Phone upgrade, what's the catch
 

Just hit when I can upgrade my phone, have Verizon. iPhone 8 looks like a good choice, $700 with my 6 worth $95. You can buy it for the $700 or payment program of $29.16 per month for 24 months, no interest, which is $700.

What's the catch?

And I could be completely mistaken but shouldn't there be special pricing on upgrade?

We have T-mobile. They let you pay for the phone in lump sum or as you mention, 24 even payments added to your cell bill with no interest. We expected a catch but there wasn't one. I guess the closest there is to a catch is that if you cancel them before the phone is paid for, they are going to come after you for the remainder of what you owe.

I think the reason that they do it is that they know they then have you hooked, kind of like a contract, but not exactly. Lots of folks don't like the idea of being locked into a contract for 2 years, but don't mind that setup which is pretty close to the same thing.

Do you really need a new phone? Do you like the new form factor? Any killer features you are missing? In a year, it will be $200 for the same phone....

Thanks Steve(s)

I love my plan, $60/month with 1GB of data so I'm OK keeping that though I should look just to see what other plans are available.

I really don't like my phone. It's slow. Very slow. I could get the 8 with no trade in keep it I suppose and sell it later. Why will a 6 be worth more in a year? I could try to sell it now on CL too I suppose.

Probably no real catch if you are happy with the deal.

For them, instant profit ~$400, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/26/how-much-apple-iphone-8-costs-to-make-and-how-much-they-are-sold-for.html

Your 6 shouldn't be that slow. Mine seemed to slow down after the upgrade to IOS11, but it seems about 98% as fast as it ever has now after going through a bunch of the stuff below. I think you may have 2 things at work here.

1 Apple has this thing so that if your phone's battery health isn't 100%, they slow things down to try to extend your battery life. Because that came out and people lost there minds, from what I understand, you can now go into an Apple store and they'll test and replace your battery for $29.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/28/16827248/apple-iphone-battery-replacement-price-slow-down-apology

2 When Apple released IOS11, they added a bunch of features and turned a bunch of stuff on that makes the phone seem slower. If you go through and turn that stuff off (it's nothing that you can't live without) your phone goes back to normal.

Here are some of the settings that I changed that seemed to have helped.

(borrowed from around the web)
Kill automatic background processes

Getting rid of automated features will help keep your iPhone running faster, and help extend your battery life as well. The following feature was added way back in iOS 7, so if you've got that or a later version, you can benefit from it.

Start by turning off Automatic Downloads. Tap Settings > iTunes & App Store > and turn all the Automatic Downloads off.

Next, turn off/down Background App Refresh.

It’s important for some apps to continue running even after they’re closed. If you use an app like Facebook Messenger, you’d probably want to be alerted whenever you receive a new message. That’s all well and good, but I believe that it’s important for you to understand two things with regard to apps that are allowed to run in the background:

Not all apps are coded by developers of the same skill. One app running in the background might slow down your iPhone a lot while another might have an indiscernible impact. There’s no good way to measure each app’s impact, but a rule of thumb is that lesser-known apps with smaller budgets may be more problematic than big-budget apps, simply because of the amount of resources needed to develop a world-class app.
I believe that it’s very important for you to choose which apps you’d like to allow to continue running in the background of your iPhone.

Which Apps Are Allowed To Continue Running In The Background Of My iPhone?

Head to Settings -> General -> Background App Refresh to see a list of apps on your iPhone that are currently allowed to continue running even when they’re not open.

I don’t recommend turning off Background App Refresh entirely, because as we said before, allowing certain apps to run in the background is most definitely a good thing. Instead, ask yourself this question for each app:

“Do I need this app to alert me or send me messages when I’m not using it?”

If the answer is no, then I’d recommend you turn off Background App Refresh for that specific app. Go down through the list, and if you’re like me, you’ll only have a select few apps left on by the very end.

Turn down the graphics

iOS 7 also introduced some fancy new visual effects, but dialling them down can help to improve performance.

Start by turning off Motion. Tap on Settings > General > Accessibility > Reduce Motion and set Reduce Motion to On.

This turns off the parallax effect of icons and alerts. Many people also find the phone easier to use in this setting.

Next you can reduce the see-through background effects which can also slow things down on an older iPhone.

Tap on Settings > General > Accessibility > Increase Contrast and set Reduce Transparency to On.

peed Up Safari By Clearing Saved Website Data

cleaning up cache of apple safari

If Safari is running slowly, one of the most common reasons for sluggish speed is that you’ve accumulated lots and lots of saved website data. This is a normal process, but if too much data builds up over a long period of time, Safari can slow down. Fortunately, clearing this data is easy.

Head to Settings -> Safari and tap ‘Clear History and Website Data’ and then ‘Clear History and Data’ again to remove history, cookies, and other browsing data from your iPhone.

Reset All Settings To Speed Everything Up

If you’ve tried everything above and your iPhone is still too slow, “Reset All Settings” is often a magic bullet that can speed things up.

Sometimes, a corrupted settings file or misconfiguration of a specific app can wreak havoc on your iPhone, and tracking down that type of a problem can be very, very difficult.

“Reset All Settings” resets your iPhone and all of your apps to their default settings, but it doesn’t remove any apps or data from your iPhone. I only recommend doing this if you’ve exhausted all of your other options. You’ll have to sign into your apps again, so make sure you know your important usernames and passwords before you do it.

If you’ve decided you’d like to give it a try, go to Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset All Settings to restore your iPhone back to its factory default settings.

Wow, thanks! I'll try all of that. That said I'm really due for new equipment. MacBook Pro is from 2010 and while I've upgraded and rebuilt it, I am jonesing for a new iMac Pro. My 6 will be super slow when I get that.

That's Apple's cost to mfgr, not Verizon's purchase cost.

You can get unlimited everything on T-Mobile for the same $60. We're on a family plan and get it for like $45 per month for each phone.

If the battery, etc. is still good I may be interested if you want to sell it cheap... kinda weird being a software dev student without a laptop. Much like the 27" iMac I have at work, I'll end up wiping it and putting Linux on it. :D

Good to know Richard, thanks. Need to check availability though. Years ago had AT&T which didn't work in my office, virtually at all. Changed to Verizon and have loved it ever since.

Battery is "new," SSD is "new" etc. I may end up putting it in the shop but it's yours if I don't.

I have wanted to get an iMac for about 4 years, but my PC won't die and does what I need. I was in an Apple store the other day and saw the iMac Pro for the first time. Wow, very nice, but wow, they start at $5k, but they do come optioned to the hilt. I found it impressive that if you go all the way with the RAM, processor and hard drive, you $7600 to base cost of $4999. I think that's 32GB --> 128Gb RAM, 8 core Xeon proc --> 18core Xeon proc and 1TB SSD --> 4 TB SSD. That doesn't even include any video upgrades. It also comes with a 10GigE port (not that I've got anything else that supports 10GE).

WHen my PC does go, I'll probably be going to a regular iMac with some upgrades for closer to $3k which is why I haven't jumped ship yet.

OK, add a dollar or two :D:):D

What do you mean by slow? What function doesn't work as well as you want it too?
I just paid $40 to have a new battery put in my iPhone 5S. I like the phone just fine. I don't find myself waiting for it to do anything. Got the battery because the phone would show 20-30% charge remaining and just die. I would plug it in to the charger and the battery would show dead.
It's old, I know. Did I mention I still miss my Motorola Razor?

No catch, they just hope people perpetually make payments on new phones.

First of all, thanks for this thread Shaun. Very informative.

Second, masraum, thank you for your post. I followed it to a tee.

However, the bolded above seems counter-intuitive to me. Should the "on" be "off"? Be gentle with me, I am old.

Again, thanks!

Plus the added security of resetting the contract time clock to a fresh two years.

And Shawn; I still have a iPhone 5

SO waah!

It's "reduce motion" so you set that to on, and it reduces the animation level of things which helps with processor. Same for "reduce transparency". You can think of "on" as being the same as "yes! Lets do that."