The Mid-Year Price Report: What Fell, What Rose, and What Refused to Move

Preamble

The solstice arrives this weekend; the fiscal midpoint of 2026 arrives ten days later. The Editorial Staff, unwilling to leave a half-year unreconciled even briefly, has closed the books early. What follows is the semi-annual ledger: every price we track, January 1 through June 15, sorted into what fell, what rose, and what declined to participate. We compile this because we compile everything. It is easier than being asked why we didn't.

Methods, briefly: daily logs at Amazon and Best Buy (first-party listings only), Keepa-derived 90-day baselines, "street price" meaning the most commonly listed price in a period, and "floor" meaning the lowest listing we verified ourselves. MSRPs are Apple's and did not move, because MSRPs do not fall mid-cycle. They simply outlast you.

What Fell

MacBook Air M4 13-inch (MSRP $999). January's typical street price was $899; by June it was $879. The half-year floor was $799, which appeared twice — January 18, briefly and without explanation, and May 22, at the opening of Memorial Day week. Total days at $849 or below: 21. The M4 Air remains the best-behaved price we track, dipping on schedule like a tide with a marketing department.

Base iPad, 11-inch A16 (MSRP $349). From a January street of $329 to $299 on 23 separate days of the half, with a single verified $279 during Memorial week — 20% below MSRP and the deepest Apple discount we logged all half. The cheapest iPad continues to be the most frequently discounted, a combination that should embarrass the rest of the lineup and evidently does not.

Apple Watches, at scale. The Series 11 (MSRP $399) went from $379 in January to $349 on most June days, floor $329 over Memorial weekend. The SE 3 (MSRP $249) followed proportionally: $219 typical by June, floor $209. The Ultra 3 (MSRP $799) moved least: $749 on 18 days, floor $729. Watches fall in spring and fall furthest in September, when their successors arrive; we will re-run this paragraph then, with new numbers and the same sentence structure.

AirPods Pro 3 (MSRP $249, released September 2025). Held rigidly at $249 through March — new AirPods spend their first months exempt from gravity — then $229 in April and $219 by mid-June. First-year decay is proceeding on approximately the schedule the Pro 2 established. Precedent is the only physics retail respects.

AirPods Max (MSRP $549). Listed at $449 on 61 of the 166 days in the window, floor $429: an 18% standing discount that retailers periodically re-announce as news.

What Rose

AirPods Pro 2 (MSRP $249). The ledger's lone ascender. A first-quarter street price of $169 rose to a second-quarter street of $189 — up 11.8% — as clearance inventory visibly thinned in the Pro 3's shadow. It rose by becoming scarce, which is the oldest way. Our Memorial Day forecast predicted $169 and was wrong by $20; the market had quietly run out of the discount. We record the miss here and will record it again whenever grading requires, because that is the arrangement.

Nothing else rose. This section is short every half. We keep it anyway, for the halves when it isn't.

What Refused to Move

iPad Pro M5 (MSRP $999 and $1,299). Deepest verified listings: $949 and $1,249 respectively, for a combined nine days of the half — a 5% maximum excursion. The Pro line's pricing has the flexibility of a load-bearing wall.

MacBook Pro M5 14-inch (MSRP $1,999). We logged $1,849 on 14 days: 7.5% below MSRP, short of our 10%-below-average threshold every single time. Close is not a category we track.

iPad Mini A17 Pro (MSRP $499). At MSRP for 151 of 166 days, floor $469 — a stillness we associate with products that know they have no competition.

iPad Air M3 11-inch (MSRP $599). Borderline: typical $549, floor $519 in late May. An 8 to 13% band that grazes our threshold without committing to it. Filed here, with reservations, by a 3-2 staff vote.

The Ledger, Summarized

| Item | MSRP | Typical June street | Below MSRP | H1 floor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MacBook Air M4 13" | $999 | $879 | 12.0% | $799 |
| MacBook Pro M5 14" | $1,999 | $1,929 | 3.5% | $1,849 |
| iPad 11" A16 | $349 | $299 | 14.3% | $279 |
| iPad Air M3 11" | $599 | $549 | 8.3% | $519 |
| iPad Pro M5 11" | $999 | $999 | 0% | $949 |
| iPad Mini A17 Pro | $499 | $499 | 0% | $469 |
| Watch Series 11 | $399 | $349 | 12.5% | $329 |
| Watch SE 3 | $249 | $219 | 12.0% | $209 |
| Watch Ultra 3 | $799 | $749 | 6.3% | $729 |
| AirPods Pro 3 | $249 | $219 | 12.0% | $219 |
| AirPods Pro 2 | $249 | $189 | 24.1% | $169 |
| AirPods Max | $549 | $449 | 18.2% | $429 |

Twelve line items. Eight fell, one rose, and the heavy machinery held still. The median tracked product now sits about 12% below its sticker, which is why we test against 90-day averages instead of MSRPs: by June, the sticker is a historical document.

The Second Half, Previewed

Prime Day arrives in mid-July and will produce the year's loudest week; we will file pre-registered predictions before it, as is our custom and our compulsion. September will reprice every watch in the table above. November will handle the rest. The ledger reopens July 1. The spreadsheet does not observe holidays, and neither, it increasingly appears, do we.

— The BuyGetRewards Editorial Staff

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