Apple Launches 2021 Holiday Gift Guide with Bonus Personalized Holiday Cards

It’s that time of year again: Apple has just launched its annual Holiday Gift Guide to give you an easy way to find something for the Apple fan in your life.

However, this year, Apple is offering a new holiday twist, with Keynote templates and Today at Apple sessions to let you create some cool personalized holiday cards.

The gift guide page, which features the tagline “Let the holidays be for everyone,” doesn’t hold any big surprises, since it’s mostly just an overview of the Apple products that we already know and love. Products are broken down into categories such as Photo & Video, Creativity, Health & Fitness, and Entertainment.

The selections in each category are pretty obvious, too, with Photo & Video featuring the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro, while Creativity is all about the newest M1 Pro/Max powered MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, 24-inch iMac, and iPad mini, plus accessories like the Apple Pencil.

Health & Fitness naturally centers on the Apple Watch and third-generation AirPods, and Entertainment focuses on the HomePod mini and the entire AirPods lineup, with the Apple TV 4K tucked away further down the page.

This year, Apple is offering a Special Edition Apple Gift Card with a holiday theme. As usual, gift cards can be sent by email, but if you choose to have one physically mailed out, you’ll get a red Apple logo sticker with a gift wrapping design on it too.

Apple Gift Cards can be purchased in any specific amount up to $2,000, so they’re a great way to use an exact amount to effectively gift a specific Apple product to somebody, especially items like an Apple Watch, iPhone, or iPad, where you may not be sure what colour or style to pick.

Create Your Own Unique Holiday Cards

This year, Apple’s Holiday Gift Guide includes a free downloadable Keynote template to let you create and customize your own personal holiday card.

The Keynote file provides getting started tips for those new to Apple’s Keynote app, including how to share your card digitally via Messages or Mail. It also gives tips on how to print it out by searching Maps for local print shops or finding a printing service on the App Store.

Apple has also tied this in with Today at Apple, effectively making the card an at-home session. The Keynote template offers tips and tricks on how to customize the card throughout the slides, plus some artistic inspirations from the artists who designed them, including Jocelyn Tsaih, Antti Kalevi, and Hvass & Hannibal.

Important ‘Order By’ Dates

As we noted last week, it’s going to be more important than ever this year to get your orders in early if you expect to have something under the tree on December 25.

This year, Apple has helpfully provided a list of “Order By” deadlines for each of its products, and while some of them are surprisingly late in December, we don’t recommend taking any chances.

If you do find yourself shopping for a last-minute gift, Apple notes that you may be able to find in-stock items for pickup at a local Apple Store or even get two-hour courier delivery in major urban centers. But again, it’s not something we’d recommend counting on since it’s going to be entirely dependent on what each Apple Store has in stock at any given time.

As of right now, it appears that you’ll be able to order a new iPhone until as late as December 22, but if you’re looking for an iPad mini 6, the deadline is November 16.

Apple’s extended holiday return policies are also now in effect, which means that you’ll have until January 8, 2022, to initiate a return for anything received between November 1 and December 25.