Apple’s Black Friday Offerings: a Disappointment?

Apple fans in, Australia and the U.S., were disappointed by Apple’s Black Friday sale. Instead of the small discount that they usually offer customers on most of their products, the American and Australian stores offered Apple gift cards with a purchase of certain products. So no sale prices for anyone that was hoping to get a discounted iPhone and massive disappointment for anyone that passed up the deals at other stores hoping Apple would come through.

The gift cards aren’t even that big of a deal because they aren’t even offered on the products that consumers wanted. If you were hoping for the new iPad mini Retina or one of the new iPhones then you are out of luck, at least at the Apple stores.

Target is offering a $75 gift card with the purchase of an iPad mini Retina and Walmart was offering a $75 gift card for purchasing an iPhone 5C or 5S. Both these offers are better than anything Apple is giving because the gift cards are for the respective stores, meaning that you can pply the gift cards towards the rest of your Christmas shopping, unlike the Apple offers which only apply to Apple stores and their products.

If you want even more reason to buy your Apple products elese where today then look at the gift cards they are offering with certain products:

iPad Air

With each purchase of an iPad Air you will get a $75 Apple gift card, Target is offering $100 Target gift card.

Ipad mini or iPad 2

If you want to get one from Apple then you will receive a $50 Apple gift card, Walmart offered $100 Walmart gift card as their doorbuster bargain and Best Buy matched this earlier in the week with their own $100 gift card.Target offered a $75 Target gift card for the purchase of an original Ipad mini and $100 gift card for an iPad 2.

Mac Computers (MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac)

Apple stores are offering $150 Apple gift cards, however Best Buy was slashing prices by $150 or $200, depending on the configuration.

Other offerings from Apple include the iPod touch with a $50 gift card, the iPod nano with a $25 gift card and other miscellaneous Apple products. Apple is also offering their gift cards with some of the third-party products such as the Nike+ FuelBand SE, and PowerBeats headphones.

The part that is sure to annoy most consumers is that the European stores appear to have offered some discounts this morning, but even those discounts weren’t on many of the products people wanted.

• iPad Air – £31-61 (save $50 – $99)
• iPad mini – £15 (save $24)
• iPad mini Retina – no discount
• iPod touch – £25 (save $40)
• iPod nano: £11 (save $17)
• MacBook Air: £81 (save $132)
• MacBook Pro: £81 (save $132)
• iMac: Save £81 (save $132)
• Apple TV: £15 (save $24)

image courtesy of wikimedia commons

Originally posted 2013-11-29 14:10:53.