Roger Fingas
Apple removed the option to buy an AT&T iPhone on a two-year contract from its online store on Thursday night, reflecting AT&T's wider shift away from two-year contracts.
Shoppers wanting to go with AT&T at the Apple Online Store must instead pick up an iPhone through Next, the carrier's upgrade program. Although there's no required down payment, Next customers must make monthly payments for 12, 18, or 24 months on top of the cost of a voice and data plan.
A 16-gigabyte iPhone 6, for instance, starts at $21.64 a month. The lowest rate for a 128-gigabyte 6 Plus is $31.64.
People wanting to avoid Next can still do so by buying an unlocked phone, or by going through AT&T's website or retail stores, where the older pricing scheme is still an option, if no longer the default. Rival carriers Sprint and Verizon are continuing to offer subsidized contracts through Apple, despite having their own upgrade programs. Apple is only offering T-Mobile models at full unlocked price or through the carrier's Jump upgrade plan.
Two-year iPhone contracts have typically required carriers to pay high subsidies, sometimes to the point of losing money on the hardware in the hope of recouping the cost through service fees.
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
Charles Martin
Marko Zivkovic
Wesley Hilliard
53 Comments
The totally opaque pricing is obnoxious (though not unexpected from cell service providers). Love the "From"... idiocy. why not just list the damn prices?
Are the prices of their voice and data plans lower if you finance a new phone purchase with Next? If not, this is not a very good deal. I am going to have their service for the next 2 years regardless of whether I have the contract or not. I think I will be switching to T-Mobile once AT&T gets rid of the 2-year contract upgrades.
My habit has been to purchase at the 2-year contract price, and then immediately buy out the contract for $325. That works to about $150 less than the non-contract price. Can you buy out a Next contract immediately too?
As soon as you buy out the contract, you get the $25/month non-contract discount, per phone. Doing that, makes AT&T quite competitive.
You can buy out a next phone but there is no discount. [quote name="DCGOO" url="/t/186597/apple-online-store-stops-offering-iphone-with-2-year-at-t-contract#post_2731349"]My habit has been to purchase at the 2-year contract price, and then immediately buy out the contract for $325. That works to about $150 less than the non-contract price. Can you buy out a Next contract immediately too? As soon as you buy out the contract, you get the $25/month non-contract discount, per phone. Doing that, makes AT&T quite competitive. [/quote]
Not lower until you own the phone out right. [quote name="justinpe" url="/t/186597/apple-online-store-stops-offering-iphone-with-2-year-at-t-contract#post_2731348"]Are the prices of their voice and data plans lower if you finance a new phone purchase with Next? If not, this is not a very good deal. I am going to have their service for the next 2 years regardless of whether I have the contract or not. I think I will be switching to T-Mobile once AT&T gets rid of the 2-year contract upgrades.[/quote]