Appletell | Apple, Mac, iPhone, iPod | News, Rumors, Reviews, How-Tos

The gift giving season is now in full swing, and will be up through the end of the year. Luckily for you, the deals are in full swing as well. As special offers and giveaways from Macintosh and iPhone/iPod developers are announced or extended, we’ll round them all up here. Check back often for the best deals as they hit the wire.

Macintosh

• Ambrosia Software, Inc. has announced the Ambrosia Holiday Bundle with savings of up to 70% off on Ambrosia’s games & utilities. The sale runs right up until Christmas Eve, December 24th, 2009. The Ambrosia Holiday Bundle features steep discounts in two “work” and “play” bundles for Ambrosia’s award-winning utility products and action-packed games, respectively. The more you buy, the steeper your discount…but for a limited time only.
• Embraceware Software today announced holiday sale prices on Awaken for Mac (regular $15 - now just $10). Awaken for Mac is a digital alarm clock for Mac OS X that wakes you by playing music or podcasts from your iTunes library or any of the built in alarm sounds. It can also put both you and your Mac to sleep with the sleep timer feature.
• BandmateLoops.com is offering a “No-Brainer Loop Pack” this holiday season. Bandmates bundled five of the most popular products and have reduced the price by over 80% to just $19.95. This collection of products would normally sell for $110.00. BandmateLoops.com is the leading provider of inspiring digital-delivered audio loops and multisample instruments. Their products are geared specifically for music-software users interested in creating their own unique musical compositions.
• New - App4mac has announced that their bestselling application CheckUp will be on sale for two days, from December 24 to December 25. This is a good way to celebrate Christmas on your Mac with an amazing utility. With its use of the latest Mac OS X technologies, breakthrough ease-of-use and innovation, CheckUp is designed to check your disks and memory as well as monitor the usage of CPU, Memory, Disk Drives and Network Adapters in a very visual way.
• Coladia today is delighted to announce a special Christmas promotion on their Mac Games. Until December 25th, 2009, customers will receive a free game when they buy two games. The deal applies to The Secrets of Da Vinci, Return to Mysterious Island, Cleopatra: a Queen’s Destiny, Destination: Treasure Island, Secret of the Lost Cavern and Still Life 2. All games are available for download from Coladia online.
• When CrashPlan users buy a CrashPlan Central online backup plan from now through December 31st, they will get a free upgrade to CrashPlan+ (usually a $59.99 US cost). Families can get up to three CrashPlan Upgrades when they subscribe to a Family Unilimited Plan. That’s a saving of $179.97.
• Give old holiday videos captured on your old analog devices a new life. Roxio Easy VHS to DVD for Mac makes it simple to convert and preserve VHS movies and camcorder tapes for playback on DVD, your Mac, or portable devices like your iPod and iPhone. You can also easily add transitions, Hollywood-style menus, and chapters. Now on sale for $69.99 (save $10) with free shipping.
• New - Eltima Software has announced the start of the Christmas promo campaign. The essence of the promo is that all of you can get any of Eltima Software Mac OS X or PC products with 25% discount. This offer is valid through January, 4th, 2010. Just use the coupon code XMAS-25 in order to get your holiday discount (coupon code is valid both for Plimus and Element5).
• FMPug along with the generosity of many well-respected companies have organized one of the most bountiful giveaways to-date. From December 12th and each day thereafter, FMPug will post the set of daily prizes on their newly redesigned “12 Days of Giveaways” Home page. Vendors seeking additional exposure for their company and respective products are welcome to participate in this holiday giveaway by contacting Andy Gaunt on/before Thursday, 11 December by 6pm EST.
• BinaryNights today today announced a special holiday promotion for ForkLift, their popular file and FTP manager for OS X. Forklift is a powerful file manager and ferociously fast FTP client clothed in a clean and versatile UI. Starting today, ForkLift is available for a nice discount until Christmas Eve. ForkLift carries a complete toolbox for managing your files, including Folder Synchronization, Batch Renaming, Archive handling, Application deleter, and many more.
• Softpress, makers of the award winning Freeway web design software for the Mac, have launched their Holiday Sale. Through January 8, 2010, customers can save huge amounts on Freeway Pro and Freeway Express. For the first time ever, these sale prices apply not only to full-priced versions, but to upgrades and education, senior and non-profit editions as well.
• iFunia has announced its new Holiday Center. The iFunia featured products should be very useful for Mac shoppers who would like to convert holiday video (including HD!) or movie into any format and enjoy the video entertainment on iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, BlackBerry, cell phones and more. Until January 15th, 2010, buyers will be able to save 14 to 30% on iFunia products.
• Encouraging Mac users to get a grip on their 2009 finances and a jump on 2010, IGG Software today announced an instant rebate on iBank, its flagship personal finance software. The company’s new “Why Wait For 2010?” rebate offer is good through December 31, 2009, exclusively for purchases made at IGG’s online store. The new, streamlined Instant Rebate is available to all new purchasers of iBank.
• iPresentee has announced their free Christmas Gift bundle to be used with Apple’s iWeb, Keynote, Pages and Mail software. Christmas Gift package includes one iWeb Theme with static and flash backgrounds, two Keynote Motion Themes, one Keynote Theme, Keynote 3D Stuff, iWeb Animations and Mail Stationery. All the add-ons are ready to inspire Christmas spirit into frequently used Mac Applications. All products are easy to use, made with precision and absolutely free.
• MacFriendly has released their new MacFriendly Bundle of 12 applications for Mac users. The Bundle is available for a limited time and represents a savings of over 85% off the list prices. The bundle includes the latest version of each application. Additionally, one bonus applications will be added to the bundle for all customers when 750 bundles have been sold. The MacFriendly Bundle provides an unprecedented selection of high quality software at unprecedented low prices.
• Now available at TheMacU.com is Mac OS X Snow Leopard Overview. This video training course contains over three hours of HD training videos covering everything from file and folder basics to how to use applications like Mail, Safari, iCal and more. From now until the end of january, all video training at The Mac U is 15% off when the coupon code “MACU15” is entered during checkout. This code will work with individual courses and our course bundles which offer even more of a discount.
• MacUpdate has launched its newest bundle promotion, delivering 11 of the most appealing independent Mac apps. Available through December 23 exclusively at MUPromo, the bundle includes a little bit of everything, from some of the most highly most acclaimed utilities on the Mac to brand new favorites and a few of the most vaunted titles of the year. The 2009 Holiday Bundle has routinely been voted favorites by the media and users alike.
• No Thirst Software LLC has announced a 15 percent discount to promote its upcoming release of MoneyWell 1.5, the personal finance application that makes budgeting easy by offering proactive, envelope-style cash flow management. The 1.5 release is in a limited beta that is scheduled to be open to the public on December 15, 2009. This promotion will end when MoneyWell 1.5 ships.
• Minder Softworks has announced a holiday sale for its MYStuff application. For 12 days, shoppers who enter the discount code “12DAYSOFCHRISTMAS” will receive a discount off the retail price. MYStuff was developed to help people eliminate the paperwork clutter associated with the things they own, and take advantage of manufacturer’s warranties. User can store information about the things they own as images, PDFs, and as manually-entered data.
• New - Copy DVDs. Convert videos. Save big bucks. Popcorn 4 is the easy way to copy DVDs, convert video for your iPod, iPhone, stream video from you Mac to your TiVo DVR, and even publish converted video directly to YouTube. And right now, it’s $20 off at $29.99.
• Humble Daisy has announced their Happy Holi-Daisy Sale, offering ProfCast for 50% off retail purchases of ProfCast. ProfCast is a versatile, powerful, yet very simple to use tool for recording lectures including PowerPoint slides for creating enhanced media files. It allows users to record their presentation as they give it, and create enhanced media files for online distribution. The Happy Holi-Daisy promotion will run through December 31st, 2009.
• Now through December 20th, RadTech is offering 15% off many items in their online store. Use the promo code “Friend11” on the shopping cart page to get your discount on eligible items.
• New - Synium Software has announced a special 50% gift discount for Christmas 2009. On December 24th, 25th and 26th, Synium will offer a 50% Christmas discount on popular products like MacFamilyTree, CleanApp, iFinance and Screenium, as well as for the new products Foodurama, MyFourWalls and Chronories. Rebates for MobileFamilyTree, iFinance Mobile and Motocross are available, as well. Synium Software would like to say thanks and wishes everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2010.
• To help spread the holiday spirit among Mac and iPhone users, TidBITS Publishing Inc. is having a 50%-off sale on all ebooks available from the Take Control Ebooks Web site through the end of December. The entire ebook collection is available, including the best-selling “Take Control of Mac OS X Backups,” the recently released “Take Control of Your iPhone Apps,” the ever-practical “Take Control of Maintaining Your Mac,” and many other popular titles.
• ToonBoom is offering a $230.00 discount on their Family Creative Pack, which includes Toon Boom Studio, Flip Boom Classic, Flip Boom All-Star and Comic Boom. Ideal for 6 up to 100 years old, this great package will deliver loads of fun and learning experience in animation techniques while fostering creativity. Expires December 25th, 2009.
• TuneUp is the iTunes software that “automagically” fixes your iTunes library. No more “Track 01,” missing cover art, or any of the missing information that messes up your music collection. You can even find artist information and upcoming concerts in your area. Through the end of January 2010, visit www.ilovetuneup.com and enter the code APPLETELL to claim your 15% off coupon for a Gold License to TuneUp.

iPhone/iPod

• Sauce Digital, along with a group of other developers, have banded together to bring you 12 Days of Christmas app. It’s a competition to win Promo Codes for loads of great apps, including Ground Effect, Nano Rally, Killer Pool, Flickitty and many more.
• New - For a limited time this holiday season, Avatron Software has slashed the prices of its two acclaimed iPhone productivity apps. Air Sharing is 40 percent off and Air Sharing Pro is 30 percent off. The Air Sharing platform allows users to access, view, share, store and manage files with the iPhone and iPod touch. The apps allow users to wirelessly connect their handheld devices to Mac, PC or Linux computers as an external Wi-Fi drive to drag and drop documents between the machines.
• Embraceware Software today announced holiday sale prices on Awaken for iPhone (regular $1.99 - now just 99¢). It contains all of the core features of the Mac version along with iPhone/iPod unique functionality. Awaken for iPhone and iPod touch is a digital alarm clock, sleep timer, full screen clock and flashlight.
• The holiday season is upon us, and CAZE is celebrating by giving away a gift a day through December 25. For the next three weeks, CAZE will be giving away a different iPhone case each day and one ultimate gift on 25th of December. From December 5 till December 25, CAZE will give out one iPhone case each day and on December 25, a winner will be chosen at random from among all participants to win an Apple iPhone 3G/3GS.
• New - PunFlay is going to give away their Dress Jinjee App (for Kids). This brings back the Gingerbread Man in myriad colors and dressing features. The app goes free at the App Store on December 24th at noon EST. Pass on a smile with Dress Jinjee, the preferred way to celebrate Christmas this year with an iPhone/iTouch.
• WebbForce Mobz is offering a early xmas gift to all iPhone and iPod touch users. ElfVoice, the Christmas party voice fun app, is now free for a limited period. Record your voice and the app will transform it to a funny santa voice or a elf voice. Then play it back to impress your friends, family and collegues. The santa and elf voices are jolly and warm, charming and engaging and funny. You can almost see the twinkle in the eyes, smell the evergreen tree, and taste the cookies and milk.
• ZappTek and InterLingua Publishing today have announced that the EngLits collection for iPhone and iPod touch is on sale through the month of December. With over 50 titles in the full collection, EngLits is a collection of detailed audio and text summaries of classic books and plays by Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Hawthorne, Bronte, and other authors that can be played on an iPhone or iPod touch. EngLits tell the full story of the book or drama, including all characters and events.
• New - From December 23, 2009 thru January 6, 2010, six of IK’s GrooveMaker apps for iPhone/iTouch are 20% off regular prices on iTunes, usually $9.99/Euro 7.99 each, now just $7.99/Euro 5.99 each for the holidays. GrooveMaker House, Hip-Hop, Trance, Techno, D’n'B and Electro.
• For a limited time, Harry Potter Spells will be available at the App Store for $2.99. Harry Potter Spells, the first official Harry Potter game in the App Store, transforms Muggles everywhere into fledgling wizards, casting spells at their opponents by using their phone as wands. Beginning with an arsenal of 14 spells, wizards-in-training can conjure magic alone or duel others by casting spells from one device. The sale will run through New Year’s Day. Warner Bros. Ninja Assassin app is also available to purchase at the App Store for $2.99.
• With only a few days left for holiday shopping, Walmart has announced more big savings plans, now on the smaller and—in some cases—most requested gift items. From Saturday through December 24th, stores will have incredible savings on last minute gifts, including the new 8GB iPod Nano for $145 with a free $50 iTunes gift card with purchase, while supplies last.
• New - Kieffer Bros. believes in celebrating the Holidays generously. That’s why through the end of 2009, they’re cutting the price of their addictive word game, Lexic, in half and giving away Orba, Hyper Puck, Enso•Dot Book One absolutely free.
• Konami Digital Entertainment, Inc. has announced that all of their popular iPhone and iPod touch favorites are available now for 99 cents on the App store through January 4. New games such as Tomena Sanner, and hits like Frogger and Metal Gear Solid Touch make it easy and affordable to enjoy the holidays on-the-go.
• Little World Gifts is this week opening a Christmas Store on iPhone selling 3D virtual gifts, entering the virtual goods market, with a new app available now for free. It allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to send each other beautiful 3D virtual gifts that they can touch, move and play with. The Liverpool company is the first to bring amazing virtual gifts to mobile, and will be following up its Christmas release with the full Little World Gifts experience next year.
• Izatt has announced it is offering the full version of MileBug for 50% off as a Holiday Sale. To get ready for a new year of tracking miles and expenses, Izatt is offering MileBug at a substantial discount through December 31st. Version 1.5 is coming with great new features such as Frequent Trips and Expense Tracking. MileBug helps those driving their own vehicles for business, charity, medical, or other reasons receive their reimbursement and/or tax deduction.
• New - MotionX is running a special holiday price of $0.99 for MotionX-GPS Drive, their top-selling navigation application for the iPhone.
So if you’re doing any roundups of holiday specials please consider including the best selling door-to-door navigation app, MotionX-GPS Drive.
• New - MyAppleSpace has announced their iPod Touch Christmas giveaway in collaboration with 24 YouTube channels via MacintoshTipz. A unique and fun giveaway asking current and new members to upload a photo to their profile of how they would look if someone gave them an iMac for Christmas. MyAppleSpace will be giving away an 8GB iPod Touch to the lucky winner on the 25th of December.
• QuinnScape has announced its first anniversary sale for Packing and Packing Pro iPhone travel apps. Packing sports a huge, built-in Master Catalog with hundreds of items and to-do tasks. This catalog, along with all of the user-created packing lists, is 100% customizable. Add, delete, rename or reorder any of their items however you wish. Built-in and user-derived templates can also be used to quickly create brand new packing lists.
• Avalinx Studios Team is celebrating the holidays by putting their entire Pro Series Casino suite on sale at 60% off. Look for more games coming soon, in early 2010.
• nFinity has announced that until the end of the year they is giving away 25,000 copies of their award winning QuickVoice pC desktop computer software. This is an exclusive give-away to iPhone users. The promotion is 100% free, as in no purchase necessary and no gimmicks. iPhone users need to only download one of nFinity’s two apps from Apple’s iTunes App Store.
• QuizQuizQuiz has announced the release of QuizQuizQuiz Xmas, a festive, fun-filled, free version. This early present is packed with a mix of Christmas and general questions plus includes a sneak peak of the upcoming QuizQuizQuiz update.
• Now through December 20th, RadTech is offering 15% off many items in their online store. Use the promo code “Friend11” on the shopping cart page to get your discount on eligible items.
• New - Readdle has announced a Christmas sale on their most popular iPhone applications, offering high discounts that will last until Monday, December 28th. The products on sale are Scanner Pro, application that transforms iPhone into portable scanner; document viewer, file manager and attachment saver ReaddeDocs and note taking application Take A Note.
• Since 2009 was such a good year for Taito, they’re celebrating with a holiday sale. Bust-A-Move is now available for $2.99, 40% off of the standard price.