Macenstein

Posted by Helper Monkey

Purely conjecture, and not based in any concrete info, I happened to notice that two of Apple’s four current promos are set to expire tomorrow. Both were introduced at Macworld this year, and time has run out for both.

The first (and not all that exciting) is the “Perfect Companion� promo, which allowed you to save $100 when purchasing Apple systems and a printer at the same time.

The second (and slightly more interesting) deal has to do with .Mac. Apple’s $30 rebate off a Mac and .Mac subscription also ends tomorrow. The only reason we like this rumor is AppleInsider is saying we might see new Macbooks (iBooks) this Tuesday. We are combining this with info we received awhile back that Apple was planning on possibly modifying their .Mac service to include addition iTunes authorizations, perhaps at an extra price, or perhaps just as another benefit to the .Mac lifestyle.

The whole basis of that rumor stemmed from the fact that people are buying more and more Macs per household these days, especially now that people are adding Intel Macs to their stable of home machines. Many people are finding themselves constrained by iTunes current 5-authorization-limit. And as more people start using Mac minis and such as digital recorders and media hubs, the more the idea of extra iTunes authorizations makes sense.

Anyway, we have heard nothing new on that, but with each new Apple CPU rollout, there is an increase in the number of people who may find the extra iTunes authorization necessary. Plus financially it makes sense as it really wouldn’t cost Apple anything to implement, yet would add a great deal of value to .Mac for some customers.

So this coupon expiration and possible Macbook announcement this week could simply be a case of us adding 1 and 1 and coming up with 12, but we’re still anxious to see.