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The highly anticipated Black Friday sale at the Apple Store is finally upon us. The discounts, however, are conservative at best. Only two Mac models are on sale (iMacs and MacBooks… no MacBook Pros) with discounts up to $101 on its latest generation models. Further “highlights” include a $21 discount on the iPod Touch, iPod Classic, Apple TV as well as the 500GB Time Capsule. There are also notable discounts on various Apple accessories. Meanwhile, the price of the iPhone remains the same.

Earlier this week, analysts predicted discounts up to 15% from Apple this year. Needless to say, their prediction turned out to be incorrect.

Black Friday shoppers hunting for bigger bargains will have better luck with 3rd party retail deals that we covered yesterday.

[Photo Credit: Flickr]

Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, known in the retail trade as “Black Friday”, stores extend their hours and offer specials on a wide array of products. And fortunately for us, several retail and online stores will be following this tradition and cut prices on many Apple products. It can be a daunting task to keep track of all the discounts and promotions going on, so we at AppleiPhoneApps.com created this compilation for you of all the deals happening right now. We will keep this list updated throughout the day. If we missed anything, please feel free to leave a comment to inform our readers.

Amazon:

As many of you know, Amazon offers free shipping and no tax to most states. This makes the following deals even hotter.

They also carry the new MacBook Pros for about a $200 discount.

Apple Store

Apple’s online store currently has a teaser ad on its website telling visitors to check back on Friday for a one-day-only Black Friday deal. Although we are not sure how much of a discount we should be expecting, MacRumors reports that the discounts appear to be about $100 on certain MacBooks and iMacs.

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An iPhone developer has apparently been caught paying reviewers to leave positive feedback on iTunes, according to reporters at Wired.com.

Adam Majewski, founder of The Casual Game Network, seems to have posted a listing on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, offering to pay $4 for each 5-star review left on iTunes for his newest iPhone application: SantaLive 3D. Adam also left additional instructions to add “five periods at the end of the review” so that he could later identify the source of the review.

So for this hit, all you have to do is download the application ($1.99) and then leave a 5 star review for the app in iTunes or through the app store. So you are making $2 profit in addition to getting the app. When you leave feedback, please leave five periods at the end of the review so I know it is a mturk worker. Then post your user name that you left the feedback under.

Currently, 8 out of the 38 reviews have “five periods” at the end as instructed by the Mechanical Turk listing, although 34 out of the 38 reviews listed received 5-star reviews.

Even though this is the first reported case of “bribery in exchange of glowing reviews,” this comes to us as no surprise as the overall rating can make or break the success of an application. Wired has since inquired the developer about the issue but he has neither confirmed or denied the accusation.

[Source: Wired]

As part of the iPhone OS 2.2 update, Japanese iPhone customers gained an extra function not available to the rest of the world: Emoji icons. Emoji is the Japanese name for “emoticons” used by Japanese wireless carriers. If you are an iPhone user outside of Japan, and disappointed by lack of emoticons on your own iPhone, worry no more as we’ve got some good news for you.

An iPhone developer by the name of Steven Troughton-Smith figured out a way to enable these Emoji icons to non-Japanese iPhone users. The process is rather simple but requires that your iPhone be jailbroken as the iPhone preference file must be modified to activate this special keyboard. However, once you modify this preference file and back up your device, the change will stick in all future restores (jailbroken or not) when you do a restore from backup. To summarize, you only need to jailbreak your iPhone to enable the setting, and later “unjailbreak” your iPhone and still enjoy the new icons.

Here is a quick screencap of some of the myriad Emoji icons available:

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According to preliminary data released by Net Applications, more mobile subscribers are using the iPhone for web-browsing… hitting a record 0.48% market share in the past week.

iPhone’s Safari browser has been the #1 mobile browser in the U.S. for a few months now, according to a March report released by StatCounter. But in less than 6 months, the iPhone OS has suddenly become a power player, placing fourth in market share only behind Windows (90.66%), Mac OS (7.86%), and Linux (0.93%) [Source: Net Applications]

This late surge is largely attributed to the iPhone 3G release this past July with sales still going strong worldwide. There is no question that the iPhone’s Safari browser serves up the most true-to-PC web browsing experience available for a phone today and this upward trend will only continue as the iPhone gets ready to roll out to the rest of the world.

Ten days ago, Cyrus Najmabadi’s BoxOffice was mysteriously delisted from the iPhone App Store. But as of this morning, the popular movie showtime application has returned to the store under a different name - Now Playing.

While the developer has remained hush-hush about why the app was pulled in the first place, he has mentioned that Apple was very helpful throughout the entire ordeal.

Najmabadi also added that a new version (1.3) of Now Playing is on the horizon. The new version will handle network traffic more efficiently which will enhance the experience for EDGE users and those with spotty connections.

Also, after the app is released i’ll be following it up with 1.3. That update will include several perf fixes *esp* related to network traffic. That means that you’ll sync less and get the data you care about faster than before. This will be a plus for everyone, but will especially benefit edge users and those with spotty connections.

I’m also working on improved theater provider coverage for the states as well as global coverage for worldwide providers. No ETA yet, but great progress is being made day by day.

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NOTE: This method only works with songs that are DRM free. To strip the DRM off the songs, please follow this guide.

As you all know by now, iPhone ringtones are available from the iTunes Store for 99 cents a pop.

But what if you want to hear Kanye’s “Gold Digger” whenever your ex-gf calls, and she left you with no money to buy it?

Do not fear, AppleiPhoneApps.com is here — just follow these steps to show that money-grubber who’s boss, and do it for free:

1. Pick the song you want to use from your iTunes Library

2. Right click on the song name and select “Get Info”

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