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Save Up to $175 on iPhone at RadioShack
Is an iPhone 4 on your holiday wish list? If yes, RadioShack has an attractive deal starting Saturday, Dec. 4. You instantly save $50 on the iPhone 4 and 3GS, but with trade-ins on your old device, that could climb as high as $175.

The deal, which RadioShack made us aware of via email, only lasts until next Saturday, Dec. 11, so you don’t have much time to make up your mind, but it’s not a bad deal even considering that the iPhone is already halfway through its upgrade cycle. Because it’s so much easier than writing it out, here’s what The Shack is offering in convenient table form:

There are, as you might expect, a few caveats. Phones obviously have to be purchased on a new two-year contract with AT&T, and that means you have to either be a new customer or eligible for upgrade pricing. For the trade-in to apply, your old phone has to be in pretty much pristine working and cosmetic condition. You can see if your old iPhone qualifies either at your nearest RadioShack store, or using the company’s online appraisal tool.

Speaking of that trade-in, you’re probably better off trying to sell your old device on eBay or craigslist first. That $125 discount on the 3GS could translate into around $300 in your pocket if you sell the device second-hand yourself, which would make the iPhone 4 basically free (barring applicable taxes) with the automatic $50 discount.

A $50 discount may not seem like much when you’re spending nearly $300 anyways, but it’s likely the steepest price cut you’ll see on the iPhone 4 this holiday. If you’d rather not wait for the iPhone 5, and you’re eligible for upgrade, it’s not going to get much better than this.

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Apple's Mac App Store: Gateway for OS X Freemium?
In-app purchases on the iOS platform allowed free apps to become some of the best revenue-generators on the App Store, as Ryan noted in November. That kind of success can’t have escaped the notice of Apple, so might it open the floodgates for freemium on OS X with the Mac App Store?

The first condition required for a freemium model to blossom on OS X is that the Mac App Store allow in-app purchasing. I think Apple will make sure this is one of the first things they bring over from the iOS model. Why? Because it opens up a much wider range of revenue generating possibilities for Mac maker. Also, the whole point behind introducing a Mac App Store is controlling the distribution channel. Not including an in-app purchase method that also works through iTunes would limit that control by sending consumers elsewhere for plug-ins and downloadable content (DLC), which undermines Apple’s gatekeeper role.

Apple looks to be blocking trial and demo versions of applications from the Mac App Store, but that shouldn’t preclude the availability of full, ready-for-retail products that offer DLC or in-game upgrades and credits in exchange for in-app purchases. Technically and with regard to policy, there should be no barriers.

But would a freemium approach do as well on the desktop as it has on mobile? It’s a question that already has an answer, albeit a browser-based one. Looking at the success of FarmVille and other Zynga games, you can find many examples of the model already working very well on traditional, non-mobile platforms. Cashing in on the casual gaming space currently presided over by web-based content is probably a big motivating factor behind the introduction of a Mac App Store to begin with.

Unlike on the iOS platform, though, users will have an alternative when it comes to the Mac. They can avoid the App Store altogether and just continue using Facebook and other web-based venues for freemium gaming. There are no technical barriers preventing this on OS X, like the absence of Flash on iOS. I think despite this, people will still opt for, for example, a FarmVille app over the web-based experience when gaming on their Mac. Why? Because it’ll be easier once the Mac App Store is set up, because it’ll likely bear a closer resemblance and have more tie-ins with their iOS mobile experience, and because when OS X Lion eventually gets released, full-screen apps and other UI elements will be put in place to drive users away from the open web and towards Apple’s curated software library.

Despite their web-based success, Zynga and its ilk will likely be the same developers who initially help bring the freemium model to the Mac App Store, too. Apple has proven its ability to draw large audiences toward software and software purchases. Expansion-minded companies that live or die based on the size of their userbase won’t be able to resist.

As Ryan put it, free can pay the bills and more. When the Mac App Store arrives as early as January, we’ll see that’s no less true on the Mac than it is for mobile.

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InsomniMac: What's Keeping Your Mac Up at Night
I’ve found that while this past year has been great for Apple and Apple users, it hasn’t been so great for my Apple computer. My Mac Pro has been up late almost every night this year. Backing up my data, keeping a watchful eye on my iTunes library, and more recently, providing 24/7 printing services for my iOS devices. It requires I leave my local user account logged on and running certain applications, which is bound to increase the wear on my Mac and potentially shorten its life. And the list keeps growing.

iTunes Home Sharing for Apple TV

I have three Apple TVs up and running in my home. Each is associated with my iTunes Library. All require that I remain logged on to my Mac Pro with iTunes up and running. If I quit iTunes, log off my Mac Pro or allow it to go to sleep, I will no long be able to access my iTunes Library and thus, my TV content. If other family members in my household want to access their iTunes Library as well, then we must each remain constantly logged on, using separate instance of iTunes and separate iOS devices to control the media we want to play. That’s a lot of Apple kit enduring wear and tear.

iOS AirPrint Solution Printopia

I wasn’t too happy to discover I had to purchase a new printer in order to take advantage of AirPrint in the latest iOS update from Apple. Luckily, Printopia software provides a much cheaper alternative. Printopia couldn’t be easier to install and use. It installs as a preference pane in System Preferences, and it just works. The only drawback I’ve noticed is that it’s a user-specific feature, meaning as soon as I log off of my Mac, Printopia will stop running. It provides a great service to an oversight by Apple, but once again, it requires my machine to be constantly running.

WebDAV File Share for iOS Devices

This was a fun service to enable on my internal network in order to share files between all of my Macs as well as all of my iOS devices. WebDAV stands for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning protocol", and it works over HTTP. WebDAV was designed for read/write access on web servers, which is great, because every Mac ships with a web server built-in. Like iTunes Home Sharing and Printopia, WebDAV requires my Mac to always be on. Unlike iTunes and Home Sharing or Printopia, this service can run in the background without a user being logged onto the system, which makes it a little less taxing on hardware and power demands.

DLNA Servers

Before getting Apple TVs up and running everywhere, I was using the DLNA capabilities of my home theatre equipment to share music, videos and photos to the various media outlets and iOS devices on my home network. I do still have my Twonky Media Server up and running, though it points to the same collection of folders that my iTunes library points to. Twonky can be run as either a user application, or as a background system service. It’s a great way to accomplish everything that AirPlay now offers, and has been available on both Mac and iOS for quite some time now. At least it can run without a user logged on, but the Mac still has to be running.

Other Complications of Always Being Logged On

When you have one shared Mac in a family of avid media lovers, each with varying tastes, hence different iTunes music libraries, you’ll start to find multiple accounts are remaining logged on for days or even weeks at a time. This creates problems when performing maintenance on the same Mac, and the update requires a restart. Getting everyone to stop using the media sharing capabilities and log off of their accounts for routine maintenance will become a household burden. There’s also the chance that you’ll burn out your Time Capsule at a faster rate given the that you could be performing backups every hour around the clock as well. I now use a utility called TimeMachineEditor to control the frequency of my backups, and my Time Capsule is running much cooler and happier now. At least it can get some rest.

But unless there are some great new features coming out in the next major release of OS X Lion, it appears my Mac will be up and running for quite some time. Cutting the cord may provide cable bill relief, but what does providing on-demand media across the house end up costing in terms of computer and device strain? I fear I’ll soon find out.

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Apple: No Trials in the Mac App Store
If you want to provide potential customers with a demo or otherwise function-limited version of your game so they can test it out before purchase, Apple wants you to do it on your own time and in your own space. The Mac App Store will be trial- and demo-free.

That’s according to new documents released late Thursday. The new updates surrounding Mac App Store policy appeared in Apple’s News and Announcements for Apple Developers Thursday evening, in anticipation of the approaching launch of Apple’s new OS X software sales and distribution platform. The Mac App Store is expected to go live sometime in January, if Apple keeps to Steve Jobs’ stated timeline.

The new info told developers to keep demo versions of their software out of Apple’s arena:

Your website is the best place to provide demos, trial versions, or betas of your software for customers to explore. The apps you submit to be reviewed for the Mac App Store should be fully functional, retail versions of your apps.

Of course, on the iOS App Store, while the word “demo” never actually appears, publishers are free to release trial versions of their programs, most often appearing as standalone “Lite” applications. These are distributed for free, and contain a limited preview of the full version’s gameplay. Apple not allowing these types of apps on the Mac App Store could have a serious impact on sales.

Apple’s logic seems to be that if users can access demos elsewhere, it’d rather not deal with them at all. With iOS, which is a completely closed ecosystem (not counting jailbreaking), the only way for a user to download and install software is through the App Store, so Cupertino has no choice but to allow Lite editions, lest developers abandon the platform altogether.

I won’t miss trials, since I’ll track them down wherever they may reside, but I don’t think the Mac App Store isn’t designed with users like me in mind. It seems tailored toward the casual Mac owner, who would otherwise not download much or any third-party software. My worry is that without quick and easy access to demos, that crowd won’t pony up for the full versions in anywhere near the numbers they might otherwise.

How do you feel about this particular Mac App Store limitation, as both consumers and developers?

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Watch an iPad Get Industrially Hole-Punched
Watching the iPad get destroyed is something that pains me, but I also find it strangely hypnotizing. I’ve seen the Apple tablet blended, bashed by a baseball bat, shot and even skateboarded into oblivion. This latest video is a little less messy than all of those, with a guy just cutting a perfect hole in the center of a perfectly good iPad. Skip to around 0:45 for the real money shot. Let’s watch:

There’s a little bit of a narrative element to this video, which is clearly a product promotion for whatever Say Hi to Space! is going to be (the website just has one of those infuriating countdown clocks at the moment). Judging by what little we do see of the product in the video, it allows you to record a photo or video message which appears in the faceplate of a space suit… which is then sent to space? The guy who destroys the iPad (presumably the brains behind Say Hi to Space!) is clearly frustrated that Steve Jobs hasn’t included a camera on Apple’s iOS tablet.

That machine cutting the perfect hole out of the center of the iPad? A little digging reveals it to be a Revato Waterjet cutting machine. According to the brochure, this thing cuts just about anything from plastic, to cardboard to frozen cake. And, of course, iPads. And it does it all with unprecedented accuracy, in the order of microns. There’s a brand new addition on my Christmas list.

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