For Verizon, it's called Edge — buy an iPhone in 20 payments. After 30 days and once you've paid off 60 percent of the cost of the phone, you're eligible for an upgrade. Verizon is also giving a $200 credit if you buy a new iPhone 6 (not the 6 Plus) from them, assuming you're willing to trade in an iPhone 4 or newer and agree to a new two-year contract. They're billing this as a "free iPhone 6." Not quite, but a $200 trade-in gift card may be a strong incentive for some customers.
AT&T's program is called Next. It's 20 monthly payments as well, but you're not qualified to upgrade until the 12th installment. (There's a 24 month, 18th installment version available too). Once you upgrade, the cycle starts again. AT&T also incents customers to use Next by offering a $100 billing credit if you sign up. Like Verizon, AT&T's offering a trade-in credit for working phones, with a pretty generous allowance - you can get $200 for a working, unblemished iPhone 4.
Sprint's new program is called "iPhone for Life," and it's specifically geared towards customers interested in the new iPhone models. You can get the 6 or the 6 Plus for $20 per month. And after 24 months, you can trade in your old phone for a new one. It's essentially a leasing arrangement that makes you pay out $480 for the privilege of using the phone, then turning it in when you're eligible for a new one. You can get up to $300 in credit for an eligible iPhone trade-in.
T-Mobile breaks up the cost of the iPhone over 24 months, and your cost depends on your credit (with a 16 GB iPhone 6 starting at $27.08 a month). The company offers a trade-up upgrade called Jump that lets you upgrade as soon as you've paid off 50 percent of the balance of the phone. T-Mobile is also offering its customers a trade-in value guarantee: They'll meet or beat all the other major carriers' deals, and if you find a better deal within seven days, you'll get the difference back plus $50.
Pricing plans
It's enough to make your head spin. There are a lot of different plans available from each wireless company. What you'll pay depends on how many lines you're managing and how much bandwidth you're willing to pay for, but here's a quick breakdown. I'm going to focus on each company's shared plans for now, since so much consumer attention is focused on that right now. All the plans offer unlimited domestic talk and text.
Verizon's program is called "More Everything." A pool of data that can be shared on up to ten devices (smartphones, tablets and so on), personal hotspot support for your iPhone, and some other perks, like cloud storage, international messaging and more. Line access for each phone costs $40, with a fee for data on top of that which varies depending on how much bandwidth you're paying for. Verizon incents its customers to enroll in its Edge program by offering them $10 off per smartphone for the More Everything plan.
AT&T's variation is called Mobile Share. Just like Verizon, up to 10 devices can share a pooled data allotment. International messaging, and 50 GB of free cloud storage using AT&T's Locker service. Plan charges start at $20 per month for 300 MB of data, running up to $375 for 50 GB of data, with lots of stops in-between. Each smartphone costs $40 for line access, though you get a better price break than you do with Verizon if you're in AT&T's Next upgrade program: 6 GB or less data plans knock that line service fee down to $25 per month; 10 GB or more play only $15 per month for each smartphone line.
Sprint's new Family Share plan waives monthly access charges through 2015. Up to ten devices can be connected, with data plans available ranging from 1 GB per device to 6 GB per device. The company is also pushing a single-line unlimited data offer for iPhone customers for $50 per month.
T-Mobile's Simple Choice plan lets you scale savings based on how many lines you need. You can pick and choose data allotments for each line, with 2.5 GB to unlimited data available. T-Mobile also offers unlimited data and text in more than 120 countries, along with music streaming that doesn't count against your data cap, and a recently announced deal that gets you Visual Voicemail and texting capabilities on board airplanes equipped with GoGo Wi-Fi.