Apple was caught last year selling Apple Certified refurbished hardware on eBay using the pseudonym Refurbished-Outlet. Allegedly.
The prices and details of these products were generally the same as refurbished products sold on the apple.com site. The products come with a one-year warranty and mobile devices contain a new battery.
But this week it emerged that Apple is lowering the prices on eBay, sometimes by quite a bit. For example, Apple normally charges $999 for a refurbed MacBook Air with 128 GB. But that same system with the same Apple inspection and one-year warranty went on sale in the eBay store for $899. Prices on other hardware products were slashed similarly.
(In addition, we learned, the company as been apparently working with “power sellers” on eBay to sell Apple hardware. For example, until they ran out of the 500 units put up for sale of 13-inch MacBook Pros selling for $999. These are new devices, not refurbished, and Apple is probably using the “channel” to clear out inventory.)
It seems to me that Apple is working behind the scenes to experiment with different models for selling refurbished and excess inventory. I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple was also trying other channels for doing the same thing that we don’t know about. And I also wouldn’t be surprised if refurbished gadgets vanished from the Apple site altogether, and for those items to be sold in the darker alleys of the Internet (like eBay) exclusively instead.
But I think there’s a ginormous opportunity here for embracing “used” in a big way — and it’s something only Apple could pull off.
K811 Easy-Switch by Logitech Category: Keyboards Works With: Mac, iPad, iPhone Price: $99
This review is slightly unusual: We already published a review of the same device a couple of weeks ago: the Logitech Easy-Switch keyboard. I liked the look of it so much that — on Killian’s recommendation — I went out and bought one of my own. Or rather, I bought one, returned one and searched the internet high and low for another one.
So why the “duplicate” review? Because I use a keyboard in a different way than Killian. Where he sits at the dining room table surrounded by iDevices and Macs, I work not only in different rooms but in bars (cafes), on buses, wherever I might be. So I figured I’d write a very different review.
If you imagined an iPad Evernote app, it’d probably look like this.
Use Evernote on iOS? Wish it had proper saved searches? Or note links? Wish it was a little faster to browse and find what you’re looking for? Then you might want to take a look at the rather excellent Clever HD for iPad, a full-featured Evernote client which could even replace the official app on your iDevice.
The Apple iWatch and Google Glass are both coming soon, apparently.
We don’t have all the details on either product. And we can’t even be 100% sure that the Apple wristwatch is going to happen at all. But most knowledgeable tech fans are expecting both and looking forward to seeing, buying and using them.
Excitement is warranted. No, I mean serious, pure geek joy is definitely called for. But not because of the iWatch and Google Glass products themselves.
Basil is just about my favorite iPad cooking app. It doesn’t come loaded with recipes, nor does it feature videos of people slicing and sautéing fancy ingredients. Instead, Basil is a version of your paper notebook, only better. And it’s just about to get a huge makeover.
If your iPad doodles are a little primitive, there are a few apps that can get you canvasing the art greats from Caravaggio to Picasso and creating some deft original strokes of your own.
So says Sumit Vishwakarma in a talk for Macworld/iWorld 2013, adding that if you’re willing to forgo one cinnamon latte at Starbuck’s, that money spent in apps will take your work to the next level.
Vishwakarma is an iPad art advocate whose work has been featured at the first Mobile Art Festival in Los Angeles, the Apple flagship store in San Francisco, and the Mobile Creativity & Innovation Symposium. He also teaches free workshops to promote iPad art and animation to kids, teens and adults.
While we’ve been looking at various new ways to interact with sheet music on the iPad at the 2013 NAMM show this week, here’s an app that takes sheet music and brings an entire orchestra along for the ride.
You can take this free iPad app out for a spin and it will turn the page for you as well as let you play along with Piano, Cello, Violin, Viola, Guitar, Flute, Oboe, Bassoon, Recorder, Clarinet, Trumpet, Saxophone, Horn, or Voice. Calling this “augmented sheet music,” the app brings the same service from the Weezic website to your iPad in a native app.
![Logitech’s Easy-Share Keyboard Is So Good, We Reviewed It Twice [Reviews]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1362753845.jpg)
![Inside Clever HD, A Great Evernote Client For The iPad [Feature]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/1362582270.jpg)
![Basil: The iPad’s Best Recipe App Is About To Get Even Better [Preview]](http://cdn.cultofmac.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/1361456445.jpg)
