Apple has been raising prices recently, citing the the current “memory crunch” — aka the increased cost of the memory and storage components used in their devices — as the reason. Since last month, MacBook Neo jumped $100 to $699, the 13-inch MacBook Air rose $200 to $1,299, and the base iPad climbed $100 to $449.
These increases have been a hard pill to swallow for many, especially since Apple products are already some of the most expensive on the market. But Apple has a solution: their newly launched “Apple Upgrade” program, which they have developed with Klarna. Now, instead of owning your Apple products outright, you can just lease them. Yay?
According to the new program, an iPhone 17e will start at $17.99 per month, an Apple Watch Series 11 or iPad Air at $11.99 per month, and a MacBook Air for $24.99 per month.
Customers leasing products will commit to a one-to-two year contract for iPhones and Apple Watches, with Mac and iPad plans extending to two-to-three years. At the end of the lease, you can either trade their device in for a new model, buy the device outright, or just return the product product and… move on to Android, maybe? To lower monthly costs, you can also integrate your existing hardware through Apple Trade In or earn three percent daily cash back by paying with an Apple Card.
In order to qualify for the program, you do have to pass a credit check — much like you would if you were leasing a car — and the brand also appears to be taking additional steps to ensure you don’t miss any payments, with code discovered in early beta builds of iOS 27 suggesting that developers are preparing a “restricted mode” capable of locking financed devices out of specific applications if accounts fall behind on payments.
It’s also worth mentioning that Apple just reclaimed their title as the world’s most valuable company from Nvidia with a valuation of $4.94 trillion.
