Below, we’ve rounded up some of the best deals that we’ve found on audio products of all kinds, from Apple’s own devices to various third-party options.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

AirPods

Multiple retailers are offering discounts on the AirPods with Charging Case and with Wireless Charging Case. Walmart has the best deal on the standard AirPods with charging case (no wireless charging), selling them for $129, which is a discount of $30 off of the regular $159 price.

As for the AirPods with Wireless Charging Case, the best online deal is from Amazon. The site is discounting the AirPods with Wireless Charging Case to $155, which is a discount of $44. That matches the lowest price we’ve ever seen on the AirPods with Wireless Charging Case.

If you happen to live near a Meijer store, though, you can get an even better deal. Meijer is selling the AirPods with Wireless Charging Case for just $149, a $50 discount off of the regular $199 price. The Meijer deal is available in-store only.

There are a few other lesser deals on the AirPods that we’re listing below in case any of the main deals sell out, but if you’re in the market for AirPods, make sure to check out Walmart and B&H Photo first.

• AirPods With Charging Case (Amazon) – $129 ($30 off)
• AirPods With Charging Case (Best Buy) – $140 ($20 off)
• AirPods With Charging Case (Target) – $145 ($15 off)
• AirPods With Wireless Charging Case (Target) (Best Buy) – $165 ($35 off)

AirPods Pro

There are no retailers offering specific Black Friday sales on the brand new AirPods Pro as they were just introduced in October, but Amazon has been selling the earbuds at the discounted price of $235 for a few weeks now.

HomePod

Best Buy has the most significant savings on the HomePod, dropping the price from $300 to $200, a $100 discount.

Beats Headphones

Other Speakers

• UE Wonderboom Speaker (Target) – $40, down from $80
• UE Boom 2 (Best Buy) – $70, down from $180
• UE Boom 3 (Ultimate Ears) – $120, down from $150
• MyBoom 3 (Ultimate Ears) – $150, down from $180
• Megaboom 3 (Ultimate Ears) – $170, down from $200
• Megablast (Ultimate Ears) – $200, down from $250
• JBL Charge 4 Speaker – $99, down from $180
• JBL Flip 4 Speaker (Best Buy) – $60, down from $100
• Bose SoundLink Revolve (Best Buy) – $120, down from $200
• Sonos Sub (Sonos) – $559, down from $699
• Sonos Playbar (Sonos) – $559, down from $699
• Sonos Playbase (Sonos) – $559, down from $699
• Sonos Amp (Sonos) – $479, down from $599
• Sonos Beam (Sonos) – $319, down from $399
• Bose Home Speaker 500 (Amazon) – $299, down from $399

Other Headphones

Make sure to check out our full Black Friday Roundup to find great deals on all of the best Apple products, accessories, and much more before the shopping event ends.

Almost every major store has discounts on products from companies like Google, Nest, Hue, and more, so we’ve rounded up some of the best smart home deals available this year below.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

HomeKit Products

Hue

Eve

LIFX

General Smart Home Products

Amazon and Ring

Google

Nest

Other

Make sure to check out our full Black Friday Roundup to find great deals on all of the best Apple products, accessories, and much more before the shopping event ends.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.

• Amazon has a lightning deal that includes $100 App Store and iTunes gift cards for $80, but only for Amazon Prime members. This one won’t last long.
• Best Buy has 20 percent off iTunes gift cards. This is one of the best all-around deals today, netting you the $100 iTunes gift card for just $80 in both digital and physical versions.
• Sam’s Club has a similar 20 percent sale, netting you a $100 iTunes card multi-pack of four $25 cards for $79.47. The retailer also has $50 iTunes gift cards for $42.98.
• Costco has $100 iTunes gift cards for $79.49 for a limited time. This sale will last through December 2, only two cards can be purchased per member, and the card will be delivered via email.
• Target is offering buy one, get one 30 percent off on iTunes gift cards, where the lower-priced gift card will be 30 percent off.
• BJ’s Wholesale has up to 15 percent off App Store and iTunes gift cards, aimed at $40 multipacks, $50 cards, and $100 cards.

Head to our full Black Friday Roundup to shop for all of the best Apple products, accessories, and much more before the shopping event ends.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group has claimed responsibility for the deadly knife-attack in London on Friday where a man was shot dead by police after he stabbed several people, including two fatally.

The group claimed responsibility on Saturday via its Amaq news agency without providing any evidence.

“The person who carried out the London attack… was a fighter from the Islamic State, and did so in response to calls to target citizens of coalition countries,” the statement read, referring to a multi-country alliance against the group.

Earlier on Saturday, British police said there was “no evidence” to suggest anyone other than the knife-wielding man believed by authorities to be responsible for the attack was involved in the assault which was deemed a “terrorist incident”.

More:

“However, we are still making extensive enquiries to ensure there were no other people involved,” Neil Basu, London’s Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner, said in a statement.

Police suspect the attack was carried out by 28-year-old Usman Khan, who was shot dead by police at the scene and had previously been imprisoned for “terrorism” offences.

Wearing a fake suicide vest and wielding knives, Khan is suspected to have begun the assault at a conference on criminal rehabilitation beside London Bridge.

Basu added that police carried out searches at addresses in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent in line with their probe into the incident. 

First victim named

The developments came as the first victim of the attack, which saw three others wounded, was named as 25-year-old Jack Merritt.

His father confirmed the death on Twitter, calling him a “a beautiful spirit who always took the side of the underdog”.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from London, said Merritt was a coordinator for prisoner rehabilitation programme Learning Together and had been attending the conference on Friday.

“This programme [Learning Together] was hosting the conference at Fishmongers Hall that was targeted by Khan … who a participant at this conference,” Challands said.

The other casualty of the attack has not yet been named. Health officials said two of the wounded were stable and the third had less serious injuries.

‘A complete disaster’

Friday’s attack has raised difficult questions for the UK government and security services.

Khan was convicted in 2012 for his part in an al-Qaeda-inspired plot to blow up the London Stock Exchange and sentenced to indeterminate detention, with a minimum jail term of eight years.

The sentence would have allowed authorities to imprison him beyond the minimum term, but in 2013 the Court of Appeal revised his sentence to a fixed-term of 16 years, of which half should be served in prison.

He was released in December 2018 “on license”, meaning he had to meet certain conditions or face recall to prison.

“This individual was known to authorities, having been convicted in 2012 for terrorism offences,” Basu added. “Clearly, a key line of inquiry now is to establish how he came to carry out this attack.”

SOURCE:
Al Jazeera and news agencies

Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all. What are developers talking about? What do app publishers and marketers need to know? How are politics impacting the App Store and app businesses? And which apps are everyone using?

This week, we’re discussing the impact of the CFIUS investigation into TikTok, the further fallout of Apple’s vaping app ban, updates to Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass subscription-based app stores, Apple’s breaking changes that rolled out without warning (thanks, Apple!) and a shady app that reached the top of the App Store thanks to a big Kardashians-led endorsement, among other things.

Headlines

TikTok separates further from its Chinese parent

One of the world’s most downloaded and used apps, TikTok, is under a national security review in the U.S. because of its Chinese roots. TikTok parent company, ByteDance, is a China-based operation — something that has raised concerns because of its significant access to U.S. users’ personal data and potential censorship issues.

The company was already working to separate itself further from China before the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) began its investigation. For example, it separated the TikTok product, business development, marketing and legal teams from those of its Chinese app, Douyin, and hired consultants to audit how it’s storing U.S. users’ personal data. Following the investigation, it hired more U.S. engineers and set up a U.S.-based team to oversee data management, Reuters reported.

The question now is whether not these moves — along with a promise to not store U.S. user data in China — will be enough. The app collects data including profile information such as name, age, email and phone number, provided by users, as well as photos, videos, and location. Many of TikTok users are younger teens and college students.

Even if you’re “too old” to care about TikTok, CFIUS investigation’s conclusions here will have a larger impact on the global app industry, as they’ll set precedents as to how foreign powers can compete in U.S. app stores.

Oops: Apple releases breaking changes with no warning 

Apple this week introduced new server-to-server notifications for subscriptions that allowed developers to receive real-time updates in a subscription’s status, so they could provide customized experiences for subscribers. Only one problem with the release: Apple broke most server notifications implementations as a result. Developers weren’t given any warning about the APIs that were “scheduled for deprecation,” either, which is not typically how web APIs are managed. To add icing to the cake, not only were the changes released without warning, they were also rolled out on a Friday — there goes the weekend. Thanks, Apple.

The vaping app ban backlash continues

Has Apple crossed the line between protecting its users from dangerous apps to just turning into an overbearing parent policing adults’ ability to make their own choices? Over the past couple of weeks, several have said the latter. Now concerning are arising about what this means for the overall industry and whether or not decisions like this should even be in Apple’s hands in the first place.

As you may recall, Apple earlier made a controversial decision to remove all 181 vaping-related apps from its App Store in wake of news from the CDC about the 47 vaping deaths and thousands of lung injuries. Some early studies point to Vitamin E acetate, an addictive used in THC oil, as the cause. But Apple isn’t worrying about the details of what’s dangerous and what’s not — it just wiped out anything vaping-related, including things like Bluetooth-connected apps that let users control aspects of their vaping devices, like the lights, heat, and updates to the firmware. There’s no backup plan here for those app makers, since web apps don’t offer the same level of functionality. Plus, the ban is also impacting devices used to distribute medication as well as apps designed to help people cut down and eventually quit smoking and vaping by tracking their nicotine usage.

For app entrepreneurs, Apple’s decision in one fell swoop also just destroyed half the vaping app market as their apps will now only run on Android.

The question now is whether or not any of this should be Apple’s decision? While you may personally applaud a vaping app ban — or simply not care because it doesn’t affect you — Apple has made other controversial choices that have a more serious impact. Like when it kicked out the app that aided Hong Kong protestors, for example.

Apple Arcade and Google Play Pass expand their collections

Apple’s subscription-based gaming store and Google’s rival subscription app store, Google Play Pass, have both added new apps since their debuts. Now, the two companies are making users aware of their ongoing efforts to beef up their respective collections. Apple this week shared a video that highlighted over a dozen new Apple Arcade releases that hit this month — the first time it’s released a compilation video featuring multiple titles since its launch.

Meanwhile, Google Play Pass added 37 more apps to bring its total to 274.

What we don’t know yet, is how well the two services are working — or whether they will benefit developers in the long run. And because neither has a Top Charts section, it’s not even clear what apps are most popular or how many downloads they’re seeing.

Apple Arcade adds a “Top Games” chart… well, sorta… OK, not really

Apple took a step to address the above problem with a new section in Apple Arcade called “Top Arcade Games This Week.” We had argued earlier that the lack of visibility into the popularity of titles on Arcade was a disservice to users who wanted quickly and easily find the most popular titles.

But this new section, while fun, doesn’t solve the problem. Top Games, based on what? Downloads? Editorial curation? Both? Is there going to be an API for it?

It’s common knowledge that the App Store’s Top Charts are based on a combination of downloads and velocity. And that data is accessible to third parties like App Annie, Sensor Tower, Apptopia and others who use it to come up with download estimates.

But a “Top Games This Week” section is not the same thing as a real Top Charts section. And by limiting it to only a week’s time, it provides no real insight into whether or not the Arcade is able to produce a lasting hit the way the App Store can, or what those hit titles may be.

Apple has distanced itself from promoting the Top Charts as a means of app discovery for years now. With its big App Store makeover, it shifted its focus more to editorial, curation, and recommendations, rather than downloads. But for a smaller store like Arcade, Top Charts could have value as they would feature some of the best titles from an already exclusive collection — that’s something people would want to see.

Why was a shady photo editor the top app of October?

16-inch MacBook Pro

B&H Photo Video is offering $200 off standard 16-inch MacBook Pro configurations:

• 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Space Gray – $2,199, down from $2,399
• 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Silver – $2,199, down from $2,399
• 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Space Gray – $2,599, down from $2,799
• 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Silver – $2,599, down from $2,799

Expercom is offering up to $437 off custom 16-inch MacBook Pro configurations with upgraded processor, RAM, storage, and graphics specifications compared to Apple’s pricing. Expercom is also offering AppleCare+ for the 16-inch MacBook Pro for $329, which is $50 less than what Apple charges.

15-inch MacBook Pro

B&H is offering up to $450 off the 15-inch MacBook Pro released in May 2019:

• 6-Core, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Silver – $1,999, down from $2,399
• 8-Core, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Space Gray – $2,349, down from $2,399
• 8-Core, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Silver – $2,349, down from $2,399

13-inch MacBook Pro

Best Buy is taking up to $300 off 13-inch MacBook Pro models released in 2019:

• 1.4 GHz, 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD – $1,099.99, down from $1,299.00
• 1.4 GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD – $1,299.99, down from $1,499.00
• 2.4 GHz, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD – $1,499.99, down from $1,799.00
• 2.4 GHz, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD – $1,699.99, down from $1,999.00

MacBook Air

B&H is offering up to $270 off the latest MacBook Air:

• 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Space Gray – $899, down from $1,099
• 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, Silver – $899, down from $1,099
• 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Space Gray – $1,099, down from $1,299
• 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Silver – $1,099, down from $1,299
• 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Space Gray – $1,299, down from $1,499
• 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD, Silver – $1,299, down from $1,499
• 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Space Gray – $1,629, down from $1,899
• 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Silver – $1,629, down from $1,899

Micro Center has the lowest price ever on the 2019 MacBook Air, offering the base model for just $779 on Black Friday. However, the deal is limited to in-store pickup only, so you will have to live near one of their 25 locations across the United States. Quantities are likely very limited.

iMac

Expercom is offering $541 off the latest 27-inch iMac with a 3.7GHz six-core 9th-generation Intel Core i5 processor, 32GB of RAM, 2TB of Fusion Drive storage, and AMD Radeon Pro 580X graphics.

Apple’s Black Friday Event

Apple’s four-day Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping event is live in many countries. In the United States, customers can get a $200 Apple Store gift card with the purchase of a new 13-inch MacBook Pro, iMac, or iMac Pro, or a $100 Apple Store gift card with the purchase of a new MacBook Air.

Make sure to check out our full Black Friday roundup to find great deals on all of the latest Apple products, accessories, and much more.

Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors. When you click a link and make a purchase, we may receive a small payment, which helps us keep the site running.