Companies with high-end products have the biggest profit margin cushions to deal with. I had little sympathy for Apple raising prices already, but this is absurd.
they will still require you to either pay for the device in full or else lose the option to sell it to somebody else after you’re done
…Minus the payments already provided, right?
The Apple Upgrade service will work like a subscription and users can pay off the device early during their term, upgrade early to a new model or keep it at the end of the leasing period. In certain cases, those transactions will incur an additional fee .
This sounds exactly like what the major cell providers do with phones, or at least what AT&T does. Monthly interest-free payment to pay for the phone in 24 or 36 months, ‘upgrade’ available at half or an arbitrary percentage of the device having been paid off. It’s ‘your’ device, but to sell it you have to pay off the balance remaining on the note. If you upgrade early, and the device is still in good condition, they zero out the note at that point, but it still counts as buying a new device, so you incur tax + an arbitrary ‘activation’ fee just like you bought a new device with cash.
Companies with high-end products have the biggest profit margin cushions to deal with. I had little sympathy for Apple raising prices already, but this is absurd.
…Minus the payments already provided, right?
It’s very vague. If you could use this as a rent-to-own it’s perhaps not so bad, but if it’s just rent-to-still-not-be-able-to-own it sucks.
You’ll still pay way more.
This sounds exactly like what the major cell providers do with phones, or at least what AT&T does. Monthly interest-free payment to pay for the phone in 24 or 36 months, ‘upgrade’ available at half or an arbitrary percentage of the device having been paid off. It’s ‘your’ device, but to sell it you have to pay off the balance remaining on the note. If you upgrade early, and the device is still in good condition, they zero out the note at that point, but it still counts as buying a new device, so you incur tax + an arbitrary ‘activation’ fee just like you bought a new device with cash.