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Big box, online retailers slash iPad prices
Are you about to purchase an iPad? There's good news if you are -- Apple 2.0 is reporting that three large retailers have lowered prices on the iPad and iPad mini. Best Buy, Walmart and MacMall are all showing price cuts on the third-generation iPad and the iPad mini, possibly signaling that the retailers are beginning to clear inventory for new models of Apple's popular tablet. There are definitely some bargains to be found on the full-sized iPad. A 64 GB WiFi + Cellular third-generation iPad was selling for US$779.99 at Best Buy and is now showing a sale price of $545.99. A 64 GB Wi-Fi model was going for $649.99 and is now a bargain at $454.99. Remember, the third-generation iPad includes a Retina display... While Best Buy retained regular pricing on the iPad mini, Walmart has done a price rollback on the 16 GB Wi-Fi model, knocking the price back to $299. MacMall has dropped the price on a large variety of iPad mini models, with cuts from $10 to $29 depending on the storage capacity and connectivity.
When to get the best deals on Apple products
Our buddies at Dealnews sent a link yesterday to a fascinating post written by blogger Louis Ramirez. Over the past three years, they've been collecting pricing data from Apple and other retailers, and now Dealnews has come up with some guidelines on how long to wait after the introduction of a new Apple product to get the best price on it. The figures vary from device to device, but you can usually expect to see a fairly quick drop in price from Apple Authorized Resellers like MacConnection, MacMall, and Amazon. For an 11" MacBook Air, for example, the price from these resellers dropped US$49 off of Apple's suggested retail price in about a day, while you'd have to wait for almost two months to see a $40 discount on the price of an iPad. As you'd expect, the bargains get larger as time elapses. Wait four months after the release of an 11" MacBook Air and that $49 discount climbs to $149. How about the iPad? You need to wait until just before the release of a new model to see any significant discount -- 12 months after the release of a model, you'll commonly see reseller discounts of $139. For those of you who can wait a bit while before picking up the latest Apple technology from an Authorized Reseller -- not the local Apple Store -- it looks like you can save some real money. Be sure to take a look at the Dealnews post for further details on all of the major Apple products.
MacMall opens Chicago retail store, giving away $14K in products
Since 1991, MacMall has been selling just about every product Apple makes as well as an assortment of quality accessories. The retailer has been an online presence for most of that time, although it has three brick-and-mortar stores in Southern California. Now MacMall has spread its wings and opened a new store in Chicago. To celebrate the new store at 329 W. Grand Avenue in Chicago, MacMall is having an official grand opening on Saturday, March 31. There's a ribbon cutting at 10 AM, and MacMall is going to have raffle drawings for over US$7,000 in technological toys. The store will open on Saturday at 9 AM, and the first 500 people to visit will be entered into a drawing to win one of more than 20 Apple-related products. At 10 AM, a new MacBook Air will make it into the hands of a lucky winner, and additional drawings will be held during the day for a Wacom Intuos5 tablet, two iPod touches, a trio of iPod nanos, an HP Officejet printer and other goodies. As if that's not enough, the first hundred folks in line get a free limited edition T-shirt, and the first two hundred people who purchase something get a free gift bag. But wait, there's more: the first thousand customers get a limited edition MacMall 2-in-1 stylus. MacMall is also giving away another $7,000 worth of business-related technology items this week, starting today. Many congratulations to MacMall for providing Apple fans in the Windy City a new place (other than an Apple Store) to browse and buy products.
Want a PlayBook that runs Android 3.0? You can get one at MacMall!
Hurry and order yours today -- before they run out of magic dust. [Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Parallels Desktop 5 doesn't play well with Kaspersky Anti-Virus on some Macs
My Christmas miracle was that after waiting a month and a half, my Godzilla iMac 27" 2.8 GHZ Intel Core i7 iMac showed up on my doorstep on Christmas Eve. This was, ironically, two days after receiving a letter from Macmall telling me that my order was on indefinite backorder and asked me to call if I still wanted it. I did. I bought it with Parallels 5.0 and Windows 7 preinstalled, since I'm lazy and the price was very competitive. After adding memory to bring it to 12GB, and plugging in my 23" Apple Cinema Display, giving me 3.7 feet of horizontal screen space, I ran Parallels -- which promptly crashed. I was unceremoniously told that a file named wuawcIt.exe wasn't feeling well and had to close. The sugarplums faded as I realized that this would take most of Christmas day to sort out. It did, and a bit more.
Black Friday Mac discounts underway
digg_url = 'http://digg.com/apple/Black_Friday_Mac_discounts_underway_2'; While we patiently wait to see what Apple has in store with its traditional Black Friday sale, MacMall and Best Buy have already kicked the sale into gear. Better yet, MacRumors has created a handy summary chart that links you directly to the best possible deal. With no hardware updates expected through the end of the year and Apple's own Black Friday discounts typically falling between meager and stingy (and discounts being a rarity in general), this is likely your best-bet opportunity to hop on the switcher wagon or step up to a new unibody MacBook. Just click that read link to get started.
