MacRumors

Apple is expected to launch its Back to School promotion tomorrow, and on the eve of its launch, we've learned that Apple is indeed going to be making it their biggest ever.

According to our sources, Apple will be offering a free 8GB iPod Touch ($299) to college students who buy a qualifying Mac (MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Pro). Alternatively, students may choose to get an 8GB iPod Nano ($199). The promotion will run from June 3 to September 15th, 2008.

With this aggressive promotion as well as the rumored 3G-capable iPhone launch, Apple is rapidly expanding their Touch OS X platform over the next few months, giving developers a large audience for their iTunes Store apps and games.

There remains one uncertainty, however. When Apple releases the 2.0 firmware for the iPhone and iPod Touch, iPod Touch owners will be required to pay a small fee for the upgrade. Customers who purchase an iPod Touch now may be required to pay this fee when the upgrade arrives in late June. More details may be available tomorrow or at WWDC next week.

Details of the Back to School promotion, including eligibility should be officially announced tomorrow.

Update: Appleinsider confirms the promo. The $299 value can be applied to a higher capacity iPod player, but not the iPhone.

Update 2: The iTunes store now has a banner promoting the Back to School promotion and shows an iPod Touch as the free iPod. The ad's link is not yet live:

Earlier today, John Gruber of DaringFireball.net suggested that Me.com might be the name for Apple's .Mac rebranding. There was no real evidence, however, except that Me.com was registered under MarkMonitor's domain service. MarkMonitor is a domain management service that Apple (and many others) use. Gruber admited that this was mostly speculative at that time:

This is proof of nothing, of course, since MarkMonitor provides domain name parking for any company that pays for their services.

Me.com currently redirects users to Snappville.com - a social networking community. Snappville used to be called Me.com but changed names in December 2007 with little fanfare.

MacRumors reader Matthew Yohe, however, pointed us to Netcraft page which curiously lists Kenneth Eddings (eddingsk@apple.com) as the DNS administrator for Me.com. This email address, however, was nowhere in the ownership (Whois lookup) information for Me.com. As it turns out, Mr. Eddings' email address is only listed in the SOA Record of the DNS record.

In this case, Markmonitor controls the SOA Record for Me.com. Eddings is also the official technical contact for many of Apple's domain names. So, Apple does appear to own Me.com. It was likely purchased sometime in December 2007, and it (along with MobileMe for iPhone) could very well be the rebranding for Apple's .Mac service. With Apple's ongoing product expansion outside the Mac platform, it makes sense that they may need to rebrand their services to something more platform neutral.

In today's domain market, the purchase of Me.com could run well into the tens of millions of dollars, so it is unlikely Apple would buy it without a specific plan.

Apple's .Mac ("dotmac") service is a $99/year set of online tools that provides customers with email (@mac), web hosting, iDisk, backup and sync services. .Mac services are tightly integrated with Apple's existing iLife suite, allowing you to publish content easily from iPhoto, iWeb and iMovie. Apple appears to be poised to rename and revamp this 6 year old service.

Codingrobots reveals that all references to Apple's .Mac service in Mac OS X 10.5.3 have been replaced with a variable... essentially a blank space that can be easily replaced in the future by a software update. The reason for this appears to be that Apple will be rebranding their .Mac service. This renaming plan is actually spelled out in iCal's localizable.strings file:

%@ is the new name of Apples online service (was .Mac)

This finding may validate recent whispers that Apple is planning a dramatic .Mac update alongside the iPhone 2.0 release.

In early May, TUAW claimed that .Mac would undergo a complete revamp near WWDC, and include the over-the-air syncing like Exchange and .Mac syncing with Windows. There has already been evidence that .Mac will be begin offering "push" functionality for Mail, Contacts and Calendar items in the iPhone 2.0 firmware, so a WWDC revamp certainly seems possible. Other whispers have suggested that Apple will start offering a discounted .Mac (<$50) alongside new iPhone purchases. Apple currently offers a $30 discount on .Mac when purchasing a Mac. Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) kicks off on June 9th in San Francisco. Update: References to Mobile Me in the iPhone 2.0 SDK suggests Apple will use their Mobile Me trademark for the new .Mac service, confirming speculation:

Apple's 24-hour flagship 5th Avenue retail store in Manhattan is in the process of shutting down for the night. An unusual move for the 24-hour store. Apple's retail page reflects the temporary shutdown:

Please note we will be temporarily closed Thursday, May 29 at 3:00 p.m. and will reopen Friday, May 30 at 9:00 a.m. During this time, please visit one of our other two Manhattan locations.

Employees are telling passersby that a commercial is being shot at the 5th Avenue Apple store. We've been told that Apple's 5th Avenue store has only been entirely closed twice in its history: the iPhone launch and the Leopard launch.

According to MacRumors sources, Apple is actually filming a commercial for the upcoming 3G-capable iPhone with filming to occur inside and around the 5th Avenue store.

Updated x 5:

TheiLife posts photos of lights are being set up for filming. The site appears to be down, all photos are mirrored here.

Logical explanation for 'Anonymous 5+4' boxes (also confirmed by another report that these simply represent walkie talkies). Alternative (humorous) explanation.

shirtmkr posts these new photos in the forums (taken at 9:30pm):

Silicon Alley Insider posts a few of their own photos.

First hand account of some of the setup.

thechidz reports "I just walked by and they are still shooting and not letting people even cross the street" (~12 midnight). Photos from across the street.

Related Forum: iPhone

Apple is planning on launching their annual Back to School promotion on Tuesday, June 3rd. Last year, Apple offered a free iPod Nano ($199 value) or a $199 credit against a more expensive iPod for eligible customers. The iPhone was specifically excluded from this promotion last year. The promo was available only to college students purchasing a qualifying (MacBook, MacBook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro).

The exact offering for this year's promo is not yet known, but is expected to be comparable. Qualifying students looking to buy a Mac should certainly wait until June 3rd to take advantage of the promotion.

Last year's promo page remains online at the Apple Store, but terms and conditions will likely be different for this year's promo.

Apple has applied for yet another patent for a Wii-like controller device, this time for a remote control that can distinguish infrared light sources. Via hrmph:

The present invention can include remote control systems that can distinguish predetermined light sources from stray or unintended light sources, such as environmental light sources and/or reflections.

Earlier this month another patent application was uncovered for a Wii-like controller developed by Apple. As with all patent applications, this may not represent technology planned for any particular project, though recent job descriptions have listed "remote controls" as one of the technologies Apple is developing.

Raw Data: Patent Application 20080121782

Besides releasing Mac OS X 10.5.3 today, Apple also released a new version of the iPhone SDK (Beta 6). No details have been posted. Apple should be wrapping up development of the iPhone SDK which is expected to be complete by late June. Apple will be covering many aspects of the iPhone SDK during their Worldwide Development Conference which starts on June 9th.

Previous versions of the iPhone SDK and Beta 2.0 Firmware have revealed new features coming to the iPhone, including Geotagging, 3G preferences, Chinese handwriting recognition, and Photo saving,