When Is It A Good Time To Buy A Mac?

Apple is a company known to keep its product releases shrouded in a cloak of secrecy. It’s almost comical because there are a lot of successful websites dedicated to rumors around the company, its products, and its personnel. Can you think of any other company out there that the public has so much interest in? This is the kind of fanaticism reserved for musicians and athletic organizations. Somehow, Apple has learned the formula to pique the interest of not only its customers, but even its haters as well (Apple haters can’t wait for a new opportunity to bring out a cliche joke about one-buttoned mice).

So, for most regular people who don’t want to buy a new Mac and find out three weeks later that a faster/bigger/cooler machine is released, the obsessive data crunched by these rumor sites can be used to their advantage. Now, lets be sensible about the source of information received from a website that is designed around rumors. A lot of the time they are just plain wrong. The Apple tablet has been rumored for years now, and every January for the last three years there have been promises of a life altering device that will solve every one of your problems and be only 10mm thick. But, as far as their actual computers are concerned, there is a lot of external information to get a relatively accurate time frame of when a product will get updated so you can avoid that end-of-life purchase burn.

Step in the infamous rumor site MacRumors.com. This site has some of the most ridiculously obsessive news posts regarding Apple Corp. on the planet, but they have a very valuable resource that can ease your mind if you are planning to purchase a new Mac anytime soon. It is the MacRumors Buyers Guide. Basically how it works is they track the release cycle of Apple’s most popular products and track component manufacturer releases (like Intel) to figure out an average time each product exists on the market before it gets upgraded or replaced. So when the need arrives to purchase a new Mac and you have a little bit of time to wait, start with the buyers guide. Don’t bother asking Apple store or support employees for any information about product releases. They really don’t know – trying to brag them with cupcakes will not work.