The iPhone Upgrade Program is being replaced by Apple Upgrade

Most of the useful discussion landed on two points. First, the economics are not secretly awful if you already upgrade often. Several people ran the numbers and concluded the residual lines up roughly with real used-market value for a two-year-old iPhone, so the lease is functionally Apple pre-baking the resale step. That makes it a convenience product, not an obvious ripoff. Second, the structure is still doing what leases always do. It turns a big upfront purchase into a smooth monthly payment, makes future price hikes easier to hide, and nudges people toward a steady upgrade cycle because the buyout on an older device will feel worse than starting a fresh lease. Where sentiment turned negative was everything Apple removed or shifted. AppleCare+ is no longer bundled, which several people called the real price increase. Loss, theft, and damage risk now sit more visibly on the customer unless they add coverage. The required carrier activation language also remains annoying for people who prefer unlocked phones on cheaper MVNO plans, even though commenters pointed out the leased phones are still unlocked after activation. Klarna’s name in the footer made people read the whole thing less like Apple financing and more like buy now pay later wrapped in Apple branding. The bottom line from the comments was pretty crisp. For annual or two-year upgraders who hate selling devices, this is close to an automated trade-in program with predictable payments. For anyone who keeps hardware for four to seven years, it is a machine for spending more money more often. The deeper strategic read is that Apple is standardizing a lease wrapper across its hardware lineup right as upgrade cycles lengthen and headline prices get harder to push directly.