If you're the type of person who buys a new iPhone every time one is announced, Sprint wants your money — and your phone when you're done with it. Today the carrier announced a new "iPhone for Life" program that will give you a free Apple iPhone 6 or 6 Plus up front, as long as you pay $20 a month to lease it. When you're done, you turn it back in, paying about $480 over the course of a 2-year contract, a figure that can go up if you choose to lease a higher capacity model.
Along with the new leasing plan, Sprint's offering iPhone owners an exclusive $50 monthly plan for unlimited talk, text, and data. That's $10 less than it's existing plan, and what people on other platforms still need to pay. Sprint hopes that, along with the leasing plan and early termination buyouts up to $350 from rival carriers, will pull over entire families away from AT&T and Verizon and get them into its upgrade cycle.
You break it, you buy it
One thing to consider with the leasing program is that if you break it you buy it, regardless of if it happens the first day you get your phone, or the day before you have to send it back — at least if you don't have insurance. According to Sprint's senior vice president of product David Owens, the majority of the company's customers already pay for that." We don’t require it, but we’d encourage it," Owens told The Verge.
Apple introduced the iPhone 6 and the larger iPhone 6 Plus at its special event earlier today, alongside the Apple Watch which goes on sale next year. The iPhone 6 launches September 19th, with preorders beginning this Friday. Still around are the iPhone 5S and 5C (with a price cut), which also work with Sprint's new $50 plan, though Owens says that with he expects people to go straight for the latest model instead.
iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus explained in under 2 minutes
