• pageflight@piefed.socialEnglish
    20 hours

    Now, a $1,999 MacBook Pro can have a monthly payment of $38.99 over 36 months.

    $38.99 * 36 = $1403.64. That doesn’t seem right.

    Macrumors has a more detailed analysis (different device in their example):

    If you return the iPhone 17 Pro and simply move on from the Apple Upgrade program, then your total cost to own the device would be $551.88 after 12 months, plus sales tax if applicable. While that is less than paying $1,099 upfront, the catch is that you are no longer in possession of the device after your lease ends and cannot resell it or trade it in.

    Seems like it’s just designed to keep people buying new hardware regularly.

    • MountingSuspicion@reddthat.comEnglish
      19 hours

      It really only makes sense if you buy a new phone or computer every year/lease term.

      This is good though, so it might not be that bad of a deal if you could use the credit anyway:

      Buy the iPhone outright by paying an amount equal to the device’s retail price minus any lease payments made.

  • scytale@piefed.zipEnglish
    13 hours

    This works for people who have FOMO and keep upgrading every time a new model comes out and have a monthly payment in perpetuity.

    I just hope they don’t make this the ONLY option. I keep my phone until it dies or runs out of security updates.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
    21 hours

    Won’t be long until you are legally the ownership of evilcorp; a slave whose only purpose is to produce enough shareholder value to survive the next 24 hours.

    • evenglow@lemmy.worldEnglish
      21 hours

      I know we hit rock bottom when Walmart is advertising loans for groceries. Whole lot of people need to take a moment and think about what’s going on.

      Rate things are going China will have UBI in 5 years.

    • unitedwithme@lemmy.todayEnglish
      21 hours

      Love the Mr Robot reference (hopefully).

      It’s no different than you subsidizing the costs through the carrier, the only difference is Apple will likely earn interest whereas carriers do this at basically 0%. Or Apple is going for vendor lock in. Right now you can “switch phone companies” and they advertise paying off balances up to a certain amount to entice the switch. Apple may not allow that.

  • Glitchvid@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20 hours

    Probably in anticipation of some serious price increases. They’d still like to get devices in people’s hands even if they can’t nominally afford them anymore.

  • pimat@feddit.orgEnglish
    21 hours

    Think different! Yeah I think I won’t buy any Apple device and definitely won’t support this kind of bullshit. That is what happens when you let some excel fuckboy run a company and become yet another orange baby asskisser. Just sad as fuck.