Welcome to 9to5Mac’s official Mac Holiday Gift Guide! This has been an exciting year for Mac lovers, thanks to the cool new and as well as great accessories from Apple and others. I’ve been canvassing all things Mac throughout the year, so what you’ll find inside are some great options at various price levels — everything from stocking stuffers and apps to “best gift I’ve ever received” material. Also included: the. Before you go further, I’d recommend that you bookmark and/or send this page to your favorite people, because either you or someone you care about is going to get a great gift from this guide. Beyond great Macs, apps, and accessories, some of my picks are designed to help an old Mac run better than new.

Small Stocking Stuffers: USB Hubs, Card Readers + Cables It’s always handy to have extra USB ports — particularly powered ones that can recharge your iPad or iPhone even if the Mac is turned off. Is the hub I use, adding multiple ports to the front (rather than the inconvenient back) of your Mac. Most Macs have SD Card readers built in, but none of them has a CompactFlash reader — the card type used by many high-end DSLR cameras. If you only need CompactFlash support, is a high-speed USB 3 card reader at a great price — the one I purchased for myself, and have found to be very reliable.

Includes both SD and CompactFlash slots, handy for 11″ MacBook Air users. And if you need Lightning cables for your Mac or iOS gadgets, a great deal for authorized cables. If you want something more deluxe than a USB hub and are willing to go beyond stocking stuffer pricing, Thunderbolt 2 docks let you connect high-speed hard drives, audio devices, and monitors to your Mac all at once with a single Thunderbolt cable — ideal for turning a small MacBook Air or Pro into a full-fledged desktop machine, or radically expanding the connector options for any Mac. My guide to the picks ($224, shown at center) as the top overall choice for features and pricing, but there are other alternatives. Ring Out With Joy: Great Mac Speakers + Headphones Having spent years loving various affordable speakers from JBL and parent brand Harman, notably including the iconic clear also available in a ), I’ve shifted over to more contemporary Mac-matching audio accessories in recent years. Places more powerful, higher-quality audio drivers inside two black and silver housings that can straddle the sides of any Mac screen, while its similar-looking, ) is even more powerful, an all-in-one enclosure with a booming subwoofer and AirPlay streaming capabilities. The company’s reviewed ) have similarly Mac-matching looks and excellent sound quality; their leather earpads are the most comfortable I’ve ever felt in a pair of on-ear headphones.

Pair them with a to declutter your desk. The Ultimate Mac Upgrade: A Solid State Drive (SSD) Unless you’re willing to buy a brand new Mac, the single best way to make your old Mac run crazy fast (and quiet) is to install a Solid State Drive, also known as an SSD. The SSD replaces either your Mac’s traditional hard drive, which is a little trickier but yields massive speed improvements, or the SuperDrive CD/DVD drive, which is easier but generally not as fast. Adding an SSD made my older iMac five times faster for loading apps and files, basically instantaneous, and enabled it to wake and sleep in seconds. To do this, you’ll need an SSD (go with for desktop Macs, or ), to open any Mac, and for certain Macs, a thermal sensor cable.

Here are my full SSD guides for,. Alternately, here’s my. Readers have sent me so many “thank you!” emails that I know they’ve been thrilled with their SSDs. Your old hard drive or SuperDrive can go in an as a spare. Magical Holidays: Apple’s Magic Keyboard + Trackpad 2, or Logitech Rivals The mouse — a part of Macs since 1984 — is on the way out, as multi-touch gestures continue to become more integral parts of the Mac and iOS experience.

Rechargeable keyboards are also becoming more popular. Earlier this year, I wrote, anticipating that Apple was working on better sequels to its aging Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad. Lo and behold, Apple released the and , and they’re perfect gifts — the sorts of items any Mac user would love, but perhaps not buy on their own. Winning online roulette secrets top online casinos for mac 2017. Each comes with a Lightning cable to recharge an integrated rechargeable battery.

By comparison, Logitech’s adds backlit keys and 3-device simultaneous pairing for the same price, while its is an alternative with multi-touch support at a much lower price. If you’re OK with AA batteries, is available for $70. Office Decor, Desk Declutterers + Stands To help you sort through the many Mac-matching lamps, posters, desks, shelves and chairs out there, my guide to the provides a look at great options across various materials and styles. A makes them ideal high-end gifts for the holidays; are nice entry-level options. Pixelmator Creative Kit 2016 Tweetbot Virtual Gifts: A Few Great Apps It’s hard to give apps as gifts, but I have three Mac app recommendations that are top picks of 9to5’s editors. Is a far more affordable alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop, including photo editing and painting tools that are optimized for each new version of OS X, with full iOS Pixelmator compatibility. Is an incredible bundle of photo processing tools; explains how they can be used to make even boring photos awesome. Is the Twitter client your Mac deserves, featuring full OS X El Capitan compatibility and numerous customizations, including single- or multi-column modes.

Store Photos, Videos, Music + Backups: Great External Hard Drives As photo, video, and music collections grow, most Macs strain to hold everything without running out of space. That’s why external hard drives have become so popular — they store whatever your Mac can’t manage on its own. If you have an iMac, Mac mini, or Mac Pro, the external drive I’d recommend is G-Technology’s affordable (left). Starting at, you can, a great investment in a fast, professional-grade drive that will last for years. For MacBook Air and Pro use, portable drives such as (center), and (both at right) offer tradeoffs in size, capacity, and pricing. My article discusses the, so you can choose what’s best for your needs.

Free Your Mac: The Cheaper iTunes Server Years ago, the only way to run a small, quiet iTunes media server was to buy a I went with and liked. But this year, I wanted to free my Mac from server duty, so I For gives you the ability to run the PC version of iTunes off a computer the size of a thumb drive, plugged directly into any HDTV’s HDMI port. Pair it with a tiny and you’ll have space to share movies and music across your Apple TVs, iOS devices, and other computers with ease. Give The Gift Of Multitasking: Extra RAM Installing more RAM is easy for older Macs. My guide to explains which Macs are capable of being upgraded, which will help them run multiple apps without slowdowns. You’ll generally need a small Phillips head screwdriver (found alongside many others in this ) to open your Mac; very little skill is required for RAM installation. Power-Up: Keep Your MacBook Running For Days Keeping a MacBook running for days without access to a wall outlet isn’t easy. (shown above, ) work as portable wall outlets, ranging from depending on the power you need.

The $150 version shown above adds 5-7 hours of additional Mac run time. Users of the USB-C-powered 12″ Retina MacBook have an easier alternative: is a USB-C charger with more than enough power to fully refuel the super-thin Mac. The Best Gift Of All: A New Mac A new Mac is the sort of gift most people dream about — the best computers Apple makes today for work or school. My personal recommendations would be the following Macs for the following situations:.

Best Gifts For Mac Users

A for desktop office and/or serious photography/videography use. A for portable productivity with Apple’s best overall combination of power, pricing, and screen quality.

An or for portable work or school use when power is less important than pricing and physical size. Go with the Air for a lower price and more power, the Retina MacBook for a better screen and less power at a higher price.

A to replace your aging Windows PC, or serve as a Mac media center/server for your home. Regardless of the Mac you choose, the best prices I’ve seen anywhere are at. If you’re in any state other than New York, you’ll save a lot on sales tax with B&H, too.

Best Gifts At Macy's

More From This Author Check out more of my! I’ve published a lot of different topics of interest to Mac, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Apple TV, and Apple Watch users, as well as a,. Author, lawyer, and award-winning restaurateur Jeremy Horwitz started his journalism career in the early 1990’s, covering video games as a freelancer for numerous publications before creating and running Ziff Davis’s Intelligent Gamer magazine. A graduate of Cornell Law School, he previously ran editorial for the Apple-centric site iLounge and created the historic iLounge Pavilion at CES before joining 9to5Mac and 9to5Toys as a Senior Editor. A lifelong consumer electronics expert and gourmet, he now focuses on the changing ways people work, play, eat, and travel.

His Spanish restaurant Aro Bar de Tapas won Best New Restaurant (Opened 2015-2016), Best Charcuterie, Best Craft Cocktails, and Best Desserts awards.