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Apple Changes Trade-In Values for iPhones, Macs, and More

whitby said:
Fascinating that Apple are really not encouraging people to trade in their older devices and it would be easy to get upset at the very low trade in values for our premium priced machines. However let's do the maths.

My 2021 16" M1 Max with 64GB memory and 4TB SSD was just under $5K (total acquisition cost was $5700 including tax and Applecare+, but I will ignore that for the moment) when new and is now worth just under $700. So $4300 depreciation in approx. 4.5 years ( I bought it 18 October 2021). That is approx. $955 a year, $80 a month for the pleasure of owning this machine. I suppose in the scheme of things that is not too bad.

But I am not sure eveyone realizes just how much owning one of these machines costs. Me, I run will it into the ground, so assuming it will last another 2.5 years then the cost per month would be (assuming zero value at the end of 7 years) $60. Still not cheap but acceptable. But I will be living with an effectively obsolete machine which may or may not support all the c**p that is expected to run on it. In the end keeping up with technology is not cheap and we need to factor this into our living costs these days. Apple do not really help and it would be interesting to compare it to the much lower acquisition costs of equivalent Windows machines, knowing they have no value the day after the machine is delivered.
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You say "...$80 a month for the pleasure of owning this machine. I suppose in the scheme of things that is not too bad."

I do the same, use it (M2 MBP 96 GB RAM) for my work and agree that it is not too bad. In fact IMO it is excellent. Less than $3 per day for what is damn near a portable supercomputer. The value is extreme.
 
I prefer freebie Android phones nowadays as I can throw them in the trash when the battery is drained. I can't do that with an iPhone.
 
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It’s kind of crazy how poorly a MacBook Air does at trade in compared to an iPhone!

I will be using my 13” M4 MacBook Air until it dies (or giving it to my husband who will definitely use it until it dies).
 
x86dude said:
What Apple gives you is not worth it.

Give your old Apple kit to someone who needs a hand.
Especially if it’s clean and with original packaging.
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Depends. For some people the utility of trading an old phone when buying a new one exceeds the effort of privately selling it.
 
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salz4life said:
I will trade in to TMobile when it's time for me to upgrade. It's usually a solid deal, IMO, and SO MUCH easier than to deal with dopes on selling sites.
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The carrier trade-ins are a totally different thing. I know that with Verizon, they’ll give you a crazy good trade-in credit toward a new phone -- but the credit is strung out over like two years. It’s designed to lock you into sticking with their service. Not sure about T-Mobile but assume it’s also got strings attached. As insultingly lowball as it is, Apple’s trade-ins are at least a straight credit toward buying another product.
 
entropys said:
Depends. For some people the utility of trading an old phone when buying a new one exceeds the effort of privately selling it.
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The effort and the scamming. Not only all that, but also because when you only have one device, and you can't afford or justify buying the new one before you're set on the resale value of the old, then Apple's trade-in brings a lot of security with it.

There's a miriad factors like battery, insurance, compatibility, performance, contextual rebates and new bells and whistles relative to the old kit to consider.
 
DEMinSoCAL said:
Can you trade in TWO devices on a single device purchase like you are proposing?
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Apple will only let you do a 1-for-1 device trade-in credit toward immediate device purchase.

However, you can trade in multiple devices and get an Apple store gift card for each. You can then use the gift card(s) to purchase a device later.

The iPhone 16e is worth $310 whether it's for an Apple gift card or for credit toward the immediate purchase of a device which is kind of unusual. From past trade-in's I've done, Apple would usually give you a little more (like an extra $10 or $20) as an incentive toward an immediate device purchase vs putting amount on an Apple gift card.

For example, when the iPhone 17 came out and I was contemplating trading in my iPhone 14 for it, Apple offered something like $240 toward an immediate device purchase. But if I wanted an Apple gift card to use later, I would have gotten something like $220 instead.

So, trade in two iPhone 16e for two $310 Apple gift cards. Use the two gift cards to buy iPhone 17e.

If you have another address to use, you could buy another two iPhone 16e, trade four of them in, and use the Apple gift cards to get an iPhone 17 Pro Max for like half off.

Buy four iPhone 16e. Your out-of-pocket cost is 4 x ($99.99 + 1 month of $55 plan) = $619.96

Trade-in gets you $310 credit x 4 = $1240

iPhone 17 Pro Max 256GB is $1199
 
Oh hey, my trade-in value for my Apple Watch S8 went up from $90 to $95. $5 increase, how benevolent and generous of them, let's goooo lol 😅
 
letsGoOn2 said:
I used to sell my old devices (phones mostly) on eBay. I know there are many options for doing this and Apple trade in is the last resort as far as $$$ is concerned. But when I sold my iPhone 6 there was some kind of scam going on where ppl would bail on paying saying that they accidentally initiated the sale. This happened 5 or six times. A few of them were timed auctions and the last few were buy it now. By the time I realized that my options were to either force somebody to pay up and endure whatever headaches bay would require or just take a quick (and lower) sale, I wished I had just traded in the phone with apple. It sure would have been a lot easier and quicker. I haven't tried to sell a device on eBay since.
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Facebook marketplace usually works a lot better
 
letsGoOn2 said:
I used to sell my old devices (phones mostly) on eBay. I know there are many options for doing this and Apple trade in is the last resort as far as $$$ is concerned. But when I sold my iPhone 6 there was some kind of scam going on where ppl would bail on paying saying that they accidentally initiated the sale. This happened 5 or six times. A few of them were timed auctions and the last few were buy it now. By the time I realized that my options were to either force somebody to pay up and endure whatever headaches bay would require or just take a quick (and lower) sale, I wished I had just traded in the phone with apple. It sure would have been a lot easier and quicker. I haven't tried to sell a device on eBay since.
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I sold my 11 Pro Max on Facebook marketplace for $350 a few years ago it was definitely worth it and super easy
 
Quite common to see trade in values change. Other than convenience/ease of doing trade in, other places will definitely fetch much higher values for older devices.
 
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Woaw the drop in trade-in value for the Watch Ultra 2 is massive ! I was planning to change my U2 for a U3, but now I’ll have to reconsider.
 
iPhone XR having a higher trade in value than the XS makes no sense being the lower tier device.
 
I stopped trade-in with Apple - there's no Apple store here anyway. Sending devices into the trade-in service has not been a good solution for me here. I tried and the post-service returned it to me.
So I tried to talk/mail/chat with them, and it was horrible service.

It's much better in all ways to deal with re-sellers where I live. Classy service, and much better trade-in value as well.
 
WarmWinterHat said:
Trading into Apple is for suckers.
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Actually I got around 300€ from Apple for my Ultra 1 when purchasing Ultra 3 - on the free market I would have gotten only about 180€ - that was the first time I used Apple Trade-in and the whole process was just easy and convenient as well using UPS pick-up and not having to worry about packaging etc. - will do more Apple Trade-in in the future when the price is right
 
Be careful with the trade-in process. I once sent in an Apple Watch in mint condition. After it was received, I got an email from the third-party company that handles Apple’s trade-ins saying they had downgraded the condition to the lowest tier and were offering me $0. My options were to either accept nothing or have it shipped back.

What made it worse was that they included a photo showing the device powered on with a perfect screen.

I took a screenshot of that email, opened an Apple Support chat, and explained what happened. I mentioned that this kind of behavior was concerning coming from a trusted trade-in partner of Apple. Shortly after that, the original $200 trade-in offer was magically approved.
 
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macdisciple said:
Some people lack the know-how to sell privately or don't want to be bothered with the inconvenience. That does not make them suckers.
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When you factor in all the fees and extra time (most people don't understand opportunity cost), you end up with only a little bit more for the increase risk.
 
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