Apple Upgrade turns iPhone, iPad, Mac and Watch into monthly subscriptions
iPhone subscription is here: Apple Upgrade is live in the US.
How the program works
On July 28, 2026, Apple launched Apple Upgrade, a leasing program run with Klarna that covers iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. The entry pricing: iPhone from $17.99 a month, Apple Watch from $11.99. Terms run 24 months for iPhone and Watch, and 36 months for iPad and Mac.
At the end of the term you have three options: upgrade to a new device, return the one you have, or keep it. You can also pay the device off early if you decide ownership matters after all.
The old iPhone Upgrade Program, Apple’s previous financing route, is being wound down in favor of the new scheme.
The whole relationship becomes a bill
Apple has spent years turning services into subscriptions: storage, music, TV, fitness, news. Now the hardware itself becomes a monthly line item.
Lease the phone, subscribe to the storage, finance the watch. Follow that through and the entire Apple relationship converges into one recurring bill: a predictable monthly figure that covers the devices in your pocket and on your wrist plus the services running on them. For Apple, that means smoother revenue and a customer who re-ups by default. For the customer, it means never facing a four-figure purchase, and also never quite being done paying.
The ownership question
The Klarna partnership is its own signal: Apple chose a buy-now-pay-later specialist rather than running the leases itself, putting one of fintech’s most familiar names in the middle of the world’s most valuable hardware franchise.
The open question is a cultural one. A phone was one of the last big consumer purchases people still owned outright. At $17.99 a month, the math of leasing looks painless, and the upgrade path is built in. Whether owning still matters, or whether the phone quietly joins the list of things we rent, is what this launch is really testing.
Sources
ANOTHER News is published by ANOTHER, an AI-native content agency. Daily coverage also runs on Instagram.
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