The Fruity Cargo Cult Apple has found a fresh way to charge fans monthly for hardware they still do not own.
According to Reuters Job’s Mob has launched Apple Upgrade, a new leasing programme with Klarna that lets customers pay monthly for shiny kit, return it, upgrade it or buy it if they still have any dignity left.
The programme offers 12- and 24-month leases for the iPhone and Apple Watch, with 24- and 36-month terms for the Mac and iPad.
Klarna, the buy-now, pay-later outfit, will handle the financing.
Job’s Mob pushed this out a month after hiking prices on some devices because memory and storage chips have become horribly expensive.
Leasing prices start at $17.99 a month for the iPhone, $11.99 for the Apple Watch, $24.99 for the Mac and $11.99 for the iPad, Job’s Mob said.
At the end of the lease, punters can return the product, upgrade to something newer or cough up a one-time fee to buy the thing they have already spent months renting.
This replaces Job’s Mob’s old iPhone Upgrade programme, which was limited to phones and had the quaint idea that customers might end up owning something.
The new pricing structure could mean lower monthly payments. For example, an iPhone 17 Pro previously cost $57 a month for two years, with the customer owning it at the end of the term.
Now, customers can pay $32 a month for two years for the same device, then pay again if they want to keep it.
The old programme forced customers to buy AppleCare cover. The new one makes AppleCare optional, which means the bill looks cheaper until gravity meets glass.
Cook warned last month that higher iPhone prices were inevitable because memory and storage chip costs were surging.
Demand from artificial intelligence companies has pushed those costs high enough that Job’s Mob says it must raise device prices substantially to keep the profit machine purring.
Last month, Job’s Mob raised Mac and iPad prices by $200 or more on some models.
The lease pitch gives Job’s Mob a neat answer to sticker shock. Instead of asking customers to swallow the full price, it can carve the pain into monthly slices.
