With Black Friday and Cyber Monday just days away, I know that a lot of people are thinking about shopping for holiday presents. Your iPhone and iPad can help you prepare for your holiday shopping. New Orleans attorney Ernie Svenson passed along to me this great article by Steve Olechowski of Google. Olechowski talks about the Target and Best Buy apps, but far more interesting is his discussion of how apps like this have replaced the desire to read Sunday Circulars, the ads from the Sunday paper. I remember that when I was young, I would often read circulars from consumer electronics retailers from the Sunday newspaper to learn what was new related to computers. As Olechowski points out, sites like Engadget now fill that need, but these shopping apps can be satisfying for the same reason.
David Martin of Cult of Mac wrote a fairly comprehensive article on shopping apps for Black Friday and Cyber Monday: Amazon, Best Buy, eBay, Target, Toys "R" Us and Walmart. Yardena Arar of Macworld also writes about some Black Friday apps and websites. And Mike Schramm of TUAW reviews mGifts, an app that helps you keep track of the gifts you plan to purchase.
This is also a good time to note that Apple always has Black Friday sales at the Apple Store (including the online store) and this is traditionally the only time of the year when Apple reduces the prices on its current products. (Otherwise, the only sales you see from Apple are on previous generation products.) Apple just posted a teaser page for its Black Friday sale, which you can see here. If you are in the market to buy an Apple product for yourself or someone else in the near future, the price offered by Apple this Friday is likely to be the best price that you will see for the rest of the year.
Happy shopping!
