Apple Plans to Defeat RAM Prices by Letting You Lease a Mac

Apple may be preparing to let you rent your next iPhone or MacBook, rather than buy it completely. This rumored gadget-leasing program may keep initial costs low for Apple fans, but it would mean have much less control over the Macs or iPhones you pay for. Last month, Apple hiked prices across nearly all its most expensive gadgets, ensuring the most powerful Macs and iPads are unaffordable for most would-be buyers. Bloomberg’s Apple leaker-in-chief, Mark Gurman, reported Tuesday that the company is responding to rising costs with a so-called “Apple Upgrade” program. This would entail a lease agreement that would allow customers to rent “most” iPhone and Apple Watch models for 24 months. Gurman suggests you’ll be able to lease Macs and iPads for three-year stints. Gurman further claims, based on his slate of anonymous sources, that users will be able to pay off their device early, buy it at the end of the lease period, or upgrade to a newer model. In that way, it works like a car lease, though you’ll supposedly be able to set up a device rental either in an Apple Store or online. Bloomberg says Klarna will handle the lease payments, which means you’ll still require a soft credit check to get started. The Mac Studio is another piece of expensive equipment that may cost less if leased over time. © Sherri L. Smith / Gizmodo Apple already enables short-term financing across its most expensive products. The lease terms will reportedly cost less than current financing options and will have longer payback windows. Going through Apple Upgrade would also entail users not actually owning the phones, laptops, or tablets they pay for, at least not initially. That may pose a problem if you’re a klutz: leased devices aren’t eligible for AppleCare. Apple isn’t the first company to test out rentable laptops. HP has a similar lease service for high-end productivity and gaming laptops. While renting a laptop may save you money in the short term, HP’s service hides a nasty cancellation fee. Bloomberg doesn’t mention if Apple plans to have a similar fee for quitting a lease early. Then there’s the bare fact that you won’t own the device you’re leasing. Even if Apple Upgrade’s terms seem generous, 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. Gurman says Apple will launch this program July 28, when we should see all the nitty-gritty details behind these lease agreements. While this program will inevitably help some Apple fans who can’t possibly afford a now-$2,500 starting M4 Max Mac Studio or $4,100 M5 Max MacBook Pro, some may lament the lack of ownership. The issue is that gadgets are not getting any less expensive. The upcoming folding iPhone may cost upwards of $2,400, according to analyst firms like IDC. And that’s before you account for the ballooning price of memory across all computing devices. As car aficionados will tell you, leasing a car has obvious drawbacks—most because you will have spent a ton of money and still not own your vehicle after the lease period ends.