Live: Apple kit gets record price cuts – first major MacBook Pro M5 discount for Black Friday

My surprise want of the season are AirTags. I never thought I'd need them due to the FindMy feature on my tech. BUt someone mentioned to me that they put them in their luggage, and even attach them to their kids on a day out. Genius. They're currently at a record low price of $64/£74 for 4 at Amazon.

What are AirTags?

AirTags are small, lightweight tracking devices designed to help you keep track of everyday items like keys, bags, wallets and luggage. You pair them with your iPhone, attach or place one on the item you want to monitor, and then use the Find My app to locate it. When the item is nearby, your phone can guide you with sound, distance and direction, making it easy to find something that’s slipped behind a sofa or been left in another room.

If it’s further away, the AirTag relies on Apple’s vast Find My network, using nearby Apple devices to anonymously relay its location back to you. The battery lasts about a year and is easily replaceable. AirTags also include built-in safety features to prevent unwanted tracking: your phone alerts you if an unknown AirTag is travelling with you. Overall, they’re a simple, reliable way to reduce the stress of losing important items.

So far, all the Apple deals I've seen are beating the previous lowest price on the kit.

And there are deals on this model, too. You can get it for $274/£299 right now at Amazon, which is excellent value for its feature set.

If you'd rather not spend loads, or you think you need something less powerful then there's the basic iPad model – and this is really good value for the tech you get.

The basic iPad is a solid entry-level option for creatives who want an affordable way to draw, design or edit on the go. Our reviewer loved it. Its Liquid Retina display offers good brightness and clarity, giving you a comfortable canvas for sketching, painting and light photo work.

It supports the first-generation Apple Pencil, providing pressure and tilt sensitivity that’s perfectly adequate for beginners or casual artists, even if it lacks some of the refined features of newer Pencil models. The A-series chip inside is capable enough for layered artwork, note-taking, digital journaling and simple graphic design, keeping up with most everyday creative tasks without fuss.

The main trade-off is the non-laminated display, which creates a small gap between the glass and the pixels, making the stylus feel slightly less precise and more “glassy.” Still, for those starting their creative journey or working on a budget, the basic iPad offers great value and plenty of creative potential.

And there are deals on the Air!

There's $100 off the latest iPad Air, bringing it to $499 at Amazon.

The iPad Air is an excellent choice for creatives who want power and portability without jumping to the highest-end models. Its Liquid Retina display is sharp, bright and colour accurate, making it a comfortable canvas for illustration, painting, photo editing and general design work.

Paired with the Apple Pencil, it offers precise pressure and tilt response that feels natural for sketching, shading and detail work across apps like Procreate, Fresco and Affinity. Inside, the M-series chip delivers plenty of performance for layered artwork, graphic design, photo adjustments and even light video editing, giving you a desktop-level experience in a slim, lightweight form.

While the 60 Hz refresh rate isn’t as buttery smooth as the Pro models, most artists find it more than capable for everyday creative flow, and our iPad M3 Air review agrees. Overall, the iPad Air strikes a sweet spot: powerful, accurate, easy to carry and ideal for creators who want serious capability without the premium price.

And are there any deals on the iPad Pro?

Well, yes. There is a nice $100 pr £70 off the M5 iPad Pro - this is the newest, most powerful Apple tablet on offer right now.

And previous models are reduced too, with the M4 iPad {ro hitting $899 at Target.

If you’re a creative – an illustrator, designer, video editor, or digital artist – the Apple iPad Pro really shines as a portable, powerful creative studio. It delivers a ProMotion 120 Hz display with bright, colour-accurate screen and high refresh rate, which means strokes feel fluid and responsive when drawing – ideal for apps like Procreate, Adobe Fresco or Affinity Designer.

Paired with the Apple Pencil, it offers pressure sensitivity and tilt detection, enabling fine control over line weight, shading, and detail – close to real pen-and-paper feel.

Its hardware is powerful enough for heavy workloads – multi-layer illustrations, high-res graphics, video editing, 3D modelling. That makes it much more than a sketchpad; it’s a full creative workstation.

It’s portable and flexible: small enough to carry with you, but with screen size and performance strong enough to replace a desktop when needed – perfect for creative work on the move.

But of course, it isn't just MacBooks we're looking at.

If you want an iPad, there are good options today. FIrst of all you might be wondering which iPad you need.

See our handy iPad generations guide to find out which tablet would be best for you. And if you know already that you want one that's good for digital art, read our best iPad for drawing guide.

But you don't have to stick to the newest MacBooks. I'm typing on the M2 Air, from 2022, and it's still running super-sweetly. It's more than powerful enough for all my light creative tasks like photo editing – and it's super cheap right now at £699 at Argos. See our MacBook Air M2 review here.

So if you read that guide below and decided you'd like a MacBook Air, there's a fab deal on the most recent one – the M4. The 13-inch version is reduced by $250 to $749 at Amazon (or the same deal at Best Buy). For context, this is actually a great deal - it took ages for the M1 to get that kind of price cut, and this is the newest model.

For the money you're getting a really capable laptop that is really portable and speedy enough to manage most light to medium creative tasks, like photo editing or short form video. You'll probably squeeze some heavier tasks out of it, but the screen size could be an issue if you're working on intense visuals. If so, try the 15-inch version, which is also reduced by $200 to $999.

We have been running these blogs for 7 years now so we really do have a great handle on what makes a good deal a good deal, and it isn't always worth getting the newest model.

As the day progresses, we'll give you our expert advice around which deals are great and which are just 'meh'. We'll be totally honest so you know you can trust us – we don't want you to get buyer's remorse.

As a starter, check out our MacBook Air vs MacBook Pro guide, which compares the models and lets you know which one you should invest in.

As a rule, if you value speed but portability, and don't have a mega heavy workflow – you'll be fine with the MacBook Air. But creatives with heavier needs - video editors or 3D artists - will want to go for the Pro.

And we're off! Welcome to the first day of our Apple Black Friday 2025 live blog.

We'll have our eyes open for Apple deals across all the retailers, and condensing them into easily digestible snippets for you to take note of in your deal-hunting.

So far, the dealscape is quite good. We're seeing some record-low prices, and though they mostly follow the usual Apple deals cycle, there is an unexpected discount on the M5 MacBook Pro – which was only released this year.

See that one below:

• Buy MacBook Pro M5 with $200 off

When we reviewed the MacBook Pro M5, we appreciated its speed and of course that stunning screen, and incredible battery life