Apple sent out a $20 iTunes credit to folks who bought a new iOS device after September 1st and then went on to purchase iMovie, iPhoto, Numbers, Pages, or Keynote, effectively making those purchases a true bargain.

Leaving aside the mathematics of $20 versus the regular price of those apps, I wondered if those apps are now free, did a little digging.

Interesting. I launched iTunes on my Mac, went to the App Store in iTunes, and did a search for Pages (I did not own a copy of Pages at this point). As expected, Pages showed up on the iTunes account on my Mac showing the full price of $9.99.

I pulled out my new iPhone (activated in the past week) and searched for Pages in the App Store on my phone. Huzzah! On my phone, Pages was free. Quick, before Apple could change their minds, I downloaded Pages.

Back on my Mac, in iTunes, the price of the app changed from $9.99 to “Download”, showing that I now own the app. Cool!

I repeated the process and now have all 5 of these apps on my iPhone and, soon, will have them on my iPad as well. Way to go Apple.