The best deals of the week include all-time low prices on the 9th generation iPad and M1 MacBook Air, as well as solid discounts on Samsung monitors and Anker accessories.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
One of the most notable deals of the week focused on the 9th generation of Apple's iPad. You can get the 64GB Wi-Fi iPad for $249.99 on Amazon, which is $79 off and the best price we've ever tracked on the tablet.
Samsung is still discounting the new model of its 32-inch Smart Monitor M8, available for $599.99, down from $699.99. This monitor launched in June with updates including HDR10+ support and a portrait orientation option, and this sale price is the lowest we've seen to date. You can also save on a few other monitors, listed below.
Anker returned this week with notable discounts on its line of Bluetooth trackers, wall chargers, portable batteries, and more. You can find the full list of discounts in our original article.
This week, Amazon continued to provide an all-time low price on the 256GB M1 MacBook Air. You can get this notebook for $749.99 in all three colors, down from $999.00.
The AirPods 3 hit $139.99 this week on Amazon, down from $169.00. This is a match for Amazon's all-time low price on the AirPods 3 with Lightning Charging Case.
If you're on the hunt for more discounts, be sure to visit our Apple Deals roundup where we recap the best Apple-related bargains of the past week.
Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Wednesday December 10, 2025 2:52 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Google Maps on iOS quietly gained a new feature recently that automatically recognizes where you've parked your vehicle and saves the location for you.
Announced on LinkedIn by Rio Akasaka, Google Maps' senior product manager, the new feature auto-detects your parked location even if you don't use the parking pin function, saves it for up to 48 hours, and then automatically removes it once...
Thursday December 11, 2025 11:28 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3 and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B30, up from 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 firmware is 8B28, up from 8B21.
There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods Pro 3 are getting expanded support for Live Translation in the European Union in iOS...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Apple has ordered 22 million OLED panels from Samsung Display for the first foldable iPhone, signaling a significantly larger production target than the display industry had previously anticipated, ET News reports.
In the now-seemingly deleted report, ET News claimed that Samsung plans to mass-produce 11 million inward-folding OLED displays for Apple next year, as well as 11 million...
Thursday December 11, 2025 10:31 am PST by Juli Clover
The AirTag 2 will include a handful of new features that will improve tracking capabilities, according to a new report from Macworld. The site says that it was able to access an internal build of iOS 26, which includes references to multiple unreleased products.
Here's what's supposedly coming:
An improved pairing process, though no details were provided. AirTag pairing is already...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. iOS 26.2 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Friday December 5, 2025 9:40 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to release iOS 26.2, the second major point update for iPhones since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least 15 notable changes and improvements worth checking out. We've rounded them up below.
Apple is expected to roll out iOS 26.2 to compatible devices sometime between December 8 and December 16. When the update drops, you can check Apple's servers for the ...
Thursday December 11, 2025 4:02 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple is working on a smart home hub that will rely heavily on the more capable version of Siri that's coming next year. We've heard quite a bit about the hub over the last two years, but a recent iOS 26 code leak provides additional insight into what we can expect and confirms rumored features.
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Macworld claims to have access to an ...
It seems that MacBooks with decent storage and RAM never go on sale, only the base models or bumped up storage but base RAM models. It seems that Apple has a strategy and retailer pricing policy to ensure that.
The back to school promo is the only discount for the higher RAM models.
The problem is I always just want the 256GB iPad 9th gen not the 64GB one. The iPad 9th gen would be a perfect upgrade because I have the 7th gen with all the accessories and the 9th gen is identical in dimension.
The problem is I always just want the 256GB iPad 9th gen not the 64GB one. The iPad 9th gen would be a perfect upgrade because I have the 7th gen with all the accessories and the 9th gen is identical in dimension.
For me, the 9th gen iPad using lightning works out b/c it's the same I use for my iPod Touch 5. I've recently been playing some games again on there (continuing what I put on hiatus for 5+ years!!). Otherwise, I use it as a glorified calculator, flashlight, and stop watch :D It's light weight and very slim size does make it convenient for that! :)
The price difference between these two ($140 for 192gb extra) is about double the cost of a 2tb SSD nowadays:
Hard to see the 256gb as a deal when they’re marking up storage by 1000%.
[shrug]... don't know what to say, other than, that's Apple in-a-nutshell? If you buy the lesser (storage) one, then you may be more inclined to sub to iCloud+? If you get the larger storage one, then you're more likely to get into multimedia, which could mean more $$ for then, in addition to paying that markup? Either way, it's a win for Apple.
FWIW, storage on an external or internal SSD or hdd can't exactly be a 1-to-1 comparison between storage on devices, as the latter means you get that available on the device. I recall somebody brought this up for the Palm Tungsten X PDA, and they did counter that being able to buy the extra 140-something MB for dirt cheap on a USB thumb drive does those users no good. Still, your point about insane markups stand.
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I got an 9th gen iPad back in Nov. 2011. I really wanted the 256 GB model, but didn't want to pay an extra $150 for that extra storage. Really, 128 GB would've been ideal, but there was no such middleground. I ended up going for the 64 GB model b/c it was $30 off (at $300), while there was no sale on the 256-one. I estimated that would be enough since most of the video games I'd have on there were digital board games. The one curve ball ended up being the Apple Arcade free trial. Some of those games are large, and can take up 1 GB+ apiece! I ended up not renewing AA after my free trial expired. I went on vacation, got a few non-AA games on iOS, and some Android games to boot, and that ended up keeping me plenty occupied in terms of gaming.
It ended up working out anyways, as not only did I still not have interest to go back to AA (I would've done so for $45/yr via Costco), I ended up getting a Switch as a gift! All of the free time that I would've spent on AA is now on that! And while I did like some of the games on AA, and it was very affordable, the Switch is a dedicated gaming console with a strong lineup, so can't really compete with that. And that's before we count in that I'm a fan of Nintendo games! If I didn't get the iPad back then, I don't think I could see myself springing for the 9th-gen 64 GB model given such a discount. (also hard to think this is less than what I used to pay for iPod Touches! :oops: )
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.
