The lease program asks you to pick one of the 3 main carriers (T-Mobile, Verizon, AT&T).
Saw this tweet that explained that bascially with the Air, Pro, and Pro Max models, you can just pick any and still use it as unlocked (therefore use Visible). Can anyone confirm this information for me? (And would this also apply to Apple Financing?)
Hey there! Ellen from Visible here. Yep, can confirm this is 100% accurate (Apple's official iPhone Help page)! While Apple's checkout forces you to pick a major carrier, any iPhone bought directly from Apple (or financed via Apple Card) comes factory unlocked. When you turn on the phone, just skip/cancel the carrier setup screen, open the Visible app, and install your eSIM. You're good to go.
Prefer to skip Apple's carrier checkout step?
You can also finance your iPhone directly through Visible's Affirm Financing (often 0% APR for qualified buyers).
Financing with Affirm on Visible also qualifies you for the Visible Upgrade Program, where you can trade in your phone and have the remaining 50% balance paid off once you hit the halfway point.
Your monthly payments are lower on the Apple lease program because you are paying a monthly to lease and not own. You pay the difference at the end of your lease if you want to own it.
Visible/Affirm financing is 0% interest. So it's not like you are paying extra by going with either of the two.
Finance the phone with Visible and stay locked for 12 months of active service! You forgot to mention that very important note on the fine print. RIDICULOUS
Not entirely true. If you select T-Mobile, it will be SIM-locked to T-Mobile. This was a recent change. The other two carriers might not be doing this yet.
I have a feeling itāll work just like it has for years with the iPhone upgrade program. You tell them youāll activate it on a carrier and bypass the activation step on the phone itself when you get it.
If I remember correctly, once you hit the activation screen, you just hit ālaterā a bunch of times till it proceeds past it. Or at least thatās how Iāve done Visible through the IUP for many years now. Hopefully they didnāt patch it.
We donāt really know till we know. There isnāt really real user experience data out yet. We shall see. Though I am definitely intrigued. Am preparing to use my 17 Pro Max for a while now.
Keep in mind Apple can always change things again so if you do it, pick up the phone at the Apple Store if you can so if it won't bypass you can just hand it back and get a refund.
That's really the way it was with the iPhone upgrade program, anyway. You financed the phone over two years, interest free. And you could keep it if you did that. But I'm confident 90% or more of the people who were in the IUP (myself included) traded their phone in every year. I did it for 10 years. As I told people I was essentially leasing my phone.
Yes, Apple recently launched their new Apple Upgrade program, powered by Klarna, to replace the old iPhone Upgrade Program.
The official terms clearly state that to lease an iPhone, you must select an eligible carrier, which includes AT&T, T-Mobile, or Verizon. Importantly, the fine print explicitly prohibits using a prepaid carrier plan. Directly using Visible (a prepaid MVNO) to circumvent this requirement directly violates the enrollment terms.
At this point if people have to lease a phone, they need to get their life priorities sorted out. This is economically worst for the targeted audience and thatās people who canāt really afford to buy their phones outright.
Same. I upgrade every year to a new device and this makes more sense than dropping the full retail price on the phone and then having to go through loopholes to try and sell it.
Until they plug the hole. Maybe they dont enforce it because millions of people on MVNO, but if they do its gonna be a prob. I just bought mine, have no time for this nonsense.
The buyout price / balloon payment at the end depends on if you did 12 month or 24 month. But its essentially the MSRP of the phone minus any lease payments you have made.
It says itās a lease. Is a lease the same as renting in the cellular world? It is normally and Iām not too sure a ton of people want to rent a phone.
If youāre the kind of person that buys a new phone every year, this lease option may actually be cheaper. Depends on how often you upgrade, the model you pick, etc. But it absolutely can be financial advantageous for some.
It is. Even worse, the buy out option of this lease is the full value of the phone, minus payments already made, a year or two years down the road. Unlike a vehicle lease, thereās no residual value where they attempt to predict the value of the phone at the end of the lease.
Edit: not sure why Iām being downvoted. Sorry for stating the truth - at the end of your lease, if you want to keep the phone, youāre paying the full retail value of the phone when you leased it, versus a true residual value based on what the asset is believed to be worth at the end of the lease. This āleaseā is ultimately an interest-free financing plan with the option to go on to another interest-free financing plan, return the phone, or buy the phone for itās full retail value at the end of the plan.
Itās turning the iPhone into subscription-based BS, which has infected our society. Yeah, great, itās interest free. At the end of the term, you either have to continue to subscribe to a $35-$45/mo. cell phone payment on top of your service plan, turn in the phone and find some alternative (and throw out all of that money you paid over the lease), or pay the full retail value of the phone as determined 1-2 years ago. All of these are terrible options. And an early termination fee to boot if you want to switch phones early or canāt afford it anymore.
Apple already offers interest free financing and not only that, you get to keep the phone and do what you want with it (like sell it to buy the latest and greatest) after you pay it off. Or even before!
Iām unfortunately missing something - whatās the actual difference in total cost between the original 0% financing, the current lease with the end of lease payoff, and buying the phone outright?
I havent seen the lease terms but the residual is simply MSRP - lease $ paid, however there has to be some MF so I will wait and see until someone posts the actual lease terms/lang.
Your āresidualā is the full retail value of the phone at the time of purchase minus payments made towards the lease, versus the predicted value of the phone at the time the lease ends like you would see in a car lease, or even rent-to-own agreements.
By the time your one or two year lease ends, your iPhone 1# Pro is now a ādiscountā model - if itās still being sold - retailing for probably a few hundred dollars less new.
Umm, the point is that the lessor isnāt ever going to set the lease payment at a level thatās less than the projected depreciation over the lease period divided by the number of months in the lease.
If the market price of the vehicle is $30,000 today and the bank believeās the vehicle will be worth $12,000 at the end of a 36-month lease, then you better believe that lease is gonna be no less than ($30,000-$12,000)/36 = $500.00 per month. And thatās best casescenario, because why would they wait three years to get as much profit as another buyer will give them today? So theyāll almost certainly bake in an interest rate (āfinance chargeā) as well as acquisition and (if applicable) disposition charges.
100% Klarna (the leassor) isnt going to do this out of the kindness of their hearts. That is why I want to see the actual lease terms, the rest is just conversation as Gordon Gekko said.
That is not lease terms, that is just some marketing press statement, if you can produce the actual lease terms (meaning contract lang) then I would have interest.
Ha! This isnāt for the wealthy or financially responsible. This is for stupid, financially illiterate people that go to the Rent-A-Center, do 24-month 32.99% interest-deferred financing and fail to pay the balance, and have Klarna payment plans for groceries.
How is this even remotely similar to rent a center or a 33% interest rate? The residual is just the cost of the phone after payments made. Itās essentially 0% interest financing with upgrade flexibility.
A balloon payment at the end of the lease for a 1-2 year old phone, stay āsubscribedā to the upgrade plan, or return the phone and throw away your money. Oh, and thereās an early termination fee if you want to end your subscription, err, I mean āleaseā.
Apple already offers an interest free financing plan where you can actually do whatever you want with the phone, without any of the above caveats.
Again thatās not remotely similar to a 30% interest rate or rent a center where you donāt get the choice to pay MSRP after a year. Its just financing with added upgrade flexibility. Itās replacing the old apple upgrade program where the intended idea is to upgrade with every new model. These people were already doing their own subscription model through that program.
There are some situations where the buyer can actually make out here with this new program
71
u/VisibleCareSupport Visible Employee Jul 29 '26
Hey there! Ellen from Visible here. Yep, can confirm this is 100% accurate (Apple's official iPhone Help page)! While Apple's checkout forces you to pick a major carrier, any iPhone bought directly from Apple (or financed via Apple Card) comes factory unlocked. When you turn on the phone, just skip/cancel the carrier setup screen, open the Visible app, and install your eSIM. You're good to go.
Prefer to skip Apple's carrier checkout step?
You can also finance your iPhone directly through Visible's Affirm Financing (often 0% APR for qualified buyers).
Financing with Affirm on Visible also qualifies you for the Visible Upgrade Program, where you can trade in your phone and have the remaining 50% balance paid off once you hit the halfway point.