Save £150 on a 12 month o2 contract with Quidco

Posted by nkbish0p at 15:07 0

Tweet Last year I wrote a blog post where I highlighted how you could save £120 by buying a 12 month SIM only plan with Vodafone via Quidco. Earlier this year I posted information on what I believe to be the best value SIM only contract in the UK.

For a very short period of time (up to August 1st) a new offer is available via Quidco on the o2 network. This offer includes the following:

• £100 automatic cashback from Quidco
• £50 Marks and Spencers Voucher

To take advantage of the offer all you need to do is purchase a SIM only contract from o2 after clicking the link on the Quidco website here.

There are several different plans available which are summarised below. The cheapest contract available is £15.50 per month. This means once the £100 cashback is taken into account, the contract comes to a only £7.17 per month, which is even cheaper than the GiffGaff offer and offers the benefit of o2's fantastic customer service.

To see o2's latest SIM only contract prices click here.

Remember with o2's SIM only contracts the prices stated above do not include data (if you have an iPhone you will almost certainly want to add on one of the data "bolt-ons" below:

• £3 per month for 100mb of data per month.
• £6 per month for 500mb of data, unlimited cloud WiFi and 20 MMS messages per month.
• £10 per month for 1gb of data, unlimited cloud WiFi and 50 MMS messages per month.

It is also important to realise that with o2, unlike almost all networks, the data you purchase can be used on your device or tethered or a mixture of the two without any extra "tethering costs".

These offers are ideal for people (like me) who purchased their iPhone without a contract, or those that do not wish to purchase the next iPhone on contract.

Quidco also offers £15 cashback on a 30 day SIM only contract, this offer can be found here.

I will probably be taking advantage of this offer at some point over the next week, let me know in the comment below if you decide to too!

New Apple product summary, July 2011

Posted by nkbish0p at 16:59 0

Tweet Although my blog primarily deals with things related to iOS and the iPhone, there have been several new products released today relating to OSX that I would like to cover here. Read on for a full list of changes!

Note:- All prices will be stated in UK£. For regional prices, please visit the relevant Apple website.

OSX 10.7 (Lion) - £20.99


The successor to OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard) was released today on the Apple App Store and in Apple retail stores. For a list of changes, please check here.

Macbook


Apple have stopped producing their iconic Macbook. The macbook was in production from May 2006. The cheapest portable mac now available is the 11" macbook air (more information below).

Macbook air - From £849 to £1349


The macbook air has been updated with new intel sandy-bridge processors, thunderbolt ports and backlit keyboards. The industrial design has remained the same.

Mac Mini - From  £529 to £699


The cheapest mac benefits from upgraded processors, a thunderbolt port and AMD graphics but the superdrive (basically Apple's name for a DVD drive) has been removed.

Thoughts


Overall I am a little disappointed at the deletion of the standard Macbook as it offered a great laptop at a cheaper price point than the macbook pro. Unfortunately now, at that price point the only available option is the bottom model Macbook Air which only has an 11" screen. Personally when I come to choose a new laptop I am unsure as to whether I would want to spend that much on a Macbook Air and would be hesitant in spending £999 to get a Macbook Pro. The portability of the Macbook Air is great compared to the old Macbook but it suffers from a lack in power. It would be nice to see a price reduction across the whole range of Apple Laptops though that does seem very unlikely.

Unfortunately there is still no official word of any upcoming new iPhone hardware. When there is, be sure to come back and check my write up on that!

New prices for apps in the App Store (And how to avoid them)

Posted by nkbish0p at 20:32 2

Tweet You may have noticed today that Apple have increased the price of (almost) all of the Apps in the iOS App Store. Whilst 69p (the new bottom price point that replaces the old 59p one) may not seem too much to spend on an App (and there are many fantastic apps at this price point, some of which can be seen here), some boundaries have been considerably increased.

The new App Store pricing model (old price, new price, increase):

• 59p - 69p (14 per cent)
• £1.19 - £1.49 (20 per cent)
• £1.79 - £1.99 (10 per cent)
• £2.39 - £2.49 (4 per cent)
• £2.99 - £2.99 (no change)
• £3.49 - £3.99 (13 per cent)
• £3.99 - £4.99 (20 per cent)
• £4.99 - £5.49 (9 per cent)
• £5.49 - £5.99 (8 per cent)
• £5.99 - £6.99 (14 per cent)
• £6.99 - £7.99 (13 per cent)
• £7.49 - £8.99 (17 per cent)
• £8.99 - £10.49 (14 per cent)
• £9.49 - £10.99 (14 per cent)

Personally I think that developers should be able to charge as little as they like for their App and it irks me that Apple have set a 69p minimum as this may lead to decreased competition (something that is always bad for the consumer). For example, with no minimum price, Apps could gain an advantage by undercutting the price of a familiar app, leading to a likely price drop of familiar apps.

However, remember that if you don't want to pay for your apps, there are always alternatives.

New, super easy jailbreak for up to iOS 4.3.3 and iPad 2

Posted by nkbish0p at 15:25 0

Tweet If you are a frequent reader of this blog you may have been one of the almost 500 viewers of this post where I explained how to jailbreak your iOS device up to firmware 4.3.3. Todays post is about a jailbreak that does essentially the same thing, but it is much easier to accomplish and it also jailbreaks the iPad 2. If you have an iPad 2, this is the only current way to jailbreak your device. If you have been wary of trying jailbreaks in the past or been put off by what you perceived to be a complicated process, this jailbreak is an ideal way to try it out.

First off, which devices and firmwares does this jailbreak work with?


iPad (original) firmwares 4.3 to 4.3.3
iPad 2 firmwares 4.3.3
iPhone 3gs & iPhone 4 firmwares 4.3 to 4.3.3
iPhone 4 CDMA firmwares 4.2.6 to 4.2.8
iPod touch 3g firmwares 4.3, 4.3.2, 4.3.3
iPod touch 4g firmwares 4.3 to 4.3.3


(remember, to find out which firmware you have installed go to settings > general > about and scroll down to version)


How do I do it?


Simply go to www.jailbreakme.com in Safari on your device and follow the on-screen instructions.


Remember not to update your device after jailbreaking if you wish to keep your jailbreak. Remember, if you wish to unjailbreak your device, restore using iTunes. Remember to back up your SHSH's if you wish to restore to your current firmware after Apple releases a new version of iOS.