Will You Lease Your Next iPhone With Apple Upgrade? - DTNS 5319

**Jason Howell** (0:05)
This is the Daily Tech News for Tuesday, July 28th, 2026 We tell you what you need to know, give you the important context on all of it, and help each other understand.

**Jenn Cutter** (0:14)
Today, Apple invites you to lease your next iPhone and Mac instead of buying them outright. And is Apple about to step up its smart home game?

**Jason Howell** (0:23)
Yeah, there's a lot of Apple news apparently today. I'm Jason Howell to talk about part of it.

**Jenn Cutter** (0:28)
I'm Jenn Cutter.

**Jason Howell** (0:30)
All right, let's start with what you need to know with the big stories.
Because I basically clumped the Apple stuff together mostly. So let's dive in. The first thing though, getting a lot of attention right now.
Apple's upgrade, the launch of a new kind of program called Apple Upgrade in the US today anyways, it's a Klarna-backed leasing program, and it officially replaces the iPhone upgrade program and iPhone payments. So this new program offers lower monthly prices to lease most of those iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches that Apple sells. iPhones are unlocked, but carrier activated via AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile here in the US carry optional AppleCare Plus or AppleCare One coverage. And then at the end of the lease term, because this is a lease, and that's what's kind of interesting here. At the end of that term, you can either choose to return the device that you're releasing, you can upgrade to a new lease. So kind of like keep the ball rolling and get a new device. Or pay a purchase fee that equals the remaining difference to own the hardware outright for yourself. So you've got some options. Klarna, which is a company that's very known for its buy now, pay later services, in this case is charging no financing fees in the program. Missed payments actually roll forward instead of triggering any late fees, that sort of stuff. So it's kind of like a leasing program that at the end of the day, you can end up owning the hardware without paying more potentially than you would have if you had just bought it with cash, essentially. And yeah, just as like a cost example, $256 gig iPhone 17 Pro normally costs $1,100. You could lease it for $32 a month across a 24 month period, $46 a month across a 12 month period. And then if you're going MacBook Pro on kind of like the other end of the scale with their laptop, 16 gig, 14 inch MacBook Pro, about $2,000 is the normal cost. You can lease it for around $40, like $39 per month across a 36 month lease or $50 per month across 24 months. I'm not a leaser. I don't know that I've ever leased anything. Have you, Jenn? Like is this, what do you think about this?

**Jenn Cutter** (3:03)
So for most of her working life, my mom was an accountant and the lesson drilled into my head when I first started getting credit cards and stuff, mom's like, you need a credit card. You have to build your credit rating was do not lease, do not borrow, do not cash advance. Like come to me first under no circumstances. Do you do this? Even if you're in trouble, you come to me. So in my head, like even for...

**Jason Howell** (3:27)
That's a good lesson, I think.

**Jenn Cutter** (3:28)
Yeah, I think her only exception later in life was like, sometimes for cars, it can be worth it if you don't want to deal with maintenance and you know you're not keeping it. But for this, like I am sure yourself and many of our listeners, you're the ones helping your family and friends with major purchases like this, because they don't want to get it wrong. They're like, well, you know, you come with me.
I have a friend about to buy, upgrade his iPad and we're looking at the cost. And like he heard that this was coming now. We don't have this in Canada, so I do not have to advise him pro or con on this. So this is just in the United States. And he's like, oh man, like that money is so attractive right now, especially like not everyone has that upfront money. But if your phone is dying and you know you want this phone, this becomes a really attractive option, especially with the no fees and you, like that mispayments roll forward. I didn't know that companies did that.

**Jason Howell** (4:26)
Well, it makes me wonder like if there's no financing fees, like what is Klarna getting out of this?

**Jenn Cutter** (4:32)
I'm thinking like, man, there's gotta be some fine prints somewhere. But again, like that's because of my mom drilling this stuff in my head is like, oh, okay, I'm gonna have to go through these terms because I am so curious. But also US financing rules and Canadian financing rules are kind of different. We have different fine prints. So of course, they're going to focus on the US market first and also it's a huge market. So yeah, yeah, it is testing in a smaller nation, which sometimes they do first.