Cult of Mac

Note: This post has been updated with new deals and the latest price drops. Some prices vary according to Apple Watch color, band, etc.

Apple Watch Cyber Monday deals are live, featuring some significant price drops on both the most affordable and the priciest models.

The best deal is the entry-level Apple Watch SE 2 from just $149 (save $100 or 40%). This is a great price for a great watch that boasts almost all the same features as its pricier siblings. It’s a great starter watch and perfect for kids (and you can track them with it). Meanwhile, the latest high-end Apple Watch Ultra 2 in sleek black titanium is also $80 off. Or pick up a refurbished Ultra 1 for just $380.

Not to be left out, the brand-new Apple Watch Series 10 with its big beautiful screen is available at its best price to date on Amazon, starting at just $329. The biggest savings are on Series 9.

Tesla is rolling out a significant holiday software update, headlined by the launch of its first Tesla Apple Watch app. The new app, long expected and finally available next week, will allow owners of Tesla electric cars and trucks to use their Apple Watch as a digital key to lock and unlock their vehicles. That eliminates the need to carry a smartphone (at least for that reason).

Users can also view battery charge levels, control climate settings, and remotely open the front trunk (“frunk”) directly from their wrist.

December 2, 1991: Apple ships its first public version of the QuickTime player, bringing video to Mac users running System 7.

Containing codecs for graphics, animation and video, QuickTime confirms Apple’s status as a leading multimedia tech company. The software also starts us on the path to playing video on our computers. This fundamental transformation of Macs into media machines eventually leads to iTunes Movies, YouTube and more.

While I’ve focused on my own workstation just a few times in several years of handling Cult of Mac setups coverage, it’s hard to resist an opportunity to extoll the virtues of my favorite over-ear headphones while they’re deeply discounted for Black Friday and Cyber Monday. I added the headphones to my workstation recently, and right now you can pick up Beats Studio Pro at Best Buy for $159.99. That’s about $10 less than the discount I nabbed on Amazon for the normally $350 cans (although you should not pay that full price because you usually don’t have to).

Update: This fantastic Black Friday deali s still in effect for Cyber Monday!

Turns out we won’t be able to order robot vacuum cleaners around with Siri commands and the Home application quite as soon as hoped. Apple moved the release date for this feature to early 2025.

When it launches, though, it’ll be a powerful tool for controlling these automated home-cleaning devices.

If you use a desktop computer like Mac mini or Mac Studio — or if you typically hunch over a MacBook or other laptop — it’s time to bring beautiful views to your computer setup with a big, bright external display. And with the holiday season upon us, you can monitor Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals with plenty of Amazon bargains on external displays with 4K or 5K resolution to choose from. That includes every iteration of Apple’s popular Studio Display at $300 off!

See below for the best Black Friday monitor deals we’ve seen. And don’t miss our roundup of the best Apple Black Friday deals.

Update: While most of the Studio Display options are sold out, plenty of other deals are still in effect for Cyber Monday. And some discounts are even better now.

When Apple unveiled M4 MacBook Pro models on October 30, I preordered an M4 Pro MacBook Pro for $1,999. And I lined up a $705 trade-in of my M1 Pro MacBook Pro to help ease the financial pain. Now I see Black Friday/Cyber Monday has set a new Amazon price on my exact model at $1,749 — $250 less than I paid. I really can’t recommend (or envy) the machine at that price enough. It’s a fantastic price tag on a power-packed laptop.

Update: This MacBook Pro deal remains in effect for Cyber Monday!

Apple’s AirPods Max are a great pair of wireless headphones. But they are too expensive for what they offer. Plus, they don’t work as well with non-Apple devices. Due to these limitations, I got the Bose QuietComfort headphones earlier this year.

For Cyber Monday, these fantastic Bose headphones are down to their lowest price ever. And you should buy them over any other option you might have in mind. Here’s why.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday HomePod deals aren’t as extensive as you might find on other products, but at least you can save a few bucks on Apple’s smart speakers. We found early Black Friday savings at B&H Photo on both HomePod 2 and HomePod mini, and we’ll update this post if sweeter bargains come along.

Currently, the prices are as cheap or cheaper than even major warehouse discounters like Costco and Sam’s Club (which admittedly offers the HomePod mini for a penny less than B&H). Plus, if you’re searching for a Black Friday deal on HomePods at Amazon and coming up blank, you’re not going crazy. The retailer doesn’t stock HomePods, possibly because it’s trying to sell so many of its competing Echo smart speakers.

If you’re looking for deals on other Apple gear, don’t miss our big roundup of Apple Black Friday deals.

Update: These deals are still in effect for Cyber Monday. 

Amazon has dropped the price of the latest AirPods Pro 2 to just $170, a killer deal for the best wireless earbuds out there. This fantastic early Cyber Monday deal knocks a hefty $79 (32%) off the AirPods Pro 2 (regularly $249).

The deal is currently available at Amazon.

Now that AirPods Pro 2 can act as hearing aids, it’s hard to recommend any other earbuds for your iPhone, Mac or iPad. And yes, this is for the latest model with the USB-C charging case.

Seems like the new Macs with M4 chips just got here — and you can already get great deals on them! Why? Well, Black Friday/Cyber Monday, of course. While it’s still a couple weeks away, that never stops deals from coming earlier and earlier every year, just like holiday decorations and pumpkin-spice-flavored everything. Check out early Black Friday Mac deals, below.

Update: The deals below saw updated on the runup to Black Friday and then again for Cyber Monday.

Setting a goal to read more is easy — sticking with it is the hard part. Even if you have every intention of finally cracking open a good book, social media is a cruel temptress. Those who are serious about reading more should check out Pearls, a book summary app for iOS.

Pearls boils down nonfiction books so it takes just 15 minutes to read or listen to them. And you can get a lifetime subscription for just $29.99 (regularly $99) during our Cyber Monday sale. You won’t find a better price anywhere else. Plus, a single subscription allows you to use Pearls on all your Apple devices (iOS/iPadOS only).

We don’t recall seeing low prices on standard iPads any lower than a couple you can find right now on Amazon for Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Those low price tags are on an iPad 10 (Wi-Fi only, 64GB) at $50 off as well as iPad 10 Wi-Fi + Cellular models for $50 off. Plus you can nab an iPad 9 model for up to a record $138 off, depending on which color you choose. Check the links below and gift yourself or someone else Apple’s entry-level tablet.

Update: Since we first called out the savings below on November 14, nearly every iPad Black Friday deal had gotten better. We also updated the post for Cyber Monday.

This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: With a slightly smarter Siri on the way in iOS 18.4, a new rumor indicates Apple might actually fix Siri once and for all … in 2026! We discuss the “LLM Siri” that supposedly will catch up with ChatGPT and other chatty competitors. As Apple refines its AI capabilities, companies like Buyback Boss are also innovating in tech resale and trade-in solutions. Find out more about the latest updates.

But the question remains: Can Apple really afford to wait that long to make its AI assistant less of a laughingstock?

Also on The CultCast:

• New rumors and renders show what the iPhone 17 lineup might look like.
• Uh-oh: We’ve got bad news about AirPods Max.
• And finally, Griffin talks up a solid — and much cheaper — stand-in for Apple’s Studio Display in an all-new Under Review.

Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.

London’s iconic Battersea Power Station is decorated with a sort of enormous Christmas card starring the beloved characters Wallace & Gromit.

The short animation of the man, his dog, and their Christmas trees was filmed on an iPhone 16 Pro Max and then projected onto the 101-meter (330 foot) chimneys that rise above the River Thames.

The best Cyber Monday deals on Beats headphones and earbuds are now live. You can get many Beats headphones and earbuds at their lowest prices ever. A fresh price drop on Beats’ flagship headphones — the Beats Studio Pro — brings a whopping $190 discount. At just $159.99, they make a great alternative to other premium headphones.

December 1, 1981: After the disastrous rollout of the “next-gen” Apple III the previous year, Apple corrects the computer’s most glaring hardware faults and relaunches it. The revised edition of the Apple III

Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. Apple experiences its first “flop” product with the Apple II’s doomed successor.

If you want the biggest and highest-capacity external hard drive, Cyber Monday is the time to buy.

I have a personal recommendation on a Thunderbolt enclosure that fits four full-size hard drives or SSDs, so you can get the fastest storage in enormous capacities. I’ve used the OWC ThunderBay 4 for about a year (having purchased the hard drive last Black Friday, coincidentally enough) and it’s served me well for all my odd purposes.

Here’s how to get the fastest, biggest external storage this shopping season.

Apple charges too damn much for additional storage for Macs and iPads. I got tired of overpaying for internal storage and went for an external SSD instead. The Kingston XS1000 is my favorite — portable, reliable and affordable.

And it’s an even better deal now that Cyber Monday is coming up: under $75 for a terabyte of storage.

A Cyber Monday sale on a four-pack of AirTags brings the Apple tracker close to its lowest price ever. Each AirTag costs just $18.25 after a 26% discount from Amazon. If you’d prefer a single tracker, you can get a solo AirTag for up to 14% off the usual price from Best Buy. Use these Cyber Monday AirTag deals to stock up on Apple’s tracking tags.

AirTags are a great way to keep you from leaving important items behind, or to help you find them if you misplace them.

There are plenty of great Apple deals this Cyber Monday 2024—but not from Apple directly. As usual, Apple keeps its discounts minimal (Tim Cook loves his big fat profits!). This year, you can get up to a $200 gift card with select purchases, but the newest products, like the iPhone 16, M4 MacBook Pros, iMac, and Apple Watch Ultra 2, aren’t included.

That said, third-party retailers like Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and B&H Photo are offering significant discounts on a ton of Apple gear. From AirPods to iPhones, Apple Watches, and iPads, you’ll find some fantastic deals. Here’s a roundup of the best offers we’ve come across.

Apple’s cheapest iPad just got cheaper. The iPad 10th-generation, the cheapest iPad in Apple’s lineup, is on sale for just $279.

This is a great deal for the best entry-level iPad Apple has made for years. It’s the iPad I recommend to most people. I just bought one myself. The price was just too good to pass up.

I love soundcore’s Sleep A20 earbuds. So far, I’ve really only tried one feature, but it is the only one I need: low-frequency masking. It lets these comfortable sleep earbuds effectively block out the sound of snoring.

November 30, 2003: Apple expands its retail chain outside the United States for the first time, opening an Apple Store in Tokyo’s trendy Ginza shopping district.

On opening day, thousands of Apple fans — possibly the biggest queue in Apple history — line up around the block in the rain to gain early access to the store, which offers five full floors of Apple product goodness.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs does not show up for the opening of the 73rd Apple Store. However, shoppers hear a welcoming speech from Eiko Harada, president of Apple Japan.

We’ve seen loads of Apple Watch deals in Black Friday sales, but this refurbished Apple Watch Series 8 looks pretty good. It’s an incredible discount on a smartwatch that tracks your steps, keeps you in the loop with your notifications and offers cellular connectivity.

Strap one on while it’s price-dropped to just $219.99 during our Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. Whether you’re treating yourself or someone special to this Apple Watch, you’ll want to act while supplies still last.