Black Friday has arrived early for Apple enthusiasts, and this year's deals are genuinely impressive. Current discounts span across Apple's entire product lineup, with savings that rival or exceed previous Black Friday events. The iPad Pro is seeing unprecedented $400 discounts, while MacBook Air models are starting as low as $749. What makes this deal season particularly noteworthy is the timing—retailers are offering these substantial savings weeks before traditional Black Friday shopping begins.
Based on my years of tracking Apple deals, this represents a major shift. I've never seen discounts this deep appear so early in the season, especially on current-generation hardware. The combination of aggressive retailer competition and what appears to be healthy inventory levels has created an unusual window of opportunity for consumers.
Why these iPad Pro discounts are breaking records
The iPad Pro deals this season represent something we rarely see from Apple's premium tablet lineup. Having tracked Apple pricing for over a decade, I can tell you these discounts are genuinely unprecedented for flagship tablets this current.
The M5 iPad Pro models are available with $50 off at Amazon, bringing the 11-inch model down to $949 and the 13-inch variant to $1,249. But here's where it gets interesting—the iPad Pro is seeing up to $400 off across various retailers, which represents the deepest discounts we've tracked on Apple's flagship tablet.
The performance story behind these deals makes them even more compelling. The M5 iPad Pro delivers approximately 6.7 times faster performance than the M1 for professional rendering, making it a legitimate laptop replacement for creative workflows like video editing, 3D rendering, and complex photo manipulation. For architects using Vectorworks or video editors working with 4K footage in LumaFusion, that M5 chip isn't just a spec sheet boost—it translates to actual time savings in daily work.
What's particularly noteworthy is how these discounts hit different storage configurations. The 1TB and 2TB models, which come with the full 10-core CPU and 16GB of RAM, are seeing some of the steepest percentage discounts. This creates an unusual situation where professional-grade iPad Pros are becoming accessible at price points that were previously reserved for mid-tier configurations.
MacBook Air pricing hits sweet spot for mainstream buyers
The MacBook Air deals deserve special attention because they're targeting exactly the price points that make Apple laptops accessible to students, remote workers, and anyone who's been on the fence about switching to Mac. The M4 MacBook Air is available starting at $749, while M3 models are seeing discounts up to $600 off.
This pricing strategy puts the MacBook Air squarely in competition with premium Windows ultrabooks from Dell, HP, and Lenovo—but with some significant advantages. Apple updated the MacBook Air with M4 chips in March 2025, featuring improved performance and support for up to two external 6K displays. If you've been frustrated by the single external monitor limitation of previous MacBook Airs, this addresses one of the biggest complaints from remote workers and productivity enthusiasts.
The real-world impact of these improvements is substantial. For someone setting up a home office with dual monitors, the new MacBook Air eliminates the need for expensive workarounds or settling for lower resolution displays. The M4 chip brings genuine performance improvements too—think faster export times in Final Cut Pro, smoother multitasking with multiple browser windows and Slack running simultaneously, and better performance in productivity apps like Excel with large datasets.
The timing of these discounts suggests Apple is confident about demand for the M4 models. Typically, we'd see discounts on older generation hardware while new models stay at full price. The fact that M4 MacBook Airs are already seeing meaningful price reductions indicates either very strong sales performance or strategic positioning for the holiday market.
M5 MacBook Pro enters the discount game surprisingly early
Perhaps the most unexpected development is seeing the brand-new M5 MacBook Pro already participating in deal season. Apple recently refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with the M5 chip, and the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 processor is already over $50 off at Amazon.
From a market timing perspective, this is unusual. Apple's newest MacBook Pro models typically maintain full retail pricing for months after launch. The fact that we're seeing discounts within weeks of release suggests either exceptionally strong sales numbers or a more aggressive approach to holiday season positioning than we've seen before.
For buyers, this creates an interesting decision point. Higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected in early 2026, which means current M5 base model buyers are getting the newest architecture at a discount before the complete professional lineup launches.
This positioning makes sense for users who need professional-grade performance for software development, content creation, or data analysis, but don't require the extreme computational power of the Pro or Max variants. The base M5 chip still delivers substantial improvements over the M4, particularly in machine learning tasks and video encoding—areas where the architectural improvements shine.
The bigger picture: Apple's evolving pricing strategy
These deals reflect a sophisticated shift in how Apple approaches pricing and market positioning. The data tells a compelling story: The entry-level iPad surged to 38% of U.S. unit sales in 2024, suggesting that even within Apple's premium ecosystem, price sensitivity has become a significant factor in purchase decisions.
This trend indicates broader economic pressures affecting even Apple's traditionally affluent customer base. The current deal season appears designed to address this reality while maintaining Apple's premium positioning—a delicate balance that requires strategic discounting rather than across-the-board price cuts.
Apple's pricing strategy follows a "Good, Better, Best" structure, and these deals effectively lower the entry threshold for each tier without disrupting the overall hierarchy. This approach serves multiple strategic purposes: it makes Apple products accessible to price-conscious consumers while creating upgrade paths that maintain ecosystem lock-in and long-term customer value.
The ecosystem implications are particularly important. Once customers invest in Apple hardware at these discounted prices, they're more likely to purchase accessories, services, and additional devices over time. A customer who buys a discounted MacBook Air today might add AirPods, an iPhone upgrade, and iCloud storage over the next year—creating long-term revenue that justifies the initial discount.
What this means for your upgrade timeline
Bottom line: if you've been considering an Apple upgrade, this deal season presents genuinely compelling opportunities across the product lineup. The combination of substantial discounts on current-generation hardware, plus early availability of deals on Apple's newest products, creates a rare alignment of value and performance.
Black Friday sales are expected to start officially on November 28, 2025, but the current deals already match or exceed what we typically see during peak shopping events. Based on my tracking of Apple deals over multiple years, waiting for "better" Black Friday pricing is increasingly risky—these early deals often represent the best opportunities before inventory constraints kick in.
For anyone in the market for a new iPad, MacBook, or other Apple hardware, here's my recommendation: focus on matching the right device tier to your specific needs rather than waiting for potentially better deals later.
If you're doing basic computing tasks—web browsing, document editing, media consumption, and light creative work—those discounted MacBook Air models represent exceptional value. The M4 chip provides substantial performance headroom for typical use cases, and that 18-hour battery life means you're not constantly tethered to power outlets.
For professional workflows that demand more computational power—4K video editing, software development with large codebases, 3D rendering, or data science work—the early discounts on M5 MacBook Pro models provide access to cutting-edge performance at more reasonable prices. The architectural improvements in the M5 chip deliver real benefits for CPU-intensive and GPU-accelerated tasks.
The iPad Pro deals are particularly compelling for creative professionals who've been considering tablet-based workflows. That M5 chip makes these devices viable laptop alternatives for tasks that were previously desktop-only territory. Whether you're an illustrator who needs the responsiveness of Apple Pencil on that OLED display, or a video editor who can benefit from the M5's rendering capabilities, these discounted prices make professional-grade iPads accessible in ways we haven't seen before.
The key insight here is timing—these prices represent the best value we've seen on Apple products in years, and inventory constraints during peak shopping periods could make some deals harder to find later in the season.
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