[enahs-sf]

It feels like there’s a psychological component here for you to feel obliged to upgrade at the end of the 2 or 3 year term. Who wants to pay $1k for a 3 year old MacBook? Trading in/up will feel natural. It does feel less and less like you own the hardware though.

[Grombobulous]

This is exactly what’s going on here.

You literally don’t own the hardware, it’s a lease.

That said, you can purchase with financing with an Apple Card, or with numerous other financing options like carrier financing. However, leasing allows the purchase prices of phones to continue climbing while still presenting a palatable monthly payment.

I think what’s going to happen with this is a lot of people will be lured in with low payments and then be surprised with the ending “keep your phone” payment, where it will feel like it makes more sense to just get the new phone and continue the same payments.

Paying a $400 payment on a 2 year iPhone will look insane as that’s the depreciated value of a 2 year old phone.

[gruez]

>Paying a $400 payment on a 2 year iPhone will look insane as that’s the depreciated value of a 2 year old phone.

Check ebay. That's around the price of a pro series iPhone 2 years old.

[Grombobulous]

That's exactly what I mean.

If you're the person who has leased this phone, you make all your payments and get to the end and your bill to keep the phone forever is going to seem kind of high.

Obviously, that's logical. In your lease, you have only paid the price of depreciation.

Just like with cars leasing is the most expensive way to own them, but I guess there's a certain buyer who doesn't want old stuff.

[blackqueeriroh]

You all really do not understand. Many people will gladly pay the $433 at the end because they’ve been able to get a new job and make more money in the interim.

[Grombobulous]

I think that a big chunk of those lessees will be deciding between coming up with $433 in cash or give the phone back and continue with the same payment and they’ll choose the latter.

But then again maybe the person doing the lease knows this already and just wants a new phone frequently.

My worry is that a lot of people will see a lower payment and not realize that they’re getting the phone at the end of the term.

[jedberg]

Except in this case you're not paying any extra. In fact it's cheaper to lease and then own an iPhone with this program because of the time value of money.

It's an interest free loan for 2/3 of the price.

[thisislife2]

Or, they can still pay the $400 and try to resell it for higher. And then buy a cheaper Android when they finally realise being in debt for making a fashion statement is stupid.

[Grombobulous]

I don't think this is about Android versus Apple, there are definitely Android phones sold on credit and there are definitely high-end expensive Android phones out there (Samsung Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra).

[nerdjon]

That I could see, I guess the question comes down to how often to people upgrade. That comes down to discipline.

Is a 3 year upgrade cycle for a MacBook Pro unreasonable? Would you get a lower spec machine since you were not trying to maximize the life of the machine? I know I always tend to overspec my machine to keep it for as long as possible.

My M3 MBP with 36GB of ram (looks like it was about 2500 3 years ago) would get me $945 in trade in credit. May be able to get more on eBay but I can't argue with just doing trade in is easier. A bit less than I would "save" by just upgrading at the end of the lease and this already is not the base model so the number does shift.

Especially when I look at the payment options right now I could finance that MBP about $250 on my Apple Card for 12 months no interest, or $57.99 for 36 months. and then I get a new one.

Would probably depend on what it is I was doing with the machine, am I doing tasks that would actually benefit from better and better machines like video editing and similar tasks or am I just using my computer fairly basic in a way that even an M1 machine still handles just fine.

[dgellow]

> Is a 3 year upgrade cycle for a MacBook Pro unreasonable?

For a personal machine? Yes that’s something I see as unreasonable, MacBook Pros have a very long lifespan. M1 laptop are still pretty awesome machines. For a business an upgrade every 3 years could make sense

[chorizo]

I still use a 16GB MacBook Air for all my development and simulation work (4P+4E+8GPU cores). Even wrote my own Metal gpu code to offload part of the simulation workflow. Modded the MacBook Air with thermal pads and a homemade cooling pad made from cardboard and a usb fan to limit throttling. I’ve run simulations for over 24 hours and kept temps below 90C successfully. A newer Mac mini would be better, but those are so expensive now.

[jonhohle]

I have an M1 Pro with 32GB of RAM and am hoping to make it through the rampocalypse. This may be my longest upgrade cycle, but fortunately the machine is fast enough for most things including LLMs.

[nerdjon]

I mean we are talking about the "Pro" machine. I think there is likely an argument to be made that if you are not doing a task that would genuinely improve with more powerful hardware do you actually need the Pro machine and you could instead go with a MacBook Air that you keep for far longer since your doing basic tasks. I do think there is still some ideas of the pro vs the Air that we are still stuck with from the Intel days.

Is that threshold for using a Pro machine 3 years, I don't know probably not for most people. My M3 Pro from almost 3 years ago is still running beautifully. I could make the argument that more power would benefit what I do with this machine without a doubt, is it worth the upgrade? I don't know, but I would be lying if I have not been thinking about it.

But I also think about the mentality I had when I bought this machine, and the mentality I had when I was looking at possible upgrades just a few weeks ago. Possibly paying more to overspec the machine compared to my current use case assuming that I want to continue to use it in 3 to 4 years.

I don't know if that calculation is necessary as cut as dry.

[thewebguyd]

> do you actually need the Pro machine and you could instead go with a MacBook Air that you keep for far longer since your doing basic tasks

This is probably the case for a lot of people, but Apple is smart with their lineup and there are several what I'd call "not pro" features that are gated by the MBP (and iPad pro) which is unfortunate.

Primarily, 120hz screen, SD card reader, HDMI port. None of those are really "pro" featuers, they're just basics I'd expect on any premium laptop.

That being said, 3 years is a tad on the aggressive side for an upgrade cycle for a laptop. I just upgraded my M1 last year, and this M4 Pro will easily last a year or two longer before I feel a compelling need to upgrade, outside of getting RAM constrained. Use case is photo+video production. So for me, a 5 year cycle would be about right.

But also depends on how you spec it out. If you are just buying the base model, then 3 years makes sense. If you spend extra to max it out, you'll be able to hold onto it for 6+ years.

[Danox]

A top-of-the-line M series MacBook Pro, or a Mac Studio Ultra will command more than a $1000.

[halJordan]

Is that terrible though? You're saving $1000 on a 2/3 year cadence. I'm not a fan of the one size must fit all mentality, and that the one size is the conception that we must all run every piece of he into the ground before replacing it.

[SkiFire13]

You're saving $1000 if you were normally throwing away your 2/3 year old phone instead of selling it to someone else.