Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Here at Appletell, we are big fans of both music and skin. One rattles our bones, the other holds said bones inside our body. What's not to love about both those things? The folks at MusicSkins agree, as they've combined the two into some slick scratch/scuff protection for your iPhone 4, and we're going to give a few of them away."

Win something for my iPhone 4? Yeah, that is something I'd be interested in, wouldn't you? If so, head on over to Appletell and enter their contest for your shot at one of the cool skins pictured above. The contest ends August 11th so hurry up and enter!

"To celebrate the 3rd anniversary we are giving away 3 iPads and introducing an ultimate 48 hours sale for all of our applications."

And what a sale it is, putting all of their applications out there for $0.99 USD each. So if you have been hesitant to give ReaddleDocs (our review) or Scanner Pro (our review) a try, now is the time to snag it, but you only have until tomorrow. You can find all of their apps on iTunes [affiliate link], and if you want to enter their contest for an iPad, head on over to the promotion website [link] and see all of the details for entering.

"WinX DVD Ripper for Mac is an all-in-one DVD ripper designed to make perfect 1:1 DVD copy to hard drive and rip your DVD movies on Mac OS to iTunes, MOV, MP4, FLV, etc that playable on iPad, iPod, iPhone, Apple-TV, PSP and much more. It also supports extracting music from the DVD files and saving as MP3 format. With this Mac DVD ripper. Most important, it enables users to rip DVDs of new generation copy protections with the fastest speed."

And best of all they are offering this as a free download, but only if you go to this page and use the special code. The giveaway started on April 15th and will expire at 12:00AM GMT on May 1st, 2010. This is the full version of the program so if you want to give it a try, now is the time to do it!

PixyMe is a fun little application for the iPod Touch or iPhone, that lets you modify various photos within the program. If what you find isn't what you need, you can use own photo library to create greetings that you can either email, post on Facebook or send via US Mail. If you have ever wanted to add some comments to a photo and send a special greeting, this may be just what you need.

Read more...

This is a quick reminder that our giveaway of three pairs of SHURE SE210 headphones ends on the 15th of this month, so if you haven't already entered, you'd better do so quickly!

We've got another great contest for you, and this time because it's an accessory that works with so many different products, it's a network-wide contest. The prizes? I'm giving away three pairs of SHURE SE210 Earphones (MSRP $179.99 USD), courtesy of the generous folks at Shure. Our very own David Tucker reviewed this earphones back in September, and he loved them - so I'm sure the three winners will as well. The SE210's feature a noise-isolating sleeves that block 90 percent of the ambient noise, and the more noise you can block out, the more you can enjoy your tunes.

What do you have to do to win? Simply post a message in this discussion thread telling me which type of device (or devices) you'd use the headphones with. A Windows Mobile smartphone? A Zune? An iPod? An iPhone? A netbook or laptop? That's it - one post per person, and the contest closes on Tuesday the 15th of December at 12pm GMT -7. This contest is world-wide; I'll be shipping you the prizes myself.

Remember that all first posts in our system are held in moderation, so if this contest entry is your first post, please wait up to 48 hours before getting concerned if your post hasn't shown up yet - it will. Winners will be contacted via private forum message, so ensure that you have email notifications turned on. Winners will have 72 hours to claim their prize.

Let's see those entries!

UPDATE:The contest is now closed, and the three winners are GqSkrub, webguy248, and deenoo. Thanks to everyone for entering - it was great to see so many entries! And big thanks to SHURE for donating the prizes!

"Bored of your voice? Take your pick from a choice of 17 new ones! With Voices, you can record a quick voice memo as various characters,then share the best ones through the app with your friends and family with just a couple of taps."

This app for the iPhone (works with iPod Touch but you have to have an external mic) is new and as part of the promotion they are giving away a copy of the associated desktop app called Voice Candy. All you have to do is tweet about it on your Twitter account. The associated app Voices is $0.99 USD in the app store.

So, we now have winners for our SafeWallet giveaway!

Congratulations to Piperpilot and ptyork! Our winners will receive one copy of both SBSH SafeWallet for the iPhone / iPod Touch and one copy of the companion application for Windows.

That's it guys! Hit the contact form and send me your e-mail addresses so I can forward them to SBSH and they'll send you your serial numbers!

Congratulations, and be on the lookout for more contests right here at Apple Thoughts!

SBSH has very graciously offered us two copies of SafeWallet to give away to you all!

Yesterday I posted my review of SBSH SafeWallet and I was very impressed with it. Now it's your turn to get yourself a free copy of both the iPhone / iPod Touch app and the accompanying Windows Companion (which also includes importing, so if you're moving from one of the other applications out there or migrating from a Windows Mobile device, this will probably be a big relief for you!) all for leaving a comment on this post!

In your comment tell us A: what you're going to protect, or B: what app you're migrating from (and if it's another platform, note it so we can all share in your indoctrination into the cult!). Winners will be chosen randomly from all the submissions. Unfortunately because of Apple's system, you have to be a US App Store user to use the promo codes if you win, but if you've found a way around that, that's your business!

There you have it. The rules are simple. We'll end this contest at 11:00pm Eastern Time Friday July 31st and the winners will be announced on Monday (but I'll be in touch over the weekend to get some details for you to send you your respective codes).

Good luck and a special thanks to our friends at SBSH for providing the copies for the giveaway!

As I was sitting here this morning, I realized I had some prizes to give away! We picked the winners already and completely forgot to actually give away the prizes!

For the WWDC Giveaway, we asked you all to come up with your predictions, and we promised a brand new Vaja iPhone 3G case for the one who got the most correct and the one who went most out on a limb. Here are your winners...

Firstly, the Winner... mwfielder for getting the most predictions correct.

And the winner, unanimously, for most out on a limb for being a complete smart___ is long-time reader, commenter, and sarcastic genius, doogald with this prediction:

And, of course, his followup:

Classic! Congratulations guys. Hit up the Contact page at the top and send me your shipping details so I can get the cases out to you. We have a couple of contests on their way in the next few days that I'm waiting on the prizes for, so keep watching and reading!

Alrighty, folks.  WWDC is upon us, so you have the whole weekend to get your predictions on the record.  I have some beautiful Vaja and Senna iPhone 3G cases in my goodie bag to give away, so here's what we're going to do...

In the comments section, leave 3-5 predictions for WWDC.  We'll give away one case to a random commenter, and one case to the person who went most out on a limb and hit a nail on the head.  The cases are valued anywhere from $30 to $75 so this is a good giveaway for you all to take part in, and it's pretty easy stuff.

Rules:

1.  Minimum 3 predictions per post. One entry per thread, although you're welcome to post as much as you want, we'll only count one post.

2.  Open to residents of the US and Canada only for the cases but international readers can have a $35 electronic Amazon gift certificate if they happen to win.

4.  Editors of the site will judge whose predictions were best including whether or not they just repeated what we already knew.  More weight will be given to those that don't predict the obvious.

5.  Don't flood the comments section with multiple lists of predictions just to win the "random reader" prize.

6.  All decisions are final.

7.  No whining!

Good luck, and here's to a great WWDC!

"CoverSutra 2.1.6 is available now and should fix quite some smaller bugs and odds. Head over to the product page to download the update, or use the Build-in software update if you‘re already running CoverSutra. But what would be a birthday without presents? So just for today CoverSutra is available for free! Go to the Store to get one of the cheapest CoverSutra serial numbers ever! Yeah I know, you could also use a pirated serial, but that‘s bad for your Karma, right?"

Today is your day if you were pondering grabbing CoverSutra! I've never used it, but I know a ton of Mac users who make this one of their first installs on a fresh Mac.

The winner of Contest #2 and proud new owner of an Elgato Turbo.264 is MV! Congratulations, MV! I'll be getting in touch with MV today to get him his prize! Stay tuned this week for our next contest! Like I said, we have plenty of stuff to give away!

The screenshot of the number selection is after the jump for those of you interested in such things.

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"Turbo.264 is a powerful hardware encoding device that quickly converts any video to the advanced H.264 (MPEG-4) format without using your Mac's resources. Work, watch TV and surf the web while you encode video with no reduction in processing speed. Turbo.264 supports many third-party Mac video applications as well as EyeTV. Turbo.264 also comes with its own software to quickly drop any video into iTunes to sync with an iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV."

One of the first reviews I wrote for the Apple Phone Show (and for Digital Home Thoughts) was the Turbo.264. Frankly, it's one of the few products I've ever tested that didn't make over inflated claims it couldn't match in the real world. Even though it claims it accelerates H.264 encoding dramatically, and your mind may boggle that it only plugs into a USB port, it really does do exactly what it says it does; a refreshing change in the tech world.

So what better way to prove it than to give one away?

The rules for this one are really simple.

We all need a laugh. The economy is in shambles, unemployment is high, and people are in a funk. We need to be broken out of that funk and here's how we're going to do it. You're gonna share your favorite funny (and relatively clean, please) viral video in the comments of this post (just a link is fine, you don't have to embed anything). On Monday, January 12th, we will pick one winner at random from the comments section to win the Turbo.264 and get on their way to faster happier H.264 encoding.

That's it. Really simple, right? Here are the rules in brief...

1. Post a comment on this post with your favorite funny viral video. Entry deadline is 11:59pm Eastern Time January 11th.

2. One winner will be chosen at random from the received comments on January 12th.

3. All decisions are final.

4. NO WHINING.

Good luck, and make us laugh, will ya?

And with that, contest number one goes down to the history books. We'll be picking the winner this afternoon and announcing it on Friday, 1/2/09 along with our next contest. Good luck to everyone who entered!

Tomorrow at high noon (Eastern time, of course), the Editors and I will convene to decide a winner for our Sena case giveaway. There's still time to get in on the action, so don't miss out! We'll announce the winners on Monday, January 5th, as well as set the stage for our next contest!

Now that the Christmas season has come and gone, it's time to get back to work here. Remember our Sena giveaway? Sure you do! We're still taking entries up until 12/31, and we'll be deciding on a winner at 12:00pm Eastern Time that day, so get your entries in! And, as I've said, if the iPhone 3G isn't in your arsenal of gadgets, fear not, for we have a lot more coming in the upcoming days.

News and Reviews resume today, so keep an eye out and thanks for reading!

Sena has been kind enough to give us some great cases to give away for the iPhone and iPhone 3G! Shown above are the Magnet Flipper case in Pink and the WalletBook Case in Croco Black. We have a lot more to give away from Sena, too! Here's the full inventory:

• Ultraslim Pouch for the iPhone / iPhone 3G in Black
• Elega Pouch for the iPhone / iPhone 3G in Croco Black
• 3G Dockable Case for the iPhone 3G in Tan
• Magnet Flipper for the iPhone / iPhone 3G in Pink
• Walletskin for the iPhone 3G in Croco Red
• Walletbook for the iPhone 3G in Croco Black

That's a total of six cases we have to give to you, our lucky readers. Now here's how we're going to do it.

Remember yesterday when we told you to join Twitter? Well we're going to put that membership to use today. Entering is a two-part process.

1. Leave a comment here detailing your biggest horror story of phone / iPod / camera accessory damage that a case would've prevented you from having. Any small electronic horror story will suffice. The juicier, the better. We want to cringe at the mere mention of the carnage. Photos of the damage are a total plus. Make us feel your pain.

2. Go to Twitter and tweet the following: @applethoughts is giving away Sena cases to keep my gadgets safe. Check out applethoughts.com. It MUST match that line down to the punctuation. We will be verifying the tweets using an automated system. If it doesn't match exactly, it won't show up. When we pick the winning story, we'll double check your twitter account to make sure you've posted this little nugget; if you don't post it, you don't win!

On December 31, the editorial staff and I will huddle up and choose a winner based on who makes us cringe the most. The winner will receive their choice of two of the six cases. The first runner up will be able to choose one from what's left. All decisions are final and we expressly forbid whining. We will ship the prizes to you somewhere in the first week of January and we'll get in touch with you to arrange shipping of your goodies.

Remember:

1. Write the comment.

2. Write the tweet.

3. All decisions are final.

4. No whining.

Now get to it! Make us cringe!

And just so you know, this is just the beginning of what we have to give away. I have a box full of good stuff waiting for a new home!

'Twas the day before the giveaways and all through the site...

Santas were dancing on a background of white.

The Mac fans were reading in hopes of some news

While the iPhone and iPod fans sought out reviews.

And then came the sound that we wanted to hear

From the man in the red suit with lots of reindeer.

So some friendly advice to all I'll relay,

There's one thing that you can do before our giveaway.

Whether a joiner or whether a quitter,

You'll want to follow @applethoughts on good old Twitter.

Tomorrow we give you a tweet to reshare,

And our editors' eyes will be watching you there.

For some of you tweeting, a gift will be coming.

For those that ignore, you won't be in the running.

Now go forth and join and read our opining,

and remember the rules, most important, no whining.

Multiple giveaways starting tomorrow...

And given at random to those who follow.

Instructions are coming, so please watch this space,

Randomness, surprises, and giveaways are all on their way.

But for now I must go and I must prepare

and make sure our prizes are all wrapped with care.

It's Christmas at Apple Thoughts, your favorite Mac site,

and the gifts are for you, Merry Christmas, good night.