John Paczkowski

Recent Posts by John Paczkowski

Apple Preps iPhone Trade-In Program

apple_store_380So that iPhone trade-in program Apple was supposed to launch in June but didn’t? It’s finally in the offing.

Sources familiar with the initiative tell 9to5Mac and MacRumors that Apple has begun sharing with retail employees the details of a new program that will allow Apple Store customers to trade in their used iPhones for credit toward a new one. And AllThingsD has confirmed independently that this is indeed the case. Apple intends to offer customers up to $280 credit towards a new iPhone for used iPhones that meet its trade-in criteria.

The program is currently scheduled to go live in September, sources said, though there’s a lack of clarity around the final launch date. It seems likely, then, to expect it to debut alongside the street date of the new iPhones that Apple is expected to show off at its upcoming, and as of yet unannounced, September 10 special event, though I do not yet have hard confirmation of that.

As I’ve noted before, Apple CEO Tim Cook is eager to increase the number of iPhone sales made through the company’s own stores. An iPhone trade-in program is a smart way of doing that, driving more sales from upgrade-ineligible consumers looking to buy the latest iPhone and increasing foot traffic to Apple Stores in the process. Question is, will Apple Stores have the sales capacity to handle it all?

Apple did not respond to a request for comment on its iPhone trade-in program.

UPDATE: The program has gone live as of Friday August 30.

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I think the NSA has a job to do and we need the NSA. But as (physicist) Robert Oppenheimer said, “When you see something that is technically sweet, you go ahead and do it and argue about what to do about it only after you’ve had your technical success. That is the way it was with the atomic bomb.”

— Phil Zimmerman, PGP inventor and Silent Circle co-founder, in an interview with Om Malik