Hi Mac Rumors. I have a quick question. I was looking around my AT&T account information and I noticed something interesting about my current line. It says that I am eligible for Early Upgrade for iPhone. What does this mean? Will this mean I am also eligible for Early Upgrade for iPhone when the iPhone 5 comes out, or will things change when the iPhone 5 comes out? Cause I currently going back and forth whether I should sell my iPhone 4 and then get the new iPhone 5 (or whatever it will be called). If you guys know, will the iPhone 5 prices be similar to the iPhone 4 prices? I know these are all rumors but what do you guys think? I would be buying the iPhone 5 out of contract so I know the prices would be higher. Thanks for all the help!
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Question about Early Upgrade for iPhone
- Thread starter basketball762
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saving107
macrumors 603
My response is based on current prices.
iPhone 4 16GB model
Everyone is eligible for an early upgrade once they have completed at least 6 months of their 24 month contract. You are not eligible for a full upgrade until the date provided to you by AT&T (everyone's date is different).
iPhone 4 16GB model
- Upgrade - $199
- Early Upgrade - $399
- No Commitment - $599
- Unlocked - $649
Everyone is eligible for an early upgrade once they have completed at least 6 months of their 24 month contract. You are not eligible for a full upgrade until the date provided to you by AT&T (everyone's date is different).
Archerious
macrumors 6502
Ok early upgrade means you pay the iPhone cost $199 plus $250, your $18 upgrade fee and restart your 2 year contract. If you are eligible for a upgrade that means you pay $199 and your $18 upgrade fee. I prefer to use a full upgrade.
Thomas
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Actually early upgrade is $250 + $199 = $449 not $399.
Thomas
saving107
macrumors 603
Not if you upgrade via apples website. It's $399 via apple and $449 through AT&T.
Archerious
macrumors 6502
Applejuiced
macrumors Westmere
I dont know about that.
I did an early upgrade when the 3GS came out and a year later when the iphone 4 came out they wouldnt let me get another early upgrade and had to get the i4 full price.
Maybe they dont let you do 2 early upgrades back to back or something?
saving107
macrumors 603
The article I remember reading was from Engadget but I can't find it at the moment, but I did find this article from April of this year.
http://www.phonecan.com/index.php/what-is-an-early-upgrade
Applejuiced
macrumors Westmere
The way they explained it to me at AT&T is that you cannot do early upgrades every year. So you can do it once any time after 6 months of the original contract.
Then if you want to do another early upgrade they told me I had to wait 18 months and 24 months for a full upgrade.
Maybe it varies by account type or money spend per month etc?
Thanks for everyone's help. I have one more question that maybe you guys could help me. I tried searching for this on the forums but I don't know exactly what keywords to search for. Here is my question: I have four lines on my family contract through ATT. Three of them are not eligible for a new 2 year contract update however one is eligible for discounted costs. Is there anyway I can purchase the iPhone on that eligible phone line and then simply put the sim card on the other line? I hope that makes sense. Thanks for the help as usual.
bowlerman625
macrumors 68020
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)
Yes that's an upgrade switch.
basketball762 said:
Yes that's an upgrade switch.
The folks at the AT&T store will switch the upgrade to whichever line you want if you just ask them. That's how I got my last iPhone. It's SOP as far as I know.
Applejuiced
macrumors Westmere
Yep, the beauty of GSM.
All you gotta do is stick your sim in and use whatever phone you want.
Just the upgrade is used up on the other line that's all.
dave006
macrumors 601
Actually AT&T calls this an Upgrade Swap. It is also not limited to the iPhone, you can do this for other phones. Yes it can be very easy and you can even do it over the phone you don't have to go to the AT&T Corporate retail store, BestBuy or many AT&T authorized agents.
Last year there were some issues doing this for phones ordered from Apple. AT&T had assigned the ICCID and the IMEI of the iPhone 4 in their system. This meant that you had to complete the activation on the line that the upgrade was ordered against, this had some side effects. There were a few cases where individuals received a phone that had someone elses phone number and the iTunes activation step wanted the last for digits of the other customer's SSN.
Also last year there were cases where calling AT&T Customer Care to complete the Upgrade Swap over the phone resulted in long waits and issues when the Care rep activated the Micro-SIM before the iTunes steps were completed. This caused you to need an additional Micro-SIM and in many cases a new Mini-SIM (aka standard size SIM) for the line that the upgrade was actually ordered against.
Also, even when doing this in the AT&T Corporate store there were some issues reported. In some cases the RSCs ended up killing the active SIM on the phone that the upgrade was ordered against.
It was simple to fix, just provide a new SIM for the line that the upgrade was ordered against, it helps to have both phones available when doing an Upgrade Swap.
So this year expect some fun as there may be some changes to the steps. 😱
Dave
fishmd
macrumors 68000
You know, one thing i have thought about with this upgrade switch is how would this work if the new iPhone has the SIM card built in to the phone. Remeber a while back there were rumors that Apple was trying to do this. I am just thinking that if they did do this, this would make this process a whole lot more complicated. I mean, I know I switch my SIM card between phones sometimes, not for upgrade switching, but just based on needs etc. If there was a built in SIM, this would obviously not be possible and the upgrade switches or swaps would probably mean having to go to an ATT store. Ugh. 🙁
How do i go about getting the iPhone when one of our lines is eligible for and upgrade but I want to put it on my line.
So like Line 1 main Line is eligible, Line 2 is my line and I wanted to use Line 1 for the upgrade so I can get the new iPhone to put on my Line 2 how do I go about it? 🙂
So like Line 1 main Line is eligible, Line 2 is my line and I wanted to use Line 1 for the upgrade so I can get the new iPhone to put on my Line 2 how do I go about it? 🙂
ckurt25
macrumors 65816
I've done this multiple times over the years with AT&T. Just order the new phone on the line that is eligible for upgrade and when the phone comes call AT&T to activate it and explain that the new phone is for your line.