Yesterday I got my refurbished iMac 20" from Apple and I just want to share my experience so far.

Background

My wife complained about the slowness of her old Windows XP machine so I decided to get it replaced. Since my experience with my old Mac Mini was quite pleasant we thought about passing this to her and getting a new Mac for me. The old Windows XP machine will probably serve as a Linux mail server soon, no more Windows!!

So looking at the Apple store the cheapest iMac is HK$ 9400 at the moment. But I remembered a saw this link on the Apple web-site to their refurbished Macs and iPods. A long time ago I looked at that and there was not much there (at least for the Hong Kong Apple store). So I did not have much hope to find a good deal there.

But...

Alright, a few days ago I got my AppleTV. You might wonder why:

• Easy to use (important if you're married)
• Plays all iTunes Videos/Music out of the box
• Plays more or less all Videoformats you can find when you install XBMC or Boxee. This requires a very easy hack (and a Mac at the moment)
  

The only downside is that it does not have enough power to play High Definition Videos, unless they are in a standard Quicktime format, i.e any Matroska (MKV) or AVI file won't play smoothly, Video with 720p might play, but 1080p is just not possible.

Though all HD content from the iTunes store plays flawless. Why? Well Apple knows how to utillize the graphics chip to accelerate the Video. XBMC/Boxee only use the CPU, which is not fast enough.

Goal of this tutorial

I have to give credits to all the great guys who made this now so easy. Over at AwkwardTV tyou can find many more Guides etc. This tutorial is just a quick summary of thw 2 most essential points in my opinion:

• Install XBMC/Boxee, this automatically enables SSH, so you can remotely log into your AppleTV.
  
• Setup Samba (SMB) so you can copy files fast to the AppleTV.
  I wasn't able to install AFP, but SMB works just fine.

I have been busy this weekend and created a version of the App Store database that works much better on iPhone/iPod Touch.

There are no pictures so loading time should be very fast. This also includes a quite comprehensive search which is always on top of your results. So just scroll down a bit to see which Apps are reduced in price or which Apps are new.

Of course you can also refine your search:

• Only interested in Apps that have a user rating of 4 or better? Just enter "4" into the field next to "Min User rating" and tap submit
• As default only the first 200 characters of the description are shown. To see the full description, tap on the selector next to Description and choose "Full". If you choose "None". No description will be shown. But each App has a link "Open in new window", which opens a new window with the full description.
• There are many more options just try them out.

Oh BTW, you can actually bookmark your refined search:

1. Just define your search, and click submit
2. Click on the usual "+" on the iPhone/iPod Touch to bookmark your search
3. Next time just open your bookmark and the current results for that search will be shown.

Here are the links: For iPhone/iPod Touch, for Mac/PC.

On the linked pages, you'll find the usual popular searches, e.g. Price reduced Apps, New Apps etc.

It seems Apple send the guys on holiday who add new or updated Apps to the iTunes App Store. There was hardly any change to the iTunes App store for the last twenty something hours ... (see here)

Anyway, just want to let you know that everything is still working, there are just no updates. Actually some Apps that were supposed to be on sale for only 1 day are still available for a lower price.

Don't know why Apple has not done any update: just some maintenance? Or is it related to Tuesday's Notebook event? Well only Apple knows.

I check the iTunes App Store regularly for the latest price changes and for new Apps. Doing this I also notice Apps that are currently not available in the US store.

I didn't pay much attention to this but just now I noticed that more than 50 Apps have gone missing! Some have been in the News like "Shaker", which is "too much like Tetris". Other Apps are now obsolete like Beijing 2008, so I guess the developer removed them.

But what happened to the rest? Legal trouble, temporarily removed (e.g. version is too buggy), removed for good?

I can't see a reason why a developer removes his own App unless he is forced by a 3rd party to do so. As long as the App is in the iTunes App Store he can earn money by selling it.

I am not the first to ask for a better information policy from Apple, but it would be nice to know why some of these Apps are currently (or forever) not available. It would be nice to see some explanation instead of the standard Alert:

"Your request could not be completed.
The item you've requested is not currently available in the US store."

Here is the a link to the most updated list of not available Apps. (RSS feed)

These are the unavailable Apps of this moment:

iBOGGLE, Smotri.com, Name That Baby!, iYAHTZEE: Yahtzee(R) Dice Poker Game, Restaurant Reservations, Search, FuelGauge,MIM, My Life Record Personal Edition, Kafablo, iPing, WallPaperSearchLite, Photohunt, myPhysics, iTrans BART, Kathy Counter, MentalTimer, Shovel De Touch, Hotspot Finder, Story Chain, PaklSound1 Deluxe, (e)motion, HK Traffic Snapshots, PlayGuitar, PowerBall LE, LOLCats, Reversi Too, Beijing2008, Vancouver2010, Recipe Book, haplome, Realm Status, OnBox.TV UK Lite, COMIC/??????, iClover, iLove College Football '08, Fortune Cookie, Go Figure Lite, GoContact, FoodPoints, my Points Tracker, PointCalcLite, Izkar, FUNKY PUNCH Lite, Shaker, Bestsellers, Serpents Lite, 8 Ball, Threes, ME iPersLogin, Pocket Pitch, Tap Email, Smile Light, Pumpkin Light