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Infographic: iPhone's Role in Holiday Shopping
This year, the iPhone and mobile shopping apps are playing a big role in holiday shopping. How big? Mobile advertising network Mobclix breaks down the key stats in its December monthly infographic, based on information gathered from its ad network as well as the company’s survey of 600 smartphone owners. The most impressive number? iPhone shopping app usage in November 2010 increased 249 percent over 2009, although the number of shopping apps only increased 52 percent in roughly the same time period.

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Never Get Burned by Best Buy Price Drops Again
If one thing ticks me off, it’s buying something at Best Buy only to find out months later that a friend got it there on sale the weekend after I did. A new iPhone app ensures that won’t happen ever again. Gazaro Protect tracks Best Buy prices and lets you know if something you’ve purchased goes on sale.

Best of all, the app is free, so you won’t even have to use it to make your money back. It’s dead simple to use, too. Just search for what you bought, or enter the product’s UPC code and find out if it’s eligible for protection (a few products aren’t, though the app doesn’t exactly make it clear why). If it is, you can tap Protect My Purchase, enter the date you bought or received (if ordered online) the item, and you’ll get a push notification the instant the price drops, provided you’re still within the no-hassle return period for said purchase. The app also sends you an email in case you miss the push alert.

The app won’t actually drive to the store and deal with the Customer Service desk for you, but at least you won’t be left in the dark or stuck scouring Best Buy’s weekly flyers. The app tracks prices in real-time, and even provides price histories so you can see how low the price of any item has been in the past 90 days.

You have the option to upgrade the app through a one-time $1.99 in-app purchase. This removes the single item limit on purchases you can track, and unlocks the barcode scanner, which allows you to just scan the UPC of the product you bought instead of searching for it manually.

I’m not sure if Best Buy is going to be terribly pleased about this app, but it’s a great little tool for consumers, and should come in handy for iPhone-assisted holiday shopping. If you’ve recently bought anything from Best Buy, or are about to, try it out and let us know how it’s working for you.

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Mac 101: Keep Your Mac Running with Regular Maintenance
If your Mac is running slow or things don’t seem to be working as they should, it may just be that you need to give your computer a little bit of TLC in the form of regular maintenance. Here are a few ways to look after your Mac to make sure it doesn't get too ill.

Before you start, it’s always a good idea to do a backup of your system, or at least your sensitive files. These are very basic steps that don’t incur much risk, but you’re always better off having a backup than not.

Do It Every Day: Empty the Trash

It might seem obvious, but emptying the Trash is a great way to claim back hard drive space, which can, in some cases, speed up your Mac. To do this, simply click and hold (or right-click) the Trash icon in the Dock. Then click Empty Trash in the pop-up menu which appears. You’d be surprised how often you might forget to do this for days or even weeks at a time.

Do It Once a Month: Give Your Battery a Break

If you’re like me, and you never completely shut down your MacBook, instead only closing the lid occasionally to put it to sleep, then your battery might be getting a bit worn out. It could even be losing the ability to charge completely. Once in a while, turn your laptop off completely to give the battery a rest. Apple even suggests regularly running the charge down until the notebook turns off, then waiting a while to let it run out completely before recharging.

You can check the condition of your battery if you’re running Snow Leopard (10.6.x) by holding Option and clicking the battery status icon in the Menu Bar. If it shows ‘Replace Soon’, your battery may be losing the ability to hold its charge. If “Replace Now” or “Service Battery” is displayed, you should contact Apple about getting the battery replaced, especially if you’re still covered under warranty or AppleCare.

Do It Once Every Couple Months: Verify and Repair Disks and Permissions

Repair Disk Permissions
Repairing disk permissions can sort out strange goings-on, particularly those related to starting up your Mac. Open up Disk Utility (Found in the Applications>Utilities folder) and click on the disk you’re interested in using the source menu on the left. Click the button on the left, Verify Disk Permissions. Disk Utility will automatically take care of the rest.

If you need to, you can click Repair Disk Permissions to iron out any errors that get picked up. I’d suggest doing this before restoring and erasing disks and so on. Oftentimes repairing permissions will sort out the problem, without having to resort to a disk repair.

Verify and Repair Disks
If something strange starts happening on your Mac, it’s a good idea to verify that your startup disk is okay. If the structure of the disk’s file system is changed in some way, then your Mac might start behaving strangely. In order to check that everything is as it should be, you can once again use Disk Utility. Select your startup disk from the list of drives on the left and hit Verify Disk. Disk Utility will go ahead and check the status of the disk you selected. Don’t worry if your computer is unresponsive during the test; that’s normal.

If Disk Utility finds an issue with a disk, you can use the Repair Disk button to have your Mac try to repair it automatically. Most of the time, a simple repair will sort out any issues you’re having with a disk.

Sometimes, though, you will have to boot your Mac from your OS X install disc in order for Repair Disk to work. To do that, make sure your OS X install disc is in your Mac’s drive, reboot your computer, and hold C. Don’t reinstall OS X, but instead choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu and try to verify and repair once again.

Getting It Done Automatically

It can be a pain to remember to carry out maintenance on your machine regularly. Luckily, there’s an application, OnyX, which can perform maintenance such as checking permissions and cleaning out temporary files automatically. OnyX can perform daily, weekly and monthly scripts which do all the boring things for you. Plus it’s free. OnyX can’t empty the Trash, but it can clear caches and temporary files. It also checks the status of your startup disk whenever you launch the application.

Got any maintenance tips of your own? Share them in the comments.

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Viber Gives Skype a Run for Its Money on iPhone
Skype has new competition on the iPhone platform thanks to Viber, a new VoIP app that allows iPhone-to-iPhone calling over 3G and Wi-Fi connections. The app is free, runs in the background, doesn’t have any ads and won’t charge you anything to make calls.

There are some caveats. You can’t call any number for free, just other Viber users. Calling a number not associated with a Viber account will boot you out to the iPhone’s own Phone app to place the call, which will incur carrier or long distance charges. And there’s no warning of that, so watch your usage.

Also, unlike with Skype, there’s no way to call out to landlines or mobile phones, even through additional purchases, which may be a deal breaker to some. But for my purposes, which mainly consist of not using up my limited daytime minutes talking to my girlfriend, it’s a perfect solution. Perfect that is, as long as everyone involved has an iPhone. Viber is advertising an Android version as in the works, though, so cross-platform calls could be on the horizon.

But why not just use Skype? Well, for one, Viber doesn’t really require a sign up or separate account. All you do is enter your iPhone’s phone number once when the app launches, and you’re all set to begin making calls to other Viber users. That means I don’t have to worry about whether or not my girlfriend is signed in to Skype or has the app running, since Viber uses Apple’s push notifications to receive calls even when closed. Clicking “Answer” on the resulting alert opens the app and connects the call.

Viber suggests using the app as a way for businesses to provide a toll-free international calling number, but of course, those wanting to call would have to have Viber installed in order for this to work. They don’t, however, have to have you as a contact. Instead, just dialing the number you provide in the Viber app will automatically place a call using the service instead of your cellular minutes.

Planned future features for Viber include free text messaging, custom ringtones and wallpapers, and location-based services. Viber’s business model doesn’t yet include any way to make revenue, so expect a few of those to be features you end up paying for. But since the press release explicitly says “free text messaging” and promises that calls will remain free, which is all I care about, I’m happy to see Viber embracing a freemium model.

Full support for the iPod touch and iPad is also said to be on the way, although right now I wonder how that’ll work, since the whole service seems based around your phone number. Hopefully, it will arrive, because that’ll go a long way to extending Viber’s potential reach.

Even without any new teachers, I doubt I’ll be using Skype on my iPhone again any time soon. Anyone else a convert?

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The Right Way to Market Your iPhone App
Marketing an iOS app prior to its release can be really difficult. You can’t really release a demo or beta version, since the App Store doesn’t allow for that sort of thing. Posting a preview video or screenshots is all well and good, but it’s not really going to generate hype unless you’ve got something super unique to offer. Ben the Bodyguard is an upcoming app whose developers have exactly the right idea about how to promote their product before it actually gets in to the hands of users.

Ben the Bodyguard is a secure storage app to protect your passwords, photos, contacts and other information on your iPhone or iPod touch you don’t want others getting wind of. That’s a job description shared by tens or maybe even hundreds of apps in the App Store. If I received a press release for an app like that, I wouldn’t even yawn. I’d be too bored to yawn. Luckily, instead of a press release I found this link via Twitter:

@beautifulpixels
Beautiful Pixels
Pixel porn of the day. http://benthebodyguard.com/

Just scroll.

about 15 hours ago via Twitter for iPadRetweetReply

It’s a preview site for the app, but it’s unlike any I’ve ever seen before. It’s smart, amusing, visually pleasing, and informative. But best of all, it sets Ben the Bodyguard apart from its competitors by taking a unique, interactive and beautiful approach to announcing a product before even revealing anything about how the app works or what it looks like. If you’re looking to market your own app or that of a client, take note. This is how to stand out from what’s become a very large crowd.

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