Mac Buyers Guide - When is a good time to buy a new Mac/iPod

We have all done it before, gone out and bought something only to have a new better model come out 2 weeks later. It sucks and usually we can't do anything about it after the fact, however there is no law against being an informed consumer ahead of time.
With buying Apple products, a great site to help you out is the Buyers Guide on MacRumors.com. Based on product life cycles and average time for sale, you can see if it's a "good" or "bad" time to lay down your hard earned cash.
If you don't need it today, you can sometimes wait and get a new better model when it's brand new. What do you get - Faster machines, newer generation chips, more RAM and Hard Drive space, newer cosmetics etc.
One big thing you get if you are waiting on a "2nd" gen platform is fixes to glitches, product design issues etc that the first gen may have had. An example is the iPod Nano. The first gen had a beautiful acrylic front, however this scratched up easily and made the product look worn before it's time. 2nd Gen Nano fixed this with some different styling and materials. This does 2 things for you - makes you feel better & increases your resale value. Imagine buying that first gen 2 weeks before Gen 2 came out :( I would wait the 2 weeks.
Now this is all estimations - sometimes stuff comes early, sometimes it is seriously late. If it's your year end and you need to buy for this year for tax reasons go ahead.. but if you can wait and it's not a great time to buy.. Why not wait.

So check out MacRumors.com Buying Guide if your thinking of buying a new Mac or iPod.

I'm sure buying guides for other products exist too - just spend some time on Google. An informed consumer is a better consumer!