“Apple is preparing a significant expansion of its iPhone sales capabilities in its official retail stores, according to sources,” Mark Gurman reports for 9to5Mac.
“Late in August, many Apple Stores in the United States will kick off a pilot program for customers to be able to purchase a new iPhone via the latest carrier upgrade programs: AT&T Next, T-Mobile JUMP, and Verizon Edge,” Gurman reports. “Currently, iPhones bought at Apple Stores must either be purchased on a two-year deal, or at full-price (unlocked) with no contract.”
Gurman reports, “This new pilot program will likely be rolled out to Apple Stores later in 2014 after the initial kinks are worked out in the test markets, a source said. It’s also no coincidence that the program is rolling out just ahead of the iPhone 6 launch in September.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lynn Weiler” for the heads up.]
If this does indeed transpire, then it is good news for iPhone owners with cell phone contracts.
The case history of the current system has meant that if you bought your iPhone via a telco and then it did not work as expected, the telco’s would just wash their hands off saying that you were out of guarantee so you had to pay to have it fixed.
This way, Apple will be on hand to cover all your needs even repairs because you bought it off their own shops.
A win, win, win situation!
just saying….
Apple has always been “on hand” for any iPhone no matter where it was purchased! I’ve bought all of our family’s iPhones through AT&T. And I got support, free repairs, and warranty replacement at the Apple Store, no questions asked.
You are right suznick.
But for new comers to the iPhone through a telco, the telco sales personnel have omitted to inform the buyer to Apple incs. terms and conditions which has meant that when a problem has arisen, the telco shop concerned has charged the iPhone owner for repairs or fixes that they shouldn’t have been charged for because all they did was forward the iPhone to Apple for a free repair job.
I say this with the authority of having to interceded in the past for friends and family who have been informed by telcos that there will be a charge for any work required to return the iPhone to good working order by advising them to take it to an Apple shop as opposed to the telco. What happens then is that I am asked to accompany them to an Apple shop because they are not confident and need someone authoritative to speak on their behalf.
My comment was addressing that scenario.
Errors and omissions included!
If you pay full price for your iPhone 6 how do you get a telco to lower your bill to reflect you not having to pay a iPhone subsidy?
Yes, if your “telco” (carrier) is T-Mobile USA. Since last year, they’ve been separating the two items in your monthly bill: mobile service, and interest-free loan for the hardware. And unlike all other carriers, once you pay off your phone through those monthly installments, your monthly bill goes down.
The fringe benefit of this is that your phone is not taxed as if it were mobile service (which gets taxed at the rate north of 15%), but as a phone (where you pay ordinary retail tax, which is in some states as low as 3%). The difference, over the life of that two-year contract, can be $80 or more.
If you purchase your new iPhone at full price, you can swap out your old iPhone and continue using your old shared planned at the same price. So, no reduction in cost. If you purchase a new iPhone at the subsidized price, you must upgrade to AT&T’s Next plan, which includes their new rates + an extra monthly amount to pay for the subsidy over the coming months. You can continue this plan indefinitely then, and replace your iPhone annually, which will include the data plan cost + the subsidy repayment.
Essentially, AT&T is discontinuing the subsidy, and allowing you to pay a higher rate over the data plan to repay to them the cost of the iPhone over that year. At the end of the year, you’re doing the same thing you were doing previously over two years.
If you run the numbers, you’ll end up repaying approximately twice the cost of the iPhone, so it’s a better deal to keep your old plan, and buy your new iPhone outright.
The details are a bit detailed, and I may have some off a bit, but this is essentially what we saw when we decided to just buy our new iPhones outright this year.
So, no decrease in cost, a new baseline has been set at the old subsidized level, with new Next contracts required if you want pay off your iPhone over time, just that the extra payments add up to more than the cost of the new iPhone.
Whew! Hope that helps.
Good news. When I bought the 5S I wanted to use AT&T’s Next program which had been out for about a month. Best Buy had a special offer so I went there first. After verifying that they had inventory (which took about 30 minutes) I fortunately checked if they ran the Next program which they did not. So I ended up having to go to the AT&T store. The wait for a drop in was too long so I booked an appt for the afternoon. Luckily the appt went very smoothly and the guy knew what he was talking about and I was able to walk out with the new plan and phones in less than an hour. At the time I blamed Best Buy for being so lame (which they still are) but in this case it looks like AT&T restricted the plan sign up to their stores and services until now.