Never miss the free App of the Week from the App Store again

Using the Apple App Store Facebook page and IFTTT, you can receive an alert when the free App of the Week becomes available in the App Store.

(Credit: Jason Cipriani/CNET)

Last summer I covered an easy-to-create recipe on IFTTT that would send an e-mail or alert of your choosing once the App Store Twitter account posted a tweet announcing the latest freebie. Since that time there have been some changes to Twitter 's API policy, and IFTTT (name based on "If this, then that") has had to change how it uses Twitter within its service.

So, if you've been looking for a way to start receiving notifications for the free App of the Week again, you're in luck. Before we begin, make sure you've signed up for a free IFTTT account if you don't already have one.As such, the recipe demonstrated in my post last June no longer works. While browsing through public IFTTT Recipes today I found a solution that uses posts on the App Store's official Facebook page to trigger alerts.

1. Visit IFTTT.com and log in to your account.
2. You can add this public recipe from IFTTT user "jtshea" (who also happens to have some recipes for CNET's very own Cheapskate deals in his profile), or you can create your own recipe if you'd rather not receive the alert via e-mail as the above recipe is set to do.
3. To create a different alert method, copy the following RSS URLhttp://www.facebook.com/feeds/page.php?format=atom10&id=286893159420. Then create a new Recipe using the Feed channel, with the "Feed item matches" criteria.
4. Paste the feed address you copied from the previous step in the feed URL field, and add "App of the Week" to the keyword or simple phrase field.
5. Once you've created the trigger you can then select the action or alert method you'd like to use to get notified of the new post.

You'll be alerted via the method of your choosing when the App Store posts the free App of the Week on its Facebook page, complete with the body of the post and a direct link to the app in the App Store.