Newsletter #436 Preview: When is the Best Time to Buy New Apple Hardware?
April 6th, 2008Let me tell you a true story. On a Monday earlier this year, I went to the local AT&T factory store and bought an 8GB iPhone. Well, the very next day Apple introduced a 16GB version for $100 more.
For a very brief moment, I wondered if I had made a silly mistake. Usually I have managed to time my purchases of Apple products fairly accurately, buying new gear shortly after a new model came out. However, I mistakenly assumed that the next iPhone wouldn’t come out till June, and it would be the version with support for the speedier 3G network.
Yes, I was blindsided by one of Apple’s famous Tuesday morning surprises, but I decided to keep the iPhone anyway. For one thing, I only filled roughly 25% of the unit’s storage capacity after the initial setup. You see, though I have a fairly decent music collection, I haven’t really bothered to rip many of my CDs to iTunes, and I only did that as necessary. My purchases at iTunes have been irregular, so it would be quite some time before I’d come close to filling my iPhone’s capacity.
So I decided to take the fiercely logical approach, and keep the 8GB iPhone. What did I do with the $100 I saved? I invested $69 for AppleCare, which extends the warranty for two full years, and used the balance to take my son out to lunch.
Buy the way, he has the 160GB iPod classic, and, because of its limited capacity, would never even consider getting an iPhone. But why does he always want to use mine for a short period whenever he visits?
Story continued in this week’s Tech Night Owl Newsletter.
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hey you just go to mac rumors .com they have a buyers guide its pretty sweet
After keeping my reliable iMac DV for almost 6 years, I bought a new iMac G5 in November 2005, a month after it was introduced. I figured I would have the latest version of the iMac for maybe 6-8 months, but we all know what happened in January 2006.
Well, it’s also true that Apple kind of beat their own deadline about Intel-based hardware, but it was on the horizon in November 2005.
Then again I got a Power Mac G5 Quad in the March of 2006 (5 months before the Mac Pro came out — though I expected it), but I happily used it for another two years before it was in the hands of its new owner.
Peace,
Gene
Had the same problem with my Santa Rosa MacBook, bought it three weeks before the latest refresh.
Yes, it can be a bummer to buy something and have it obsoleted two weeks later. But there’s a flip side to this. Consider cars. If you want to buy a new car the best time is at the end of summer, when dealerships are clearing out this year’s model to make room for next year’s. They’re so eager to ditch their old inventory that they’re really in a mood to deal. If you don’t insist on having the latest and the greatest and are willing to settle for last year’s model (which usually is a darned good machine, come to think of it), something of the same sort is true for computers as well, you can save some money if you buy one of this kind right before or right after the new model makes its debut.