Apple on Tuesday officially kicked off its 2010 back-to-school promotion, an annual sale where students and school faculty can buy a Mac with education pricing and get a free 8GB iPod touch, a device that now costs $199.
Shoppers can save $50 on a low-end MacBook, up to $200 on a MacBook Pro, $100 on a MacBook Air, and up to $100 on an iMac desktop when purchased with an education discount through the Apple Store. Each new Mac comes with a free 8GB iPod touch, a $199 value — less than the hardware has cost during previous promotions. The $949 education price for the low-end MacBook is also higher than in years past.
The deal applies to new Macs bought with education pricing between May 25 and Sept. 7, 2010. Users will receive an online rebate for up to $199 in compensation for the second-generation 8GB iPod touch. Customers must submit their claim online within 90 days from when the order ships to be issued a rebate for the iPod touch.
Alternatively, customers can also receive $199 off a higher-capacity iPod touch or the 160GB iPod classic, $179 off a 16GB iPod nano, $149 off the 8GB iPod nano, a $99 discount for the stainless steel 4GB iPod shuffle, and $79 off the regular 4GB iPod shuffle.
Shoppers can buy through an Apple online store for education, retail store, authorized campus store, or call 1-800-MY-APPLE. Education discounts are available to faculty and staff of K-12 schools, as well as college students, professors, faculty and staff.
“Take a free 8GB iPod touch to school,” Apple's promotional page reads. “Along with tons of other great features, iPod touch has built-in Wi-Fi for downloading thousands of games, movies, songs, apps, and amazing, free educational content from iTunes U.”
Apple kicked off its back to school promo in late May in 2009, giving away an 8GB iPod touch that then cost $229. In 2008, the sale began in early June, when the 8GB iPod touch cost $299. As is the case this year, customers could also receive a rebate toward the purchase of other iPod models as well.
Redsn0w 0.9.5 has been updated! which brings long awaited support for Windows users to jailbreak iOS 4 GM (formerly iPhone OS 4) on iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G. Like the last release, this update also includes optional support to enable multitasking and wallpapers on iOS 4.0 on iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G which otherwise are disabled by Apple.
Warning Note: This release is strictly meant for official activated iPhones, if you rely on an unlock, stay away from this release.
The redsn0w beta has been updated for 4.0GM on iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G (non-MC version). Multitasking and homescreen wallpaper are turned on by default (Apple doesn’t normally allow this on these 2 devices). You can deselect these features if you choose.
A version for Windows is now provided.
Just like our other betas, this one intentionally doesn’t “hactivate” the iPhone. Please wait for Apple’s public release of 4.0 for that part of it.
YOU SHOULD STAY CLEAR OF THIS BETA SOFTWARE IF YOU RELY ON A CARRIER UNLOCK. That’s because the beta redsn0w works only if your device has already been upgraded to the stock 4.0beta1/beta4/GM IPSW from Apple, which contains a baseband update. If you installed that IPSW, you’ve already lost the carrier unlock until the next planned release of ultrasn0w and blacksn0w.
Instructions to jailbreak iPhone 3G and iPod touch 2G on iOS 4.0 GM using Redsn0w 0.9.5 as usual exactly similar to the last release. Please read all the instructions posted here carefully before upgrading and jailbreaking your phone to iOS 4.
Download Redsn0w 0.9.5 for Windows
Download Redsn0w 0.9.5 for Mac
Download iPhone iOS 4.0 GM Release
Download iTunes 9.2 for Windows and Mac
iPhone 3GS users should follow the guide posted here to jailbreak iOS 4 using PwnageTool bundles.
If you are on iPhone OS 3.1.3, you can follow our step by step guides to jailbreak iPhone 3GS with Spirit here, iPod touch 3G untethered here, and iPad on OS 3.2 here.
You may also like to check out:
- Unlocked iPhone 4 Available in UK, France and Canada
- How to Unlock iOS 4 with Ultrasn0w and Blacksn0w
- Enable Multitasking, Wallpapers on iOS 4.0 for iPhone 3G and iPod touch
You can follow me on twitter or join our facebook fanpage to keep yourself updated on all the latest iPhone jailbreaking and unlocking releases.
iPhone Apps Still Sell Far Better Than iPad
The fascinating other half of this statistic is that while iPad apps are growing much faster than iPhone/iPod apps did initially, iPhone and iPod apps sold much better during their first few months, and continue to today. In the first 90 days of the AppStore's existence, 100 billion downloads made their way to the handheld devices. If the iPad is going to break that number, it will need to sell 65 million apps this month, nearly double its 2-month sales figure of 35 million apps sold.
App sales and the number of available apps have been increasing exponentially since the launch of the AppStore, and the iPad launch helped the last two months become the fasted period of growth for apps yet. In just two months, 1 billion apps were sold, up to 5 billion from 4 billion back in early April. The total number of apps also increased by 40,000 apps, from 185,000 to 225,000.
Is Price to Blame?
The iPad accounted for 21% of app growth, but just 3% of app sales - a figure that compliments why iPhone and iPod touch users install twice as many apps than iPad users. According to a study by Nielson, users of the handsets average around 37 apps on their device, while today Steve Jobs mentioned iPad users average just 17 per device. A mobile research firm out the Netherlands found that iPad apps run an average price of $4.67, whereas iPhone and iPod touch apps are $.80 less at $3.87 - an obvious deterrent to iPad app sales.
Apple also says it receives 15,000 app submissions a week, and that 95% of apps are accepted through within a week of being submitted. Based on these figures, 114,000 apps or updates to existing apps were pushed into the AppStore in the last two months. Since only 40,000 new apps were added during that time, this means that roughly two-thirds of app submissions are updates to existing applications.
A Lucrative Market
It's no wonder the updates keep rolling in, because developers are making good chunks of change on the AppStore. Steve Jobs says Apple has paid developers over $1 billion in AppStore revenue shares, or over $4,400 per app on average. If Apple has paid out over $1 billion to developers, that means it has pocketed over $428 million from its 30% cut of app sales.
At its current growth rate, the AppStore should pass the 10 billion downloads mark in early April 2011. However, with the continued exponential growth seen in the infographic above, it wouldn't be surprising to see the AppStore break this number as soon as the end of the year.