Comment by Aurornis
1 day ago
> A lot of people aren’t going to have that $433 at the end of the lease to purchase the device outright
I think you're looking at this too much from the perspective of someone who wants to own the phone, not as someone who wants to consider a lease.
Leases are not a new invention. A lot of people, including very financially savvy and well off people, choose to lease rather than buy depending on the circumstances.
It preserves optionality. If you get to the end of the lease period and there’s a new iPhone you want or the battery isn’t holding up, you can choose not to buy it. You don’t have to deal with selling it or trading in.
If someone doesn’t have $400 to buy out the residual then I doubt they would have had the cash to pay for the whole thing up front. I don’t understand what your argument is.
> So the goal of the program is the same as every other similar one - they want to turn a one-time device purchase into a perpetual monthly revenue stream, while keeping ownership of the asset at the end.
It’s an option. They’re not turning anything into anything. Anyone who wants to buy the device can buy it. You now also have the option to lease it for 12 or 24 months and then after that you can still buy it if you want. Or you can not buy it.
It’s options. You don’t have to use it.
> If someone doesn’t have $400 to buy out the residual then I doubt they would have had the cash to pay for the whole thing up front.
That’s the entire point. They would have bought a cheaper phone, or held on to their old one, but are now paying perpetual monthly payments.
There’s a reason car dealerships never ask “how much can you afford”, but “how much do you want to pay every month”.
There’s a reason Klarna is running the program for them.
I think this is exactly right — when the options on the table are: - iPhone 17 (~$800) - iPhone 17 Pro Max (~$1200)
a person may reasonably make the choice that they don't need the Pro Max and buy the regular 17.
Now, when the options are: - iPhone 17 ($23/month) - iPhone 17 Pro Max ($35/month)
$12/month extra doesn't seem too bad, except the fact that after 24 months you can't afford to keep the phone and are effectively forced to upgrade to a new iPhone.
I agree that more options are generally better for consumers, but these types of leasing programs are predatory and come at a time when everything is becoming a subscription.
What if I don’t want to “own my phone”?
Look, I have one camera with me and one child. As long as the camera gets better every year, I’m gonna want a better camera, every year. I don’t want to deal with carriers and trade-in shopping. Unfortunately this particular deal sucks compared tot he old one.
I’m not financially irresponsible. I value these devices highly and value my time.
No one's really stopping you from owning nothing and being happy.
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> That’s the entire point. They would have bought a cheaper phone
This kinda sounds like, "We should make it hard for people to make poor financial decisions." Which seems like an answer completely orthogonal to the problem at hand.
What is the problem at hand?
How to get customers to make poor financial decisions? How to sell more phones to people that can't really afford them?
Seriously, what is the problem that is being solved?
> They would have bought a cheaper phone, or held on to their old one
Or they would have just bought the new phone and sold their old one for dimes on the dollar on e.g. Gazelle.
You know those financially irresponsible people don’t need this program, right? They would have used a credit card to buy it with much worse terms
You seem tilted at Apple for offering a financing option, but your real gripe is apparently with some people who have poor financial decision making skills. Those people could (and probably would) do a lot worse with traditional options like a credit card.
Can we at least compare apples to apples (hah) and look at the actual terms of the program here? Honestly they're not bad, and I say that as someone who leans toward purchasing outright.
Leasing is just a financial transaction. You need to run the numbers, evaluate the alternatives, and peer at least a bit into the future. I've never leased a car and I doubt I'd lease a phone if only to keep my options open. (At the moment, I'm in the situation where I trashed an older phone on a hiking trip so I'll probably upgrade my iPhone 15 Pro sooner than I otherwise would just so I have a usable backup while traveling again.)
> You know those financially irresponsible people don’t need this program, right? They would have used a credit card to buy it with much worse terms
I thought of this also. The question is whether they will now spend even more on the phone since they won't be paying as much in interest. If so, it's savvy of Apple to suck up that difference instead of letting it go to credit card companies.
Presumably Klarna's share is lower because Apple is rumored to be able to nerf these devices if a series of payments are missed. [1]
1: https://9to5mac.com/2026/07/21/ios-27-code-suggests-apple-co...
From that lens this is a better option for the "buyer" (renter). Cause revolving credit is >10%, sometimes even more than 15%!
3 replies →
> They would have used a credit card to buy it with much worse terms
average credit card interest rate: 18-25% APR [0][1] average klarna effective interest rate:25-33% APR [2]
getting what are effectively individual lines of credit per-burrito or iphone is crazy work and I wouldn't recommend it most of the time. Save some money up, people!
[0] https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/research/current... [1] https://www.forbes.com/advisor/credit-cards/average-credit-c... [2] https://wealthvieu.com/debt/credit-card-debt/klarna-review/
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People are keeping their phones for longer and longer. This makes it as attractive as possible to pay for a new phone at a more frequent rate.
The bet here is that Apple would much rather you spend ~$35/month perpetually than $1200 every 4 years.
This is a 'good deal' if you're already someone who upgrades their phone frequently, but I would imagine this would end up getting a whole bunch of people to pay more money in the long run to Apple.
It's also a good deal if you want to keep the phone for 8 years. Just make sure you take the buy option.
> It preserves optionality. If you get to the end of the lease period and there’s a new iPhone you want or the battery isn’t holding up, you can choose not to buy it. You don’t have to deal with selling it or trading in.
If you don't buy it at the end of the 24 month, you've been paying for a very costly lease.
2/3 of the price for a 24 month lease whereas iphones are updated for 7, 8 years ? And the resell value is very good.
Especially financially, it would make zéro sense.
That is the actual point of this program.
Apple clearly pay the fees for the customers loan but at the end, the only real mistake the customer can make and might regret is switching out of the Apple ecosystem.
That's clever and only mildly evil. Financial savvy people will use it as a "no fee loan" if they can't pay upfront. Less savvy will be more receptive to the commercial discourse at the end of the lease. Eco-deniers will think twice before renewing every year.
And it's actually a consolidation of existing options because Apple already offered "no fee loan" here in EU but you had to choose the option to begin with. Now it's look like this is a single contract and you choose the option at the end of the lease.
Why on earth are we leasing phones now???
> Why on earth are we leasing phones now???
Same reason some people lease cars:
* want the New Thing regularly
* are happier with OpEx than CapEx (can be handy for business/accounting reasons)
I think people don't really buy phones every year anymore because they can't afford it. But because they're kinda meh year on year. I don't buy apple anymore but my Samsung S23 from 3 years ago has the exact same cameras as the current S26. Same screen, same form factor. Only thing that's new is a slightly faster SoC and a bit more memory for AI features I dont really use anyway. I just don't see the point in upgrading anymore.
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Well, lets do math:
- from this thread: iPhone 17 pro max would be $1199 to buy (~1273 with tax) or $34.99 for 24 months totaling $839.76. So would cost 433.33 at the end of the lease to keep it
If you upgrade your phone every 1-2 years then what you pay for the phone is something like "full cost - optimistic trade-in value". I see no reason not to do if you know you going to upgrade.
I don't understand this mindset. I get that people who are going to upgrade to the latest flagship phone every 18-24 months will probably do better with this, but realistically... those people are fucking insanely financially irresponsible (and if you can afford it - no shade, I guess, its your money - lord knows I burn lots of cash on hobby projects of my own, although I tend to buy things that are actually projects, and not just glitz...)
But there's just nothing to run on phones built in the last 5+ years that actually puts the hardware through its paces (in the phone form factor, laptops and desktops I'd be lot more forgiving on). The cameras aren't really getting better. The battery capacities seem to be mostly "the same". There's just no practical "reason" to justify the expense at this point (and I'll fully acknowledge this wasn't always the case - there was a period there in the early 2010s where phones were getting better rapidly and upgrading was a big deal).
They're basically buying an expensive piece of jewelry that they'll throw away in 24 months. Like... just buy a cheaper model and get some real jewelry. At least that could be passed down at some point instead of becoming e-waste.
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This math is what lead me to the iUp program in the first place. It's effectively a guaranteed 50% trade-in, which came out to about $200-300 in actual money that I was theoretically sacrificing in exchange for not having to worry about the cosmetic condition of the phone or weirdos on ebay.
And it came with AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss. I stopped using a case. I lived free.
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The market must be stalling to the point the companies can't afford to innovate anymore.
Or at least that's how I understand why Samsung recently introduced literal first-party program for renting phones and is advertising it heavily. The flagships got too expensive.
I'm a little confused on why anyone would pay this much for a phone. (Although if you consider it conspicuous consumption that happens to work as a phone, I can believe that.)
I’m certain there are things you pay for that I would look at and go “I’m a little confused on why anyone would pay this much for x. (Although if you consider it conspicuous consumption that happens to work as x, I can believe that.)”
But I wouldn’t, because I actually understand that people are different and like it that way.
Consider: your opinion is worthless when it comes to what I care about in terms of luxuries I enjoy, just as mine is worthless when it comes to what you care about in terms of luxuries you enjoy.
It’s way better when you don’t run around judging other people for liking different things than you.
Eh. I mean, I don’t particularly get it either, but look at what people spend on cars, say. It actually is not a silly amount, in those terms.
I’ve always been told when computer shopping to “buy the fastest cpu and the most ram you can afford”. This goes doubly for revenue-generating devices.
My iPhone is the computer I use most every day, by a WIDE margin.
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That’s tame when people are leasing literal meals with klarna
Also leasing whatever Subway sells https://sezzle.com/shop/subway
money number must go up?
> Leases are not a new invention.
The Davos ghouls are proven right each and every day:
> You'll own nothing. And you'll be happy
Back to indentured servitude we go, where by "we" I mean us, the poors, not the wealthy, nor their relatively still well-off direct servants (like many of the users here working for Big Tech).