Upgrade Your Apple Gear With These Great Black Friday Deals

It’s been a long time since we’ve been this excited about Apple. Last year’s Vision Pro is widely considered to be one of the company’s biggest flops, and the 10th anniversary of the Apple Watch was marred by the fact that the Apple Watch did not then have blood oxygen sensing due to a patent infringement lawsuit. But this year, Apple is back, baby! The thin, light iPhone Air was a huge redesign, the Apple Watch’s extended battery life was a long-overdue upgrade, and the AirPods Pro 3 are better than ever. Now, we get Apple Black Friday Deals.

If you’ve just discovered that your trusty old Apple Watch or AirPods have died, there has never been a better time to upgrade. Apple does not officially announce sales, but a host of retailers are offering discounts on many of Apple’s core products. Here’s the best Apple gear that’s still sale this weekend.

Don’t see anything you like? Check out our guide to the Absolute Best Black Friday Deals.

Updated on Saturday, November 29: We’ve added new deals on headphones, iPads, and the Mac Mini.

The Best Apple Watch Deals

This is the best Apple Watch for most people. If you have an Apple Watch, then not only your kid and your nana also probably needs an Apple Watch, and this one costs only $200 right now! Apple finally upgraded the Watch SE after many years, and it now has the latest S10 chip, which means that it can run all the WatchOS 26 updates, like the new Liquid Glass display, Workout Buddy, and wrist-flick gestures. It still cannot check your blood oxygen, take an electrocardiogram, or check for hypertension, so if you need those for an older relative, check out the next deals.

This year’s Series 11, with 24-hour battery life, is also on sale! This watch has everything you need, with the exception of satellite messaging. That’s along with the new suite of health features that comes with WatchOS 26, which includes hypertension notifications and the new (perhaps overly generous) Sleep Score.

The Best MacBook Deal

This is the best MacBook for most people. If you’re not a video editor or do many graphics-intensive tasks, then this is the MacBook you should probably buy. It has the M4 chip, the choice between an 8-core or 10-core GPU, and enough battery life for a full workday. It runs smoothly with about 30 to 35 tabs open. This is the MacBook that most WIRED staffers have (I’m writing this on an older one right now!), so if yours is about to die, you should get this.

Photograph: Brenda Stolyar

The Mac Mini is a computer designed to sit stationary on your desk, but now that it’s smaller than ever, so much so that you could toss it in a bag for hybrid work setups. The new Mac Mini sports incremental updates over its predecessor. This is still a great little computer, and you can build an affordable, stationary setup around it. This has plenty of power for most users, but is not going to compete with a gaming PC.

The Best iPad Deal

Everyone wants an iPad this year, mainly because of iPadOS 26 updates like window tiling that make it function much more like a computer. Now you can take a light tablet on vacation, watch movies, and get some work done! This is the best basic iPad, even if there’s not enough RAM to support Apple Intelligence (you may consider this a perk).

The Best Headphones

The AirPods Pro 3 just came out, but they’re already discounted for the holiday season. I’m expecting a lot of people to pick these up—there are more eartips, so they fit better than ever and are finally good workout headphones. In December, Apple will also drop more language translation options, adding support for Italian, Japanese, Korean, and simplified Chinese.

Apple

AirPods 4

The fourth generation AirPods are not favorites of our reviewers because of their rigid shape and mediocre sound, but they sure are convenient to toss in your bag and at this price you don’t have to feel too bad about misplacing them.

The Solo 4’s stark minimalism show Apple’s hand in the Beats brand, pointing instead to their slimline design, upgraded sound, and versatile core features. Highlights to this version include up to 50 hours of playback per charge, the ability to plug in with either 3.5-mm or USB-C for lossless audio and in-house features for both Android and Apple phones.

Photograph: Amazon

The Best Accessories

Power up with unlimited access to WIRED. Get best-in-class reporting and exclusive subscriber content that’s too important to ignore. Subscribe Today.