71–80 of 411 posts
My MacBook Pro was over $6,000 refurbished, and this was before Apple raised prices. There's not really a point in financing smaller purchases that you can just buy outright.
The math for the new program is kinda perplexing, my guess is that they are hoping that most people just will send in the device and upgrade. If I am reading the FAQ here properly: https://www.apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade . > If you decide to buy the device, the purchase option fee is the list price minus any lease payments you’ve made minus any remaining discounts or trade-in credit. (excluding tax and any damage fe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels like there’s a psychological component here for you to feel obliged to upgrade at the end of the 2 or 3 year term. Who wants to pay $1k for a 3 year old MacBook? Trading in/up will feel natural. It does feel less and less like you own the hardware though.
That I could see, I guess the question comes down to how often to people upgrade. That comes down to discipline. Is a 3 year upgrade cycle for a MacBook Pro unreasonable? Would you get a lower spec machine since you were not trying to maximize the life of the machine? I know I always tend to overspec my machine to keep it for as long as possible. My M3 MBP with 36GB of ram (looks like it was about 2500 3 years ago) w…
For a personal machine? Yes that’s something I see as unreasonable, MacBook Pros have a very long lifespan. M1 laptop are still pretty awesome machines. For a business an upgrade every 3 years could make sense
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Except in this case, you can still choose to own it at the end of the lease. The total lease price (if you buy it at the end) is the exact same as the retail price, there's no interest and no extra fees.
The issue is deeper than than. Even if you buy, not lease, the iPhone, you don't control the software. Apple is still the effective owner, and tells you what you can and can't run on your own device. Worse, Apple is able to remotely inject user-hostile programs, such as the planned CSAM scanner that was planned but ultimately abandoned[0]. [0] https://9to5mac.com/2023/09/01/csam-scanning-flaw/
The iPhone Upgrade Program was a 24-month 0% financing program for iPhones. The replacement Apple Upgrade https://www.apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade > is a leasing program that also covers iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches. Instead of automatically owning the device after making all payments, you can choose return/upgrade/buy it at the end of the lease. The new program is backed by Klarna instead of Citizens Bank, uses a…
You'll own nothing and you'll feel weird about it.
The math for the new program is kinda perplexing, my guess is that they are hoping that most people just will send in the device and upgrade. If I am reading the FAQ here properly: https://www.apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade . > If you decide to buy the device, the purchase option fee is the list price minus any lease payments you’ve made minus any remaining discounts or trade-in credit. (excluding tax and any damage fe…
They still have a 12mo lease term if you want to upgrade yearly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It feels like there’s a psychological component here for you to feel obliged to upgrade at the end of the 2 or 3 year term. Who wants to pay $1k for a 3 year old MacBook? Trading in/up will feel natural. It does feel less and less like you own the hardware though.
Is that terrible though? You're saving $1000 on a 2/3 year cadence. I'm not a fan of the one size must fit all mentality, and that the one size is the conception that we must all run every piece of he into the ground before replacing it.
Seems like a good place to also mourn the canonical best iPhone financing method - the blissfully simple Apple Card payment plan. They got rid of it[1] (except if you're engaging in the postpaid carrier contract foolishness) in 2023, which coincidentally was the last time I felt the need to get a new iPhone. I know a lot of people use postpaid, but I can't understand why. I'd challenge anyone to justify that decision…
I'm on Verizon postpaid, 4 lines on Unlimited Plus for $31/line. That's hard to beat pre-paid for comparable service. Yes, I have to threaten to leave Verizon once a year to get them to add a bunch of customer loyalty discounts, but that's not less work than switching pre-paid carriers to chase deals. I subscribe to /r/NoContract/ so I have a pretty good idea what's out there. Visible+ is a comparable pre-paid plan,…
It is hard to get eSIM to work, but they have good customer service (but you need accses to a phone to call them, so you should try something like textnow or Google Voice) which helped my friend set it up.
It is not a intruductory offers, AFIK.