Several readers have noticed that our Buyer's Guide has recently changed the iPhone recommendation to "Don't Buy - Updates Soon" despite no recent rumors about a new iPhone update.
The Buyer's Guide generates some of its recommendations automatically based on historic product life cycles. For a product like the iPhone, however, which has only been on the market for a short period of time, these product cycles can be less predictive.
The relatively short product cycles for the iPhone reflect the fact that Apple has made regular adjustments to the iPhone's price and storage capacity. Only 2 months after its initial release in 2007, Apple dropped the price of the 8GB iPhone down $200. Then in February, Apple boosted the maximum storage capacity of the iPhone from 8GB to 16GB.
These regular short updates are why the Buyer's Guide recommendation has changed, but Apple has said they are not going to be updating any more products in 2008. So, any new updates wouldn't realistically be seen until early 2009. And Apple has said that they will continue to improve and aggressively price the iPhone in the future.
Regardless, readers should probably wait until Friday before buying any new Apple hardware since Apple and other retailers will be offering Black Friday After Thanksgiving sales. BestBuy, PowerMax and Amazon are already advertising their Black Friday sales, and we believe that both Apple and MacMall will also be offering their traditional discounts on Friday. Last year's discounts were as high as $300 off high end MacBook Pros.
Sunday September 15, 2024 10:09 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Following over three months of beta testing, iOS 18 was finally widely released to the public on Monday, September 16. The update is available in the Settings app under General → Software Update on the iPhone XS and newer. Below, we have highlighted eight key new features included in iOS 18, and Apple shared a complete list of new features and changes last week. Note that Apple...
Monday September 16, 2024 3:56 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
It's that time of year again. Apple is about to release iOS 18, which promises to bring a range of new features and improvements to iPhones worldwide. It's Apple's biggest software update of the year, and the company is expected to release it sometime today – Monday, September 16. Based on past releases, the update is likely to drop at around 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time/1:00 p.m. Eastern...
Sunday September 15, 2024 5:29 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple will likely hold another event in October this year to announce new Macs and iPads. If so, it would be the fourth time in the last five years that Apple has held an event in October. Last year, Apple held a virtual event on Monday, October 30 to announce new MacBook Pro and iMac models with the M3 series of chips. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reiterated...
Monday September 16, 2024 11:40 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple has seemingly leaked the rumored next-generation Mac mini with five USB-C ports, according to a code change within Apple software that was discovered today by MacRumors contributor Aaron Perris. The code refers to an unreleased Mac mini model with an Apple silicon chip and five ports, which lines up with a previous report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman that said the next Mac mini will be ...
Sunday September 15, 2024 3:58 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo today said demand for the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max has been "lower than expected" since the devices became available to pre-order in the U.S. and dozens of other countries on Friday. Kuo said his data is based on a "supply chain survey" and shipping estimates listed on Apple's online store. Kuo estimated that sales of all four iPhone 16 models reached...
Friday September 13, 2024 2:40 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models simultaneously, which is why we sometimes get rumored feature leaks so far ahead of launch. The iPhone 17 series is no different – already we have some idea of what to expect from Apple's 2025 smartphone lineup. If you plan to skip...
