There’ll be savings – which Apple won’t announce until the day – but they’re also offering a heap of gifting options:

Apple Online Store
- Free laser engraving on any new iPod
- Signature gift wrapping for your iPod

Apple Retail Stores
- Reserve & wrap – The first time we have offered the service in the retail stores worldwide, you can reserve your gift for pickup between 15-24 December. A great service to ensure that it is wrapped and waiting for you. You can arrange pickup from the store closest to where you will be on Christmas Day, saving you the need to hand-carry gifts when you travel.
- Exclusive gift wrapping for your Mac portable or iPod
- Personal Shopping – book an appointment so you can knock out your entire gift list over your lunch break with absolute ease
- Attend a Holiday workshop to create a photobook for Mum

If you were considering getting your significant other an Apple related gadget for Christmas this year, Friday would be the day to do it…

[Apple]

[Mint via FastCompany]

In fact, they went so far as to call in the same crowd-control experts that help to keep things under control at major events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics. Each store will have its own game plan, but the vast majority of locations (not just Super Centres) will be open for 24 hours starting on Monday, November 26 (Thanksgiving) and ending the next day in the evening. That way, Walmart hopes to prevent mammoth crowds from gathering outside the store waiting for the doors to open. They are also putting many of the most popular items behind displays, where employees will supervise lines and hand out the products to customers in an orderly fashion. Additional workers will be stationed outside the store to help direct foot traffic.

Because of incidents like the one at Walmart, the National Retail Federation has, for the first time, put together a list of guidelines aimed at crowd-control in stores. Of course, even with all these precautions, I fear that this year will bring more horror stories about deadly violence erupting between crazed bargain hunters. [NYT]

Fortunately for us a lot of shoppers put our products at the top of their list.

He was also referring to the the Nintendo DS, which grew 20% over the same period last year. Basically, after all this time in the market, these guys keep selling their boxes like hot red velvet cupcakes with vanilla frosting and hot cocoa in a freezing winter morning. Hmmmmm, cupcakes. [Kotaku]

Enhanced audio from a mobile phone video combined with eyewitness accounts have revealed some truly monstrous behaviour. For example: as a paramedic fought to save his life, an onlooker was heard to shout “pregnant” when Damou’s belly was exposed from underneath his shirt. Several women in the crowd then laughed at the remark.

Furthermore, an eyewitness who suffered a broken arm in the incident described a chaotic scene. She asked a police officer to do something saying “Can’t you see the crowd is out of control?” The officer replied sarcastically: “I’m surprised we haven’t heard gunshots yet.”

Honestly, I don’t even know how to express how depressing this is. [Seattle Times via The Consumerist]

Naturally, the family of victim Jdimytai Damour is filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Walmart, the adjacent Green Acres Mall, the company that manages the property and the company in charge of security. In their view Wamart was “engaged in specific marketing and advertising techniques to specifically attract a large crowd and create an environment of frenzy and mayhem and was otherwise careless, reckless and negligent.”

Despite his 6-5, 270 pound stature, Damour died of asphyxiation when trampled by the 2000+ shoppers that fled into the store that night. The amount that the family is suing for has not been disclosed, but I’m sure that they will get what they ask for. Not that money is much consolation mind you—especially when it appears that the shoppers involved will most likely get away scot free. [MSNBC Thanks Matt!]

* Don’t you dare ask about that again.

[Kotaku]

One report, from ABC-affiliate KESQ, originally suggested that the shooting was the result of an altercation between two teenage girls shopping for Black Friday sales. Apparently, a boy, listed as a juvenile, was responsible for the shooting and was detained. Now that same source wiped out the story of the argument, but is saying that in addition to the boy, several arrests were made outside the store, including one woman who was screaming and banging a sheriff’s car.

A different story in the LA Times confirms the two deaths, but says that, according to Assistant City Manager Sheila Gilligan, “There were two groups inside that had issue with each other, and the two men inside pulled their weapons and shot each other.” The shop was inundated with Black Friday shoppers at the time, and everyone was evacuated from the store.

A manager of the World Gym across the street told the AP: “Some people got into a fight…One of the guys here thought it was over a toy, but it got louder and louder and then there were gunshots.”

We will update this post as additional information materialises. [AP; LA Times; KMIR/KESQ via CNN]