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Iphone Businesses Handhelds The Almighty Buck

Apple Launches iPhone Trade-In Program 116

Posted by Soulskill from the get-rid-of-your-old-phone-with-just-one-button dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Today Apple announced the launch of a trade-in program for iPhones. Users will be able to send in their older devices and get credit toward new ones. The announcement precedes an event on Sept. 10th at which Apple is expected to announce a new iPhone model. The trade-in program is being managed by a company named Brightstar, with whom trade-in value maxes out at $336 for a 16GB iPhone 5. The 16GB iPhone 4S, 4, and 3GS max out at $221, $151, and $52, respectively. (The value drops depending on the device's condition, of course.) 'With its new program, Apple steps into a crowded field of competing programs offered by companies such as Gazelle, Best Buy, GameStop, Amazon and others, all of whom accept older iPhones for money. The broader market for used smartphones has been estimated to bring in as much as $5 billion in sales by 2015. With Apple participating as well, more smartphone users may opt for the trade-in option, and could potentially send that estimate even higher. Running its own program would give Apple a way to drive more iPhone sales within its own stores rather than seeing sales from carrier partners, and drive more traffic through its retail stores as well.'"
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Apple Launches iPhone Trade-In Program More

Apple Launches iPhone Trade-In Program

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  • What will they do with the ones they take in? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tim Ward ( 514198 ) on Friday August 30, 2013 @05:12PM (#44720603) Homepage

    Throw them away? - they don't want people buying "old" iThingies, do they, that reduces the market for new ones. How green is that.

    • Re:What will they do with the ones they take in? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Shikaku ( 1129753 ) on Friday August 30, 2013 @05:19PM (#44720645)

      They refurbish them and sell them as old models for profit.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dav1dc ( 2662425 )

        Don't you ever wonder where the replacement devices come from when you head into the store for AppleCare and they hand you a new [to you] device??

        ^_^

    • Throw them away? - they don't want people buying "old" iThingies, do they, that reduces the market for new ones. How green is that.

      Hopefully they could reassemble in America, slap them in those plasitic cases we have seen for the iPhone 5C...or whatever they call it, and market it in china or more likely they will just sell sell 2nd hand phones.

      • Throw them away? - they don't want people buying "old" iThingies, do they, that reduces the market for new ones. How green is that.

        Hopefully they could reassemble in America, slap them in those plasitic cases we have seen for the iPhone 5C...or whatever they call it, and market it in china or more likely they will just sell sell 2nd hand phones.

        Maybe they *are* the iphone 5C...

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      iLandfill. Actually, while that is the only sensible answer (for Apple, that is..) it should also be the first sensible question everyone (should) ask.

      The problem for Apple being, whilst *they* would undoubtedly be happier with previous iDevices completely off the market, too popular a program, i.e. higher prices than ebay et al., they are then going to a rental model whereby they are indeed stuck with a landfill problem - Bad PR allround, that.

    • From what I can tell, this sounds like it's just an expansion of the Apple Recycling Program [apple.com] to allow iPhones to be traded in at retail locations, so I'm guessing they'll process them how they have since they started the program up a number of years ago: give you a gift card for the fair market value of the product [apple.com] and then recycle it if they can't refurbish/reuse it. Those links provide information and details that you're looking for, but to provide a quick quote from their pages:

      When you recycle with Apple, your used equipment is disassembled, and key components that can be reused are removed. Glass and metal can be reprocessed for use in new products. A majority of the plastics can be pelletized into a raw secondary material. With materials reprocessing and component reuse, Apple often achieves a 90 percent recovery rate by weight of the original product.

      So yeah, that's all stuff

      • It's not so much that this is a slow news days, but that with the new iPhone announcement in less than two weeks, the Mac Fanbois (and Fangirls) are waiting to see how much they are going to have to spend on the new latest greatest iDevice (now with cheese grating apps). This announcement means that they can save 200 - 300 out of the thousand they could spend on the new device, new cases, new screen protectors, all the other new accessories, carrier ETF, new apps, etc.

        --The FNP

        • The thing is, I consider myself to be one of those fans that you're talking about, worthy of condescension and all, and yet I still found this to be non-news, close timing to a major announcement or not. I'll likely be upgrading the iPhone 4 I've had since shortly after its launch to the iPhone 5S, and I may even use this program...but it's still not newsworthy.

        • It's not so much that this is a slow news days, but that with the new iPhone announcement in less than two weeks, the Mac Fanbois (and Fangirls) are waiting to see how much they are going to have to spend on the new latest greatest iDevice (now with cheese grating apps).

          And that's why the Hateboyz are having a field day here. Because the Fanboys can't wait.

    • Re:What will they do with the ones they take in? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Karlt1 ( 231423 ) on Friday August 30, 2013 @07:32PM (#44721309)

      Throw them away? - they don't want people buying "old" iThingies, do they, that reduces the market for new ones. How green is that.

      Apple has been selling refurbs for years. I first bought a refurb 60GB iPod in 2006.

      http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals [apple.com]

    • Gazelle gives you more then Apple so I would trade mine into Gazelle then take that money and put it towards the iPhone.
  • But what about my iPhone 3G? (And watch it! This is a family show!) If they were really serious about it being "for the good of the environment" or whatnot, they would take back even the venerable 3G. (And I'm not talking about the 3GS. I know they take those.) I don't see that happening!

    • You can drop off any Apple product at an Apple Store and they will recycle it for free.

      They just will not pay you for it...

  • Uh huh (Score:5, Funny)

    by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Friday August 30, 2013 @05:23PM (#44720675) Journal

    "Yes, I'd like to trade mine in for a Galaxy S4."

  • They're going to be re-selling used Apple stuff...Jobs would have hated that. To him it would be like re-releasing old artwork. Even having to support those old things after they were no longer the latest model probably looked like a necessary evil to him.

  • "up to" (Score:3, Informative)

    by girlintraining ( 1395911 ) on Friday August 30, 2013 @05:35PM (#44720737)

    Well, with their marketshare falling like a rock (Achievement unlocked: Apple Fanboy hate. -5 Karma, +5 reputation) they gotta do something -- Android is now passing 70% [time.com] and continuing to climb while Apple dropped to about 15% [time.com] and has been losing about 1% a month [dailymail.co.uk] on average for the past two quarters (Achievement unlocked: Use of facts on the internet. +2 karma, -1 reputation). Of course, only on slashdot would the phrase "up to" cause people to cream their pants with excitement that the great and noble Apple (Achievement unlocked: Sarcasm! -1 karma, +7 reputation to shop owners in town GenX) was going to give them 'free' upgrades. It'll be just like going to a used car dealer and getting a "great deal" on your trade-in -- they give you x amount of dollars now, knowing that the buy-in (aka your loan APR) will offset it by x plus a percentage, so they can afford to be generous... just keep paying the monthly 'rental' fee (Achivement unlocked: Car analogy! +2 karma, +1 reputation).

    • You know, I think you have something. I always thought a big part of Microsoft's business philosophy was that market share was market share, whether you got substantial new sales out of it or not. Maybe Apple is taking a page from that book.

      Or, maybe Apple is taking a page from Google's book, and trying to create a market for cheap, non-boutique phones. Except, you know, from Apple.

    • How much do you want to bet Apple's market share will still be lower this quarter?

    • Well, with their marketshare falling like a rock

      iPhone share of the phone market has grown from 6.6% to 7.2%. Since 2007, the iPhone share of the phone market has been growing continuously and is still growing.

  • Given the high resale value of iPhones, this isn't particularly necessary from a customer perspective. Obviously Apple's goal is to get more used iPhones out of circulation so they can sell new ones.

  • Script for their new commercial has leaked.

    Hello, I'm a used iPhone. I have cost you over $2,000 in cellular service fees. I'm the gift that keeps on charging, which is useful since my battery isn't replaceable. We here at Apple would like to keep our customers on the hamster wheel of overpriced and stale innovation, so today Apple is pleased to announce our iPhone Trade-In Program. Trade in your existing iPhone and we'll give you credit toward a new iPhone that does everything your existing iPhone does w

    • Re:Apple went from 'Think Different' to 'Think Use (Score:4, Informative)

      by zippthorne ( 748122 ) on Friday August 30, 2013 @08:14PM (#44721473) Journal

      Eh, the android phone is just as likely to cost $2k in cellular bills. The difference in price over 24 months between an iPhone and an Android phone isn't really that much by percentage when you take the cost of service into account.

      And yes, I know you can get a bargain android phone and pair it with a bargain cell w/ data plan.

      You can do that with iPhone, too (virgin offers $30/month for their lowest tier plan if you give them access to your bank account....). It does cost more, but the percent more over 24 months...

      it's not iPhones that are costing people tons of money for cell service, it's smartphones.

  • This is a joke. I keep all my iPhone's for other family members to play with since I know the condition they are in and they are cheaper than buying everyone iPod Touch's.

    • Screw that. I sold my iPhone 4 for $280 when I got my iPhone 5. The kid can make due with her $99 iTouch for now.

      • You could sell it for twice that easily in the developing world, which is exactly what Apple is going to do with them.

  • I'm tired of having to support Gingerbread.

  • More than 50 posts and nobody ever mentioned there is like dozens of Gigabytes of data for our fellow privacy defenders at NSA to harvest.
    Just how easily something like that gets overlooked, I wonder.

    • More than 50 posts and nobody ever mentioned there is like dozens of Gigabytes of data for our fellow privacy defenders at NSA to harvest.

      Hilarious coming from someone with a fooking Google+ icon beside his name

  • I've got an old iPhone 3GS that won't start up all the way. I dunno why—can't really be bothered with trying to fix it. I've been thinking of selling it (I probably won't trade it in to Apple), but I worry about private data from back when my wife was using the phone still being on it. Is this something I should worry about, or should I just sell the phone? Is there some way to wipe the phone just to make sure, given it's inoperable?

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