Mumbai, March 31: Apple is making it a little bit easier to switch to an iPhone: with a change to its trade-in program today, customers will now be able to hand over old Android, BlackBerry, and Windows phones to receive a discount toward a new iPhone. Previously, Apple only accepted old iPhones. The program is starting at Apple Stores today in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, and Italy. As with other trade-in programs, a phone will still have to have some value to it in order to receive credit. There doesn’t appear to be any hard and fast rules, but smartphones in good shape from the past couple of years are likely to qualify.
Apple began accepting trade-ins in 2013, though it’s never completely operated the program on its own. The program is run through Brightstar, which explains why Apple is happy to take Android phones: Brightstar works with them anyway, so it was giving up business by ignoring them. As always, you’ll likely get more value out of an old phone by selling it on eBay or Craigslist, but it’s hard to argue with the convenience of a trade-in. And even if the expanded program doesn’t play a big factor in getting people to switch, it’ll still make the process simpler and cheaper.
