Those of you looking to save 20% on your iTunes and App Store purchases, head on down to Jean-Coutu Pharmacy between now and May 25. $25 cards are just $20, with a three-card purchase limit per visit. $75 of music/books/apps for $60 is as cheap as you will ever find it at Canadian retail.
Earlier this year, Apple finally reversed its long policy of not allowing iTunes gift cards to be used for app purchases, giving some weak excuse about Canadian tax codes. Whenever I pressed them to explain just what Canadian tax laws prohibited this, they could never give me an answer. Lame, I know.
Since the new policy, I’ve always been on the lookout for deals on iTunes gift cards. Thanks to a post from the awesome community at redflagdeals.com, I found one today. Until October 24th, you can get $60 worth of iTunes gift cards for just $48. That’s 20% off, turning your 99-cent apps into 80-cent apps.
Stock up this week. If you don’t have a Costco membership, ask a friend who does to buy you a cheap Costco gift card. The wholesaler allows anyone with a Costco gift card to shop at the store as if they had a membership, and will accept cash, debit or AMEX for your purchases. So even if you only have a $10 gift card, they’ll let you buy a $1,000 HDTV.
If you’ve frequented this blog, then you probably saw my review of the Samsung Omnia II, perhaps the worst phone I’ve ever used and a great example of the failings of Windows Mobile 6.5.
Luckily for Samsung, they’ve jumped on the Android bandwagon, a superior mobile OS offering from Google that is serious competition for the iPhone. The Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant (Bell, $149 on a three-year contract) is a perfect marriage of Google’s OS with some very good hardware.
On the other side of this Canadian smartphone battle is the iPhone 4 (Rogers, Fido, Bell, Virgin Mobile, & Telus, $159 for 16GB and 269 for $32GB on a three-year contract). Avoiding the iPhone isn’t easy in Canada, thanks to the fact that it’s available on all of our major carriers, and none of them suck as much as AT&T in the U.S. The iPhone’s penetration in the Canadian market, both carrier and consumer-wise, make it hard to argue against.
Is the Galaxy better than an iPhone? Over two weeks, I tried to find out.
WordPress two is out for the iPhone, adding a much needed comments tab (Hooray!) and an improved user interface. I’m posting this via iPhone for fun. Works quite nicely.
WordPress 2 is still free, but you won’t find it as an update to your current WordPress app. You need to download the separate “WordPress 2” app in the App Store. A bit of a pain, but worth it.
Late last week, I got to talk with Jean-François Codère of RueFrontenac.com, the website of Le Journal de Montréal’s 253 locked out employees. Just four days after staff was locked out in January by publisher Quebecor, RueFrontenac.com was launched, allowing the journalists to continue reporting while simultaneously showing management where to stick it.
Now the journalists will tackle the mobile web by doing something most media hasn’t had the cojones to do: Charge for their iPhone app.
When I reviewed the Palm Pre a few weeks ago, I lauded the device for so doing so much to catch up with the iPhone, but concluded that more needed to be done before it could be considered as serious competition. As we’ve seen time and time again, it simply isn’t good enough to create a product that matches Apple’s current offerings, you need to beat whatever Apple has planned for next year. (Zune, anyone?) So if and when Palm launches a new and improved Pre, here’s what I’m hoping to see.
Elias Makos 