> If you love your current iPhone, you can continue making your monthly payments. Once you reach 24 payments, your loan will be closed, the iPhone will be yours to keep, and your time in the iPhone Upgrade Program will come to an end.
The main page goes even further:
> At the end of your initial lease term, you can do one of the following:
> Upgrade and return your current device. Footnote ◊
> Leave the program and return your current device. Footnote ◊
> Buy the device outright with a one-time payment from your Klarna account.
Slightly mixing up programs there - the initial statement ("your loan will be closed") applies to customers of the current "iPhone Upgrade Program" which is now being replaced by the new lease program via Klarna.
The new program, at the end of the initial lease term, will switch to an extended 6 month month-to-month lease; then at the end of that if you have still not acted, Klarna will charge the remaining buyout amount.
> For an iPhone 17 Pro 256GB with a purchase price of $1099 (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit), the typical monthly payment is $31.99 (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit) for a 24-month lease term and $45.99 (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit) for a 12-month lease term.
Riding out a 12 month term, you'll have paid in $551.88. Buyout at that point is $547; ride out the next 6 months month-to-month another $45.99/mo and Klarna will then ding you $271 and close it all out. I assume this is how they're going to avoid any kind of possible "paying more than the cost of the phone" shenanigans from a perpetual lease.
... though curiously, out of all the carriers, T-Mobile is now the first to start charging anywhere from 0% to 24% APR on their installment plans based on creditworthiness. I assume this is a signal that the era of 0% APR installments from carriers is going to start to disappear as well.
Sprint also got sued a few times over for offering leasing for cellphones - I wonder when the first lawsuits against Apple and Klarna are going to strike as well when consumers realize what they fell for.
Not sure why people are so negative about this, macbooks only really last a few years under heavy use anyway and most small businesses would love to pay $100/employee/month to make sure they all have hardware they need rather than trying to manage depreciation accounting and cash flow.
Eg often hardware over $1000 gets depreciated over 5 years but employee laptops get replaced every 3 years so subscribing can have a huge positive effect on cashflow
What exactly does "heavy use" mean? My MacBook Pro is now in its fourth year of daily development work. It doesn't show any kind of wear. So far I don't see any reason to replace it in the years to come. If nothing major changes I think I'll get another four years out of it.
Untrue to say they don’t last, our M1 macs 6 years later are still very usable.
However your point is very true for corporates, staff always want a refresh regardless if the laptop is good enough or not.
These personal plans make sense for people who want the latest and don’t like the hassle of reselling
> staff always want a refresh regardless if the laptop is good enough or not
My personal experience disagrees. A lot of colleagues are absolutely happy with keeping their machines for quite some time. A lot of it - believe it or not - is simply inertia. Apple has made switching MacBooks super easy but still the process of going through the migration process from one machine to the next simply isn't worth the trouble for a lot of them (and I include myself in that group as well).
If all your people are looking for is the latest and greatest gadget then you may simply have the wrong people in your team.
I have a seven-year-old MacBook Air that is like new and runs just as fast today as it did the day I bought it. Battery lasts acceptably and it’s a joy to use.
For what it’s worth, it’s lease to own:
> If you love your current iPhone, you can continue making your monthly payments. Once you reach 24 payments, your loan will be closed, the iPhone will be yours to keep, and your time in the iPhone Upgrade Program will come to an end.
The main page goes even further:
> At the end of your initial lease term, you can do one of the following:
> Upgrade and return your current device. Footnote ◊
> Leave the program and return your current device. Footnote ◊
> Buy the device outright with a one-time payment from your Klarna account.
https://www.apple.com/shop/apple-upgrade
Slightly mixing up programs there - the initial statement ("your loan will be closed") applies to customers of the current "iPhone Upgrade Program" which is now being replaced by the new lease program via Klarna.
The new program, at the end of the initial lease term, will switch to an extended 6 month month-to-month lease; then at the end of that if you have still not acted, Klarna will charge the remaining buyout amount.
> For an iPhone 17 Pro 256GB with a purchase price of $1099 (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit), the typical monthly payment is $31.99 (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit) for a 24-month lease term and $45.99 (excluding taxes and any trade-in credit) for a 12-month lease term.
Riding out a 12 month term, you'll have paid in $551.88. Buyout at that point is $547; ride out the next 6 months month-to-month another $45.99/mo and Klarna will then ding you $271 and close it all out. I assume this is how they're going to avoid any kind of possible "paying more than the cost of the phone" shenanigans from a perpetual lease.
Because if you don't own it nothing on it is monopoly anymore. You are allowed to use it the "intended" way.
Own nothing and be happy. Hope people don't fall for this BS. The only thing you can control is to decide where to spend your own money and time.
Then it is not a status symbol anymore.
Yup, exactly like luxury cars no longer are status symbols because they're leasable.
You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.
Why are capitalists doing this? I thought it wall all CuLtUrAl MaRxIstS??
Surely the invisible hand will provide for us
What the invisible hand giveth, the invisible hand taketh.
At the same time T-Mobile just announced they're finally going out to 36 month installment agreements on phones.
https://www.t-mobile.com/news/un-carrier/eip-flex-36
... though curiously, out of all the carriers, T-Mobile is now the first to start charging anywhere from 0% to 24% APR on their installment plans based on creditworthiness. I assume this is a signal that the era of 0% APR installments from carriers is going to start to disappear as well.
Sprint also got sued a few times over for offering leasing for cellphones - I wonder when the first lawsuits against Apple and Klarna are going to strike as well when consumers realize what they fell for.
Not sure why people are so negative about this, macbooks only really last a few years under heavy use anyway and most small businesses would love to pay $100/employee/month to make sure they all have hardware they need rather than trying to manage depreciation accounting and cash flow.
Eg often hardware over $1000 gets depreciated over 5 years but employee laptops get replaced every 3 years so subscribing can have a huge positive effect on cashflow
What exactly does "heavy use" mean? My MacBook Pro is now in its fourth year of daily development work. It doesn't show any kind of wear. So far I don't see any reason to replace it in the years to come. If nothing major changes I think I'll get another four years out of it.
Untrue to say they don’t last, our M1 macs 6 years later are still very usable. However your point is very true for corporates, staff always want a refresh regardless if the laptop is good enough or not.
These personal plans make sense for people who want the latest and don’t like the hassle of reselling
> staff always want a refresh regardless if the laptop is good enough or not
My personal experience disagrees. A lot of colleagues are absolutely happy with keeping their machines for quite some time. A lot of it - believe it or not - is simply inertia. Apple has made switching MacBooks super easy but still the process of going through the migration process from one machine to the next simply isn't worth the trouble for a lot of them (and I include myself in that group as well).
If all your people are looking for is the latest and greatest gadget then you may simply have the wrong people in your team.
I have a seven-year-old MacBook Air that is like new and runs just as fast today as it did the day I bought it. Battery lasts acceptably and it’s a joy to use.
It occurs to me that none of those metrics include numbers.