The RAM crisis just forced Framework into a nasty price hike — and Apple's rumored solution to the memory crunch is renting Macs to cash-strapped consumers | Tech Radar
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The RAM crisis just forced Framework into a nasty price hike — and Apple's rumored solution to the memory crunch is renting Macs to cash-strapped consumers
Apple Upgrade is seemingly a plan to rent Macs, i Phones and more to consumers
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Apple is rumored to be planning to rent Macs, as well as i Phones and other devices, to consumers
'Apple Upgrade' will allow you to pay via a subscription (with financing handled by Klarna), and buy the device eventually if you wish
This is seemingly Apple's way of sidestepping the RAM crisis and keeping Mac sales going, as we're also hearing about frightening memory price hikes from Framework
We're seeing the continued fallout from the RAM crisis, with Framework outlining plans to deal with massive increases in the cost of memory, while Apple is rumored to be about to unveil new way of selling you a Mac in order to cope with ever-higher sticker prices: it'll rent you the PC.
Let's start with Apple's apparent plan, which is detailed in a report from Bloomberg, in which Mark Gurman tells us that Apple is preparing to launch a device-leasing scheme for consumers in conjunction with Klarna (on the finance side).
We're told this will be announced on July 28 and it'll be called 'Apple Upgrade'. The sell (ahem) is that you can regularly upgrade your rented hardware, as well as avoiding taking a huge dent to your wallet with the sizeable outlay required to buy many Macs these days.
This won't just be for Macs, mind you, but also the i Phone, i Pad and Apple Watch, with most models of all this hardware seemingly set to be included. It sounds like it might be a US-only initiative to begin with, but it could come to other regions later.
Apple Upgrade will seemingly work as a subscription over a 36-month term (or 24 months for i Phones and Apple Watches), although there'll be an option to pay off the device early and buy it outright (or upgrade to a newer model early). When the end of the subscription is reached, you can either return the Mac and upgrade to a newer model on a new financing agreement, or just keep it (with a final payment, naturally).
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As mentioned, Klarna is apparently running the finance side, and applications for Apple Upgrade will be subject to a soft credit check.
This new scheme will supposedly take the place of the i Phone Upgrade Program and Apple's standard financing. The former offers a way to buy an Apple smartphone on monthly payments direct from the company (with 0% interest), but there's no Mac equivalent.
Gurman says of the Apple Upgrade scheme: "Apple plans to advertise the program as a way to have lower payments versus current financing programs." The leaker also clarifies that Apple Upgrade won't include Apple Care (unlike the i Phone Upgrade Program, which does).
Some of Apple's cheaper devices won't be eligible for this rental scheme, too, and that includes the Mac Book Neo, as well as the Apple Watch SE, entry-level i Pad, and i Phone 16.
As for the move with Framework laptops, this was revealed in a blog post that Tom's Hardware noticed. The notebook maker said that with its Framework Laptop 13 Pro: "We recently received a cost update from our LPCAMM2 [laptop memory] supplier that goes far beyond anything we had predicted and anything we're able to absorb without placing our ability to operate at real financial risk.
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"Rather than the low-to-mid double digit percentage increase we had forecast from Q2 to Q3 on LPCAMM2 costs, we received prices that are more than double that of the prior inventory we had brought in."
Framework is doing its best to cope (in a commendably transparent way), and is adjusting existing pre-orders as is necessary. That means dropping some 64GB orders down to 32GB, charging the original 32GB price — and the same for 32GB orders going down to 16GB, maintaining the original price for the latter.
Pricing for the 32GB module hasn't quite doubled, but it's up 82% (with Framework absorbing some of the increase), and a 64GB module is up 88%. This means the latter nugget of RAM is now an eye-watering $1,600 in the US, and £1,600 in the UK (yes, nugget seems an increasingly appropriate term these days).
Unfortunately, July has brought us a clear picture of the RAM crisis getting worse. We've just been hearing about DDR5 memory seeing a notable uptick in pricing (after plateauing somewhat for a few months), and the boss of a big chip maker has informed us that things are going to get much worse, with 2027 set to be the 'worst year' in the RAM industry's history no less.
Framework's story of a doubling in laptop memory cost is a truly worrying hike on top of all this, and doubtless we can all still recall Apple's price hikes that arrived at the end of June. Particularly those of you who were mulling a Mac purchase, and are regretting not pulling the trigger before the increases were ushered in.
Seemingly Apple has a solution to the RAM crisis, though, but this rental plan hasn't gone down well online. Yes, you can imagine the reaction to this on social media – one Redditor observes that it's "one step closer to owning nothing" (as in 'own nothing and be happy') – but in fairness, this is still a rumor. Although given the details, and the apparent proximity of the launch, it sounds fairly cast-iron – but we shouldn't jump to conclusions.
A lot of how any rent-with-an-option-to-buy scheme will play out is going to depend on the pricing Apple (and Klarna) attaches, and the world out there on social media fears the worst. I don't blame the doubters, frankly, and particularly those who are worried that the final instalment to buy the Mac (or other Apple device) will be punishingly high. Generally speaking, this is, of course, the way these lease agreements tend to run, and the same will likely be true of the option to exercise an upgrade before the current lease is up.
What's interesting is that last week, I spilled my thoughts on how I was worried that Mac sales were going to flag, and how Apple's in a bit of a tricky situation in terms of combating this. Between Mac Book holdouts, the continued RAM crisis, and cynicism around an apparent renewed focus on AI from Apple, the Mac waters are getting seriously choppy.
I didn't expect to have a (theoretical) answer so soon, and apparently now we know how Apple plans to keep Mac sales buoyant. The devil will be in the details of the Apple Upgrade scheme, assuming it happens, but the overriding online speculation for now remains that the terms of the rental plan will be more likely slanted in a hellish direction than a heavenly one.
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Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for Tech Radar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - 'I Know What You Did Last Supper' - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
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