Apple launches its Black Friday sales event, but these deals already beat it

Some excellent Apple Black Friday deals are starting to surface ahead of the big event, but now Apple has given us an alternative with its 'Apple Store Shopping Event'. This kicks off on November 24, but offers gifts cards – rather than discounts – on some select products.
Apple says its event will run from November 24 through to the end of November 27 (in other words, Black Friday to Cyber Monday) and right now all we have is a preview of the gift card offers (see table below), rather than an exhaustive list.
Still, that's enough to give us an idea of what potential deals are in store – and overall, most of them are unlikely to beat the best Black Friday deals on Apple gear that you'll be able to find from retailers.
Firstly, because Apple is only offering gifts cards on your next purchase, rather than discounts, they're only really a saving if you know you're going to buy something else from Apple in the near future (for example, an accessory for your new Mac).
Also, Apple has omitted some of its best (and most recent) launches from its list of qualifying products for its shopping event. For example, the 'up to $75 / £60 gift card' on select iPhones doesn't include the iPhone 15 series. Fortunately, you can find discounts on Apple's latest models in our Black Friday iPhone deals guide
The 9th-gen iPad 10.2 (2021) doesn't qualify for the 'up to $100 / £80 gift card' offered on other iPads, which could have made it a real bargain. But again, you can still pick up that 9th-gen iPad for only $229 from Amazon right now (even if it appears to now be out of stock at Amazon UK).
If you're ready to start planning your Apple Black Friday strategy, here's the list of all of its Shopping Event gift cards so far – and further down you can see the best early Black Friday Apple deals that we've unearthed, too.
Apple Store Shopping Event deals
Row 0 - Cell 0 | Gift card | Models |
iPhone | Up to $75 / £60 gift card | iPhone 14, iPhone 13, iPhone SE |
Mac | Up to $200 / £160 gift card | MacBook Air, Mac mini |
iPad | Up to $100 / £80 gift card | iPad Pro, iPad Air, iPad (10th gen), iPad mini |
Watch | $50 / £40 gift card | Watch Series 9, Watch SE |
AirPods | Up to $75 / £60 gift card | AirPods (2nd gen), AirPods (3rd gen), AirPods Pro (2nd gen), AirPods Max |
Apple TV | Up to $50 / £40 gift card | Apple TV 4K |
HomePod | Up to $50 / £40 gift card | HomePod |
Beats | Up to $50 / £40 gift card | Beats Studio Pro, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Powerbeats Pro, Beats Fit Pro, Beats Studio Buds +, Beats Studio Buds, Beats Flex |
Accessories | Up to $50 / £40 gift card | Magic Keyboard, Magic Keyboard Folio, Apple Pencil (2nd generation), Smart Keyboard Folio |
Best Apple Black Friday deals so far (US)
Best Apple Black Friday deals so far (UK)
More Apple deals:
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Mark is TechRadar's Senior news editor. Having worked in tech journalism for a ludicrous 17 years, Mark is now attempting to break the world record for the number of camera bags hoarded by one person. He was previously Cameras Editor at both TechRadar and Trusted Reviews, Acting editor on Stuff.tv, as well as Features editor and Reviews editor on Stuff magazine. As a freelancer, he's contributed to titles including The Sunday Times, FourFourTwo and Arena. And in a former life, he also won The Daily Telegraph's Young Sportswriter of the Year. But that was before he discovered the strange joys of getting up at 4am for a photo shoot in London's Square Mile.