It can be expensive to upgrade your iPhone before your 2 year contract is up. You’re largely paying off your iPhone through a two year subsidy, after all, which means that if you want the iPhone 5 after you just got the iPhone 4, AT&T — while delighted to extend your contract — needs some dosh to not come out behind in the deal.
No one debates that. What people do debate, though, is how much money it should cost an end user to upgrade their iPhones early. Currently, it can cost up to $499 to upgrade to a 32GB iPhone 4 before the end of your two year contract… even if you’re in your last months of the existing contract.
Well, guess what? It’s about to get worse. Starting yesterday, new pricing for iPhone Early Upgrade Pricing went into effect, bumping the price of an early upgrade another $50 across the spectrum of AT&T iPhone models.
What does this mean? A commenter over at 9to5Mac says, historically, this indicates that AT&T might be preparing for the iPhone 5, but not only does the most recently rumor du jour suggest that the iPhone 5 won’t be coming out in June, AT&T has also raised the early upgrade pricing on most Android and Windows Phone 7 phones by $100 more.
Overall, my guess this is just business as usual and AT&T’s just trying to eke out a little more capital from iPhone owners who just can’t wait to upgrade to the newest model. That sucks, but the easiest way not to be burned by a hot new iPhone being released during the middle of your two year contract is not only to be an early adopter when the new iPhone comes out, but to sign up for iPhones on even-generation years.
