So I have been on the iPhone Upgrade program for a long time. Before that everything was carrier subsidized, but I wanted out of that model. And the iPhone Upgrade program was the way to go.
Apple would let you “Finance” a phone for 24 months, using Citizens Bank/Citizens Pay financing and because they know there are people like me who want the new iPhone every year, they let you trade in the phone after 12 months and get the new one. It has worked very well for many years.
This year, they killed the iPhone upgrade program and create the Apple Upgrade program. Expanded it to other product lines and change the financing from Citizens Bank to Klarna.
I have never used Klarna before but am familiar with it. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) services have been around for a while, and this is an expansion on that. Again they let you lease for 24 (or 12) months and then trade in and get a new phone every year.
But!
Klarna doesn’t work for me for some reason. I just changed addresses, that might be it. When I got through the process to upgrade and use Klarna, it gets stuck on address verification. I have tried everything. Changing my address in Klarna to my old one, different variations, even chatted with support. Nothing works.
I could just trade in my current phone but i am 50% through the iPhone upgrade timeline and would have to payoff the loan and then trade in, it would work, so maybe that will be the way.
Apple Pay has installments, but you can’t do that online.
So, from my experience so far the iPhone Upgrade program to the Apple Upgrade program has been poor. Apple is trying, but the Klarna integration is finicky and you get lost in the abyss of screens with no way to resolve it.
Or maybe I will just keep the iPhone 17 pro for another year. Or maybe they will resolve the issues by the time the iPhone Duo is out. Only time will tell!
🙂
Steve Novoselac's Blog 