2008 rebate thing” ass-backwards
Yes, my loathing of Apple’s .Mac borderline bullying tactics is well documented, but because I am half Vulcan, I can periodically detach myself from my emotional feelings towards .Mac for brief periods of time in order to evaluate the service objectively. To that end, I have analyzed Apple’s latest .Mac promotion and found it to be ass-backwards. Here’s why.
According to IGM, Now through May 26th, .Mac owners can pick up iLife 2008 for $48.98, a savings of $30 off the regular retail price. However, what Apple should REALLY be doing is offering iLife 2008 users .Mac for $30 (or more) off ITS regular $99/ year price tag. The reasoning? Aside from the yearly speed improvements, there’s not all that much incentive for anyone currently using last year’s iLife to upgrade to iLife 2008, unless they already own the .Mac service. Pretty much anything cool in iLife 2008 revolves around having the $99/year .Mac service as well.
I would also wager that there are less than 3 people on the planet who own .Mac and do not have iLife 2008 already. Having .Mac is the ultimate Apple-fanboy status symbol, a sign that tells the world you already own every other product Apple has produced. It is much more likely that Apple would do better to run the opposite promotion, discounting .Mac and enticing current iLife 2008 users (which number in the millions now, thanks to recent Mac sales booms) to get in on the .Mac goodness that Apple makes you work a little too hard to find out that you need in order to use many of iLife 2008’s features.
I’m still holding a small candle of hope that one day Apple will bundle .Mac into the iLife suite (at no additional charge) and move the whole suite to a subscription-based model at $79/year. But of course the problem with holding a candle is you inevitably end up with scorched, wax-covered fingers.
MacUpdate Bundle of Joy turns back into a pumpkin at midnight
A reminder that the MacUpdate Parallel’s Bundle turns into a pumpkin tonight at midnight, so if you were thinking of picking up Parallels and the other 9 apps for less than the price of Parallels alone, now is your chance.
It is coincidentally also your last chance to support Macenstein by buying the bundle by clicking here.
Thanks!
Deals: Bargains aplenty at Harman/Kardon’s eBay store
If you do not fear the word “refurbished”, there are deals aplenty over at Harmon Kardon’s eBay store. Harman sells a wide range of receivers, speakers, subwoofers, and complete surround sound and multimedia systems under the Harman, JBL, and Infinity brand names, and a ton of these items start at only 99¢. I picked up a pair of JBL Spot speakers for $30 (that’s 70% savings).
Above: Many items start as low as 99¢.
I had reviewed the Spots last year and was blown away (9 out of 10), but unfortunately had to send the review unit back. The really nice thing is since you are buying from Harman, you get a factory warranty on your purchase – always nice when buying from eBay. Anyway, just a heads up, I don’t have an affiliation or anything, just passing it along.
MacUpdate announces “MacUpdate Parallels Bundle”
It looks like April is shaping up to be a good month for Shareware fans. MacUpdate has partnered with 10 Mac developers to bring us the MacUpdate Parallels bundle. Similar to the MacHeist bundle of apps, the MacUpdate bundle consists of 10 apps, the three most expensive of which need to be “unlocked” by hitting sales goals in order to be obtained. The biggest name in the bundle (and thus the reason for the bundle’s name) is Parallels Desktop.
The bundle costs $64.99, and with the 7 currently unlocked apps would retail for $265. When all 10 apps are unlocked, the value of the bundle would be $475.
The MacUpdate Parallels bundle contains the following applications:
• Hazel “your personal housekeeper, organizing and cleaning folders based on rules you define. Hazel can also manage your trash and uninstall your applications.”
• Art Text “an application to create high quality textual graphics, headings, logos, icons, banners and buttons.”
• MenuCalendarClock for iCal “gives you instant access to your iCal calendars from a menu bar icon.”
• Leap “A combination Spotlight, Bridge, Finder, and more. With the Finder on Leopard you can find that you have over 10,000 images. Leap shows you all of them, and more importantly - where they are on your computer.”
• StoryMill “introduces aspiring authors to multi-level writing methods of tracking characters, scenes, and locations, while professional writers will appreciate StoryMill’s time-saving ability to oversee and manage the full creative process with Smart Views. ”
• Typinator ” types repeating texts and pictures for you”
• DVDRemaster “is an utility for Mac OS X to recompress large DVDs so that they fit on standard DVD5. DVDRemaster can also convert DVDs so they can be watched on iPod nano, iPod classic, iPod touch, iPhone, Apple TV and much more”
Apps which must be “unlocked” include
• Sound Studio “s an easy-to-use Mac OS X application for recording and editing audio digitally on your computer.”
• BannerZest “Flash presentation software for professional and amateur web designers. ”
• Parallels Desktop “is the first solution that gives Apple users the ability to run Windows, Linux or any other operating system and their critical applications at the same time as Mac OS X on any Intel-powered iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook or MacBook Pro.”
As always, if you are considering purchasing the bundle, we’d love for you to do so via clicking this link, which helps support Macenstein.
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