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Apple in Talks With Goldman Sachs Over Potential iPhone Buyer Finance Options

Personally I prefer waiting a few months to a year and picking up the phones in mint condition from Swappa. I saved almost 50% doing this by buying my 7+ a year after release.

I can afford to buy the latest and greatest but choose not to because frankly, I think the last few iPhones lack the innovation to justify the price tags when new.
 
Dave245 said:
Personally I prefer to buy my items out right and directly from Apple.
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Me too, but free financing actually means you're paying for financing even if you don't use financing. So by not using the free financing you are subsidizing other people's financing... which rubs me the wrong way.
 
mtneer said:
I don't know the fine print behind what the Apple Upgrade program charges, but most other 0% deals have a trigger deadline in the fine-print where the bank retroactively charges some high interest rate on the full loan after a few months.
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That is not the case with the current iPhone upgrade program. As long as you make the payments, there is zero interest.
 
I can’t believe people spend that much on a phone to begin with. For that price I expect to be able to dock it and use it like a normal Mac - like Microsoft’s continuum on the Windows phones. IMO there’s nothing *must have* about the iPhone X. The animoji was the coolest feature albeit pure fluffery.
 
groove-agent said:
I can’t believe people spend that much on a phone to begin with. For that price I expect to be able to dock it and use it like a normal Mac - like Microsoft’s continuum on the Windows phones. IMO there’s nothing *must have* about the iPhone X. The animoji was the coolest feature albeit pure fluffery.
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Indeed, for customers there’s hardly anything *must have*.
It is all about *must sell* - in order to finance Apple's luxury, ludicrous wealth, lifestyle.
The idea that customers should take a mortgage to finance Apple's pompous continuum and real estate projects is outrageous.
The guy who invented that should be taken to a sanatorium, and I am willing to start a crowdfunding action (instead of a mortgage) to facilitate that
 
Danoc said:
An iPhone X is not a phone. Hence the financing option making sense.
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No, it's an entry point to merely finance Apple's world of luxury, ludicrous wealth, lifestyle and if you want to take a mortgage for that & their real estate projects, happy hiking
 
Wow, they used to finance it for you - no interest or just a small fee. Now buyers will have to pay interest, probably in the 8-12% range. It's better than financing it on a credit card for sure (in fact anyone who is going to finance a 1000$ phone on a credit card shouldn't be buying a 1000$ phone) but still, this is inflationary for buyers for sure
 
Bring on Leases! I want to spend $250 a month and get a new phone, watch, iPad and MacBook Pro every 12 months. Much preferred to financing a depreciating asset. Let the leasing company handle dumping the hardware when I'm done with it.
 
RE: "Apple in Talks With Goldman Sachs Over Potential iPhone Buyer Finance Options"

Nope, that's NOT the reason they are talking !

At least NOT what we're hearing on our end.

Apple is talking to Goldman about co-investing in smaller companies that do NOT want to become acquired by Apple ... mostly App Developer companies & small companion device manufacturers.

Apple has a list of 30-50 companies that want to have a hand in, strategy-wise, I think.

50% of the companies are in the US, the others scattered around the world.

Fairly common knowledge on the Street the past 2+ weeks.

Goldman is there to provide "shelter" for Apple, and to help attract others into the mix.

Goldman's goal is to try to take a few of them public.

Apple does NOT need Goldman to help it's customers buy iPhones, please !
 
Looking at it another way, this post could also mean:

"We know our products are expensive here at Apple, rather than drop our prices to something more reasonable, we're going to just loan you money so you can 'afford' our products."

In all fairness Apple does keep around older products at cheaper prices, but for that price you get technology that's 2 or so years old.
 
groove-agent said:
I can’t believe people spend that much on a phone to begin with. For that price I expect to be able to dock it and use it like a normal Mac - like Microsoft’s continuum on the Windows phones. IMO there’s nothing *must have* about the iPhone X. The animoji was the coolest feature albeit pure fluffery.
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Yet people pay enormous prices on certain cars. Can’t delve into the mindset of a consumer. We can take the nothing *must have* and drill down until we wind up with a $50 generic android phone. But Apple didn’t make $88b in revenue last quarter because they produce product people *don’t want*.
 
Like so many have said, if I cannot pay for the phone outright, no way I am taking out a loan. I know what my needs are phone-wise. Going forward, I will pay less for the phone works for me.
 
My wife bought an iPhone X to replace her iPhone 5. The 5 was 32 bit, so no new apps and old ones were not supported, her battery didn’t hold a charge very long, she only had 32 GB memory and she takes lots of videos and pictures so space was always a problem, and she couldn’t set up or use Apple Pay because she didn’t have Touch ID or Face ID.

5 years is an eternity in smart phone time. And i told her that my opinion is you buy the best there is, or the best you can afford and then use it until you no longer can. You can argue that the iPhone 5 was not at the unusable stage because it worked for calls and text and music but it would not support any IOS upgrades, so it would become more limited rather quickly.

When we agreed she could get a new phone I will admit I hoped she would pick a 7s or one of the 8’s, but my ‘buy the best’ statement came back to bite me. She wanted the ‘X’.

Because there were a lot of features added since her iPhone 5 she was quite pleased with the phone. She has not had any problems with the phone or software.

She was surprised when she asked me near Christmas if I would get a new phone when I said no. I’m the one who always wants the shiney new tech, whereas she is usually content with what she has. But none of the new phones-and I’m including Android and Blackberry models here- had anything that was a significant upgrade from my IPhone 6+. I wouldn’t gain a lot of new functionality the way my wife did. And the cost, for any of them, was close to $1000.00. Or if if I buy a cheaper phone I’m only getting a new phone and not any features that I don’t already have. And my phone works.

So for my wife , the iPhone ‘X’ was worth it. For me, it’s not.
 
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