As imported American traditions go, Black Friday has plenty to recommend it.
Consumers get lower prices on products that normally cost a fortune; retailers get to focus their marketing on a shorter period of the year and enjoy a predictable boost to their income; and websites like the one you're currently reading get to act as deals hunters and advise readers on which ones to go for and which to avoid (and get some affiliate revenue at the same time). It's win-win-win.
It's important, however, not to get caught up in the general sense of capitalist mania, which can sometimes distort the true value of the deals being offered. My suspicion is that this year a sense of perspective will be more vital than ever, and we may even need to say the unsayable: this is shaping up to be a fairly disappointing Black Friday.
The chips are down
The problem is a little something called the global semiconductor shortage, which started last year as a result of COVID-19, the US/China trade war and a few other factors. It meant automobile and electronics manufacturers struggled to get enough chips for their products, and slowed down multiple major industries... yet Apple, able to merrily leverage its market position for preferential treatment, escaped largely unscathed.
But worldwide component shortages catch up with all of us in the end, and this year Apple has been just as afflicted as everyone else. At its Q4 earnings call last month the company revealed it had left roughly $6bn on the table because the supply chain couldn't meet demand, and warned of Christmas shortages of iPhones and iPads. We've since observed long Mac delivery times, too.
All of this means that, more than ever, demand will outweigh supply this autumn and winter. Apple and the third-party retailers that stock its products will have fewer items than usual, and consequently less incentive to discount them heavily, Black Friday or no Black Friday: indeed, they will probably be able to sell at RRP and still shift all of their inventory.
In other words, prepare yourself for crap deals.
How to beat the system
That's the theory, anyway. And it's happening in practice, too. Not in every single area, but in many key ones.
Our roundup of the best iPhone deals, for example - and it's largely representative - has a few appealing offers on older models (the ones where there's older stock left in retailers' warehouses, in other words) but almost nothing on the new ones. The iPhone 13 Pro Max is available for RRP, and you may struggle to find stock of that; the one site that dared to knock 1% off the price immediately ran out of units. You can get the 1% discount on the 13 Pro, but only in one of the colours - and it may well have run out by the time you get there.
And this is the difficulty. The few significant discounts on up-to-date products will go quickly, so you'll need to move fast. But you still have to apply critical thinking: is this something you actually need? Is the product worth having? Does the deal offer genuine value? And someone who's rushing to secure a deal is not in a good position to read reviews, track price history and shop around other retailers.
As mentioned at the top of the article, we're in the business of hunting down worthwhile deals, and we'll do our best to help you find good prices on products you actually need. I've embedded our list of the best current deals below this article, and you'll find detailed advice in our best Apple deals roundup; remember to move fast if you see something that's right for you.
But here's a tip you might want to bear in mind: Apple's gift card promotion, which most years we find distinctly underwhelming (not least because the 'saving' applies to the next thing you buy, not the one you're currently buying) could come up trumps in 2021. The value of the gift cards - up to £160/$200 - is actually higher than last year, and they're very much better than nothing.
Sadly there is a catch: Apple isn't bundling gift cards with the very latest generation of products, which means this isn't a solution for those who had their eye on an iPhone 13 Pro Max. But it's like the old saying: in the kingdom of the crap deals, the slightly better deal is king.
Different Think is a weekly column, published every Tuesday, in which Macworld writers expose their less mainstream opinions to public scrutiny. We've defended the notch, advised Apple to ditch Lightning and forget the Apple Car, and argued that Tim Cook is a better CEO than Steve Jobs. Phew, that last one was controversial. See you next week for more left-field opinions.
