Tag: Deals »

Is it too early for Black Friday? Yes, absolutely. But does Apple agree? No, apparently not. Tons of games have already been discounted on the App Store, and we'd like to give you a definitive guide on the best deals to grab.

To be clear, we won't be posting EVERY game sale on this page. For a firehose of all deals on games regardless of quality, look elsewhere. What we're listing below is just the deals on games that you definitely should buy if you haven't already.

Xenowerk Tactics - $2.99

Click here to read the review

Kingdom Rush: Vengeance - $2.99

Click here to read the review

Space Marshals 2 - $1.99

Click here to read the review

Grimvalor - $ 1.99

Click here to read Pocket Gamer's Grimvalor review

Fighting Fantasy Legends

Click here to read the review

Agent A: A Puzzle in Disguise

Click here to read the review

Transistor - $0.99

Click here to read Pocket Gamer's Transistor review

Sentinels of the Multiverse - $0.99

Click here to read the review

Savor - Savings. Simplified is an app that looks to help people save money by giving them access to the deals and coupons that best suit them. It uses social data to narrow down the selection, and offers social integration as well.

It offers a clean interface, allows the bookmarking of deals for later reference, and includes personalization options that allow users to decide when and how they prefer to be notified of deals; which are reviewed daily to reduce the occurrence of broken coupons.

Savor - Savings. Simplified is available for free on the App Store.

Those out there who are familiar with Apple's movements around this time of year will know that we're just a few days out from Apple's annual one-day only Black Friday shopping event. Set to kick-off this Friday, November 29, the day will mark one of the only times in the year that Apple offers significant discounts on its many hardware products - both online and through its physical retail stores.

While specifics on what hardware we might expect to be discounted come this Friday are still a little sketchy, we can take a quick look at the company's Black Friday events held in previous years for clues as to what type of discounts shoppers should expect to see emerge towards the end of this week.

Last year for example, we saw the firm drop its iPad with Retina Display by a cool $41. Meanwhile, the iPod touch 4th Generation was slashed by $21, the iPad 2 saw an average drop of $31, and the MacBook Pro with Retina Display was available for $101 less than its usual retail price.

[image credit: MacRumors]

As significant as some of the above discounts may sound though, Apple is almost always beaten in its online holiday discounts by third-party vendors. One of those third-party vendors is Target, who will be offering shoppers a free $75 gift card with any purchase of Apple's iPad mini ($279), and the chance to bag themselves a free $100 gift card with the purchase of any iPad, (including the iPad 2 - which starts at $399), when doors finally open this Thursday. The retailer will also be offering $30 gift cards for those who purchase the iPhone 5S (staring at $180) with a 2 year contract.

Retailer Walmart will be running a similar promotion, seeing all shoppers receive a free $75 gift card with the purchase of either an iPhone 5C ($45, with a 2 year contract) or iPhone 5S ($189, with a 2 year contract). Meanwhile, if you opt to buy Apple's original iPad mini (without “Retina” display), you could even grab yourself a free $100 gift card.

The last of the biggest retailers - Best Buy - will be offering Apple's iPhone 5C for the lowest upfront cost we've been able to find at just $48 (a $51.99 savings). The firm will also be slashing the cost of Apple's just-launched 16 GB iPad Air to $450, providing a super-neat saving of $50.

Other smaller retailers, such as RadioShack, will open their doors at 8AM. The purchase of Apple's iPhone 5S, (starting at $200 with a 2 year contract), will see you receive a free $50 gift card, while opting for the iPhone 5C - (starting at $50 with a 2 year contract) - will also see you receive a free $50 gift card. Pick up an Apple TV for $100 on your way and you'll get a free $20 gift card. Plus, those looking for some extra in-store credit to spend on even more Black Friday deals will probably appreciate the chance to bag a $10 RadioShack gift card with the purchase of any $50 iTunes Card. Those looking for some added protection to add to their iOS devices might also be pleased to hear that RadioShack will be offering 30% off all Zagg Screen Protectors, and a further 10% off all Otterbox cases.

Sam's Club will be opening its doors for black Friday super-early, this year. 7 AM to be exact. If you get down there quick though, you might just be able to bag yourself a few $100 iTunes Cards for $79.88 each.

The lowest prices for iOS devices available for Black Friday 2013 are listed below.

Publisher Chillingo reveals their new daily deal website and call attention to their special sales and free titles.

Visit us here http://deals.chillingo.com/ and simply ‘like’ us to be the first to hear about great offers on Chillingo's amazing games from the best indie developers in the world. Regularly check back to see which popular titles are on sale or free, as Chillingo is frequently updating these deals -- never miss a great download at a great price!

New mobile app Speadi allows local businesses to create deals for their customers and then have those participants "race" to receive the deals in real-time. Speadi charges a flat fee for each deal, in contrast to competitors like Groupon and LivingSocial.

According to the press release, participating businesses, or sponsors, retain complete control over when, how much, how long, and what kind of traffic they want at any given time of the day. "Love the ability to post a special whenever I want and control the number of specials available," said Kris Kildea, a business owner who's used the service.

Last week was the service's official launch, and around 400 runners raced each other for the 41 different deals. The mobile app itself saw over 1000 runners participate just a few days after that. Sponsors offering deals throughout the day included VG's, Biggby, French Laundry, Gatsby Grind, Alexander J's, and Avon.

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The concept behind the Hello Music website is a simple but brilliant one: provide members with information regarding all manner of deals and sales, on all kinds of musical goodies. The Hello Music app does pretty much the same thing, only on iOS. In other words, with an account on the website and the app on a phone, anyone looking for great deals is covered.

The site, and by extension the application, will per-negotiate discounts on a set (and limited) quantity of various items. These range from tangible objects such as amps, pedals and such, to less tangible things like studio time. Since quantities are limited the deals don't last long (usually around 48 hours), but with a handy-dandy iOS app to monitor these deals on the go it becomes much less of an issue.

Setting up an account on the website is free. The app is free. Suffice it to say, any musicians with even a little interest in savings (and an iPhone, of course) need to take a look at this.

EA are well-known for their sales on the App Store. Usually, around some kind of holiday, there's a sale on many EA Mobile games, often dropping games from $6.99 down to $0.99. So what is EA Mobile supposed to do with this time of year, referred to as the "holiday season?" Have an entire month of price cuts and deals, apparently. Thus, EA Mobile has begun their "Daily Deals" program.

The Daily Deals have kicked off with games dropping to the lowest price point possible: free! The first two free games were The Sims Medieval for iPhone/iPod touch, and Shift 2: Unleashed for both iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. As well, Battlefield 2: Bad Company went on sale for $1.99 for iPhone/iPod touch, and $4.99 for iPad; these are 33% and 50% discounts off the regular price, respectively. As per the title of the program, EA is claiming that there will be new deals each day, although for the first weekend of the promotion these deals remained in effect.

EA is offering a web app for users to keep track of the promotion at their EA Daily Deals web page. A new deal will be made available each day at 9:00 am PST (GMT -8), and EA says that they will vary from more free games, to deep discounts on paid titles.

While people love deep discounts on iOS games, and I myself am not excluded, I have to wonder if the current state of the mobile game business, where those who wish to sell games at premium price points are unable to do so because companies like EA can afford to drop their prices to deep discounts like this. In many ways, it's led to situations like the release of the new Tetris game, which relies heavily on IAP monetization, which is something some vocal users have been staunchly against. Massive regular sales on titles like this might be why that kind of situation is now occurring, and why sales like this exist, because it is difficult to sell titles at price points above $0.99, or even free. When EA, one of the companies that can actually sell titles at higher prices is so willing to have these kinds of fire sales with massive promotion, it does not necessarily portend well for the future of premium-priced apps on the App Store.

Everybody loves to save money wherever possible. Even more so in the current global financial climate. So what better way of doing so than through a free app by the name of Shopkick?

Shopkick offers users all manners of new and exclusive shopping deals from the likes of Target, Best Buy, Macy's, American Eagle, Sports Authority, Crate & Barrel and more. Perhaps even better, it also offers a rewards package in which users can simply and quickly gain gift cards, free movie tickets or help a good cause just by shopping. Shopkick ensures there's hardly anything people need to do to gain such rewards. They can do this by simply walking into one of the many partner stores, scanning products, making purchases or simply by checking in to the store. Walk in rewards are available in 80 different places across the US, including NYC, LA, SF, Dallas, Chicago, BOS, ATL, Houston, D.C., Miami, Seattle and St. Louis.

Shopkick also provides users with the ability to personalize their deal feed by picking out their favourite stores from over 50 different national chains, so it's easy to pick out the best deals. There's also top ten deals listed regularly to consult at a quick glance. Users can easily check out what stores are nearby and what deals are offered simply by tapping on the nearby menu option.

Users can quickly check how near they are to acquiring a reward by checking their total at the top of each screen within ShopKick. The rewards are suitably varied with the likes of charitable donations, gift certificates or simply Facebook credits ensuring there's something for everyone's taste. Plus they're relatively easily acquired too by checking what products provide what deals.

Shopkick is available now for North American users and is a free app so it's well worth a try. Here's hoping something similar comes over to Europe in the near future.