TNW 448: The Math Behind Apple Upgrade

New episode from the TWiT network: Tech News Weekly #448 - “The Math Behind Apple Upgrade” is now available.

Hosts: Mikah Sargent, Jacob Ward · Guest: D. Griffin Jones

Topics covered:
:robot: An OpenAI model’s autonomous hack into Hugging Face and rising AI safety concerns
:mobile_phone: Apple’s new Upgrade program replacing the iPhone Upgrade Program with Klarna leasing
:musical_note: Winamp’s relaunch featuring a Deezer-powered streaming subscription
:magnifying_glass_tilted_left: Shared Claude chats appearing in Google search results and exposing sensitive information

#TWiT #Podcast #TechNews

As I said in the live chat during the show, offering people more ways to lower their costs is beneficial for Apple and MAY be likewise beneficial for its customers, BUT I do think it unwise to compare leasing to owning. If the fees are lower because you own nothing in in the end, that is a lower fee, but also a much lower value in the end.

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I agree - don’t like leasing v owning for the reason you cited! I just upgrade my iPhone every 2 years for that very reason (ownership!) I trade in my existing 2 year old phone to Apple and get a great discount on my new phone! $640 off if I recall my most recent transaction! Also, I put the new phone on my Apple Card for a small payment per month at Zero% interest, and get 3% back on the total

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Leasing only really pays off, if don’t have the money up front, want the latest thing (car, computer, phone, whatever) and want to upgrade again at the end of the lease cycle, if you don’t, you still have that sudden lump sum to pay off - as long as you looked after the thing, didn’t scratch it or otherwise damage it in any way at all. Normal wear and tear for 2 years of daily use? Not acceptable, it has to be pristine, or otherwise you will have a penalty payment…

We lease printers, with full service, because it saved us around 10,000€ in toner sitting in our stores, and freed up space in our stores, for the different types of printer. Now the printers are more unified in the type of toner they use and the printers automatically order toner when they hit 10%.

We looked at leasing PCs last year, I was sick and tired of having to constantly check our records, to see which PCs were too old and needed replacing - it took around 6 months to get the complete list of all old Windows 10 PCs that couldn’t be upgraded to Windows 11, verify them, double check we hadn’t missed any, then go through the approval process for 250 new PCs and laptops. We had leasing all set up to go, the hardware was on its way and the CEO changed his mind at the last minute and wanted an invoice for the total amount…

That, plus the cost of hardware this year, means we will probably be in the same situation, when Windows 12 comes around, searching out all those Windows 11 PCs that can’t be upgraded and getting them verified and replaced - one problem is, the support staff don’t always book the old hardware out, when it is replaced, there was no formal system for asset tracking, it was run over the ticketing system, we have finally moved to it being in the maintenance ERP system (as opposed to the manufacturing ERP system).

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