Macworld investigates: are those 'free iPad' and 'free iPhone' stories ever legitimate
Is it actually possible to get free Apple devices After all: iPads aren't cheap, so people don't simply give them away. Or do they There must be some way to get free Apple devices.
See also:
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How to win a free iPhone or iPad: check for other prizes
First of all it is possible to win a free iPad, or an iPhone. We know this because we have - in the past - run countless competitions and given away everything from MacBook Airs to iPads. We have personally posted the winning items so yes: those competitions are legitimate.
Typically we run these competitions along with another company looking to get exposure for its smaller product. Say it has an Apple iWidget to sell that nobody has heard of. The iWidget is worth around £30 and they want to draw attention to it. The thing is that nobody has heard of iWidget so the competition will remain very small. So they give-away 10 iPads and 10 Apple iWidgets instead. Suddenly they get lots of exposure, and hopefully some people will buy an iWidget if they really want one.
So these are the type of competitions where you really can win a free iPad, or an iPhone or Apple Watch. They are often run by websites and magazines and are always free to enter. Sometimes the entry numbers are lower than you think, and if you keep entering you'll be lucky eventually.
They are, however, the luck of the draw. You aren't guranateed a free iPad. Just the chance to win one. Having said that, your chances of winning are higher than you think...
How to tell if an iPad competition is legitimate
In the internet it's hard to tell which iPad competition is legitimate, and which is a scam. If you see a brand you know, and trust, like Macworld. Then you can be pretty sure the competition is actually being run.
Sites like HotUkDeals.com have a Computers Competition section that have crowd-sourced (and hopefully checked) competitions.
How to get a free iPhone or iPad: data capture or phone-in
The other type of free offer is one people refer to as 'data capture'. The data is your information: phone number, address, email, age, hobbies, interests. That is worth a surprisingly large amount of money to companies.
Lots of companies offer a free iPad in return for data. We say 'offer' but we don't believe many, if any, of them ever deliver. All you do with these links is fill out endless forms of personal information and are then encouraged to get your friends and family to fill out information.
You give away your personal data all the time, so you might think it's worth a shot. But we don't think you'll get an iPad this way. There are companies like Datacoup reported here in MIT that are trying to pay people directly for their personal data. It might take a little while but we think doing this is a smarter approach than filling out endless forms randomly in the hope that an iPad will one day appear.
The other approach is to run the competition as a phone-in where you have to dial a number. These phone calls can be quite expensive, so we'd advise you to avoid phoning in to win a prize.
How to get a free iPhone or iPad: work for it
Nobody is going to give you an iPad for free. What you are always doing is trading something: personal data or your time in return for an iPad.
If you actually want an iPad (or any Apple product) and have spare time on your hands then consider something like Amazon's Mechanical Turk program. This enables you to earn small amounts of cash or Amazon credit for performing micro tasks that can't be performed by humans (typically they are writing or design tasks). The amount you get paid isn't huge, but it soon racks up and can be done in small bursts. It'll probably take less time to earn a free iPad this way than by filling out competition forms or endless data-capture surveys.
You'd be crazy to beleive this Crazy Loophole exists...