Would you like to see an Android OEM directly offer its own upgrade program?

Today Apple announced a bunch of stuff, and while many of the announcements probably had Apple fans screaming from the rooftops in joy, as someone who has never owned an iPhone and hasn’t owned an iPad in many years, there was really only one announcement during the whole event that piqued my interest a little. What was that? The iPhone Upgrade Program.

This program is basically a 24-month lease arrangement, where after 12 months of installment payments you can turn in your old phone, get the latest iPhone, and restart your iPhone Upgrade term. Don’t want the new phone? You can make the last 12 payments and keep the phone as your own to do with what you wish. The cheapest plan begins at just $32 a month for the 16GB iPhone 6S, but can range much higher depending on what model you choose. Obviously the idea here is to lock people into a never-ending leasing cycle, but the terms really aren’t that bad.

For one thing, the phone you get is unlocked and you can use whatever carrier you wish. Second, Apple Care+ is included, so stuff like broken screens and other drama won’t get in your way. On the other hand, you are turning in a phone that you’ve paid hundreds of dollars for in order to start up paying again. A lot of people don’t like that idea, and I don’t blame them.

The reality is that these payment plans are meant to make Apple’s wallets fat, not to provide you some great deal. But is the deal here really that bad? It depends on how you look at it, and who you ask. Let’s say you bought a brand new iPhone 6 when it arrived last year and paid $768 outright for it. You then turned around and sold it for $500 today (Swappa values for the phone are around $450 to $550, depending on good or mint condition), with the goal of using that money to get a new iPhone 6S. You would need to provide $268 of your own money, in addition to the $500 you earned from selling your old device (not factoring taxes, of course).

But what about if you had been on the iPhone Upgrade Program? You would have paid in $384 so far (12 payments of $32 a month), and so you would have been out $116 more than you would have if you had just bought the phone on your own dime and sold it to buy a new one. But then remember that Apple Care+ is included with the Upgrade Program, a value of $99, and so the real difference is around $17.

For just a total cost of around $17 more, you would have the freedom and flexibility of payments and didn’t have to deal with going to Swappa or Ebay to sell your phone. Obviously there might be some other elements to the payment plan that I’m not accounting for, such as the taxes in your area, but at least in theory, Apple’s payment plans make a lot of sense for the type of folks with a good credit score and who don’t mind tying themselves into a payment plan.

That’s why Apple’s new program intrigues me. Not because I’d ever consider such a plan (I buy all my phones outright and prefer it that way), but because I could see how this could appeal to consumers who live in an “instant gratification world” and why this is probably a smart move on Apple’s part.

So that leads me to the crux of the matter, would you enter into a similar payment arrangement for a high-end flagship? Say from Samsung, Sony, or HTC? How do you feel about Apple’s Upgrade Program, for those that like Apple devices is this a good deal or just another payment plan that really isn’t worth it in the long run?