Apple giving $100 refund on recent iPad purchases

If you bought the iPad very recently, you may qualify for a $100 refund.Apple is offering $100 back to customers who purchased the iPad at its former price, an Apple customer-service rep confirmed to CNET today. The refund, which will be applied to a person's credit card, applies to all versions of the first-generation iPad.Of course, there is a catch. According to the customer-service rep, Apple is offering the $100 refund only to those who purchased the last-gen tablet within 14 days of yesterday's announcement of the iPad 2. The customer-service rep wouldn't nail down a date, but the cut-off would seemingly be February 16.The iPad 2, which comes with two cameras, a dual-core processor, and either a black or white finish, is scheduled to hit store shelves March 11 for a starting price of $499.Apple also said yesterday that it has started selling first-generation iPad models for $100 less than their previous price tags. Online customers who already made their purchase must call Apple customer service to process the refund, the customer-service rep said. In-store purchasers must bring their receipt with them to the brick-and-mortar to get their money back.

Apple gives iTunes-in-the-cloud features to more of Europe

Nearly a dozen European countries now have access to a key iTunes feature that lets users re-download purchased video content.iTunes users in 11 countries, including France, Sweden, and Belgium, can now view and re-download movies they bought from Apple. Previously, users in those countries would have needed to back up that file in the event that the device it was on was damaged or stolen.The full list of countries in this latest batch (per The Next Web) includes Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. France was reportedly the only one to get re-downloads of purchased TV shows as part of the rollout too.Besides video content like movies and TV shows, the feature also works with music, music videos, apps, and books -- all purchased through Apple's various digital stores. Apple maintains a list of countries that can use the feature, which remains unavailable for many when it comes to music, TV shows, and movies, which are tied to deals Apple has made with studios. The expansion is the latest for Apple, which introduced the feature alongside iCloud at its annual developers conference in June 2011. Apple's last big rollout of it outside the U.S. was last July, which brought movies to the U.K., Canada, and about 35 other countries.