The future won't be a place like that by default. As phones mature and features stabilize, we're seeing the same trend that we saw with desktop PCs five years ago: Away from "must update every 18 months" and towards "my old one is still good and I like it, so why upgrade?"

This reduction in churn and corresponding reduction in new device sales is great for consumers, which is why all of the large companies (MS, Apple) are trying to push the subscription model, to try and safeguard their revenue streams.

That program is really only appealing to the people who upgrade their phone ever year, which has got to be a small part of the market. Lucrative to Apple, I'm sure.

Even if you don't upgrade every year, it's still a 24 month installment loan at 0% interest. Since the phone is unlocked and the financing is not tied to a carrier, you're also free to switch carriers without having to buy the financing out.

Meaning you could actually pay effectively less, if you put 750$ in a savings account you'd earn an interest rate - paying off your 0% loan while earning some small percentage on the money you woudlve otherwise paid up front.

Obviously it would be a very small amount, but still overall superior to paying cash, definitely better than using credit.

Quietly? They debuted it onstage at an iPhone product announcement.

In Australia you always had to disclose the phone cost in a contract. People still keep upgrading phones.

In the UK it's changed and it's not so much that they disclose it as that you can buy them separately. In my case it's like £37/month for iPhone, data and minutes for a 2 year contract or £15 a month if you use your old handset. The latter option wasn't always there.

Often it is a bit more complicated. The last one I did it had say a $30 monthly phone charge with a $15 rebate. I guess so they could make the pone look cheaper while just building the rest of the phone cost into the service cost.

Does it show as a line item on the monthly invoice, or in the fine print of the contract?

Here in QC/Canada it's basically "90$/month for the 2 year upgrade" or "65$/month for BYOD".

The last time I had a contract, they had 2 line items. One for the service, one for the phone.

But prepaid is pretty good here. I haven't been on a contract for years now. I just buy my phones.

I spent a lot of time researching cell phone providers here in Ontario as I was just getting a cell for the first time. All the plans are pretty universally terrible. I ended up with Wind Mobile for $40/month for BYOD. Unfortunately, they're 3G only but it's 5GB data vs. 100MB for similarly priced plans on other carriers.

Line item on the invoice, plus a non-fine print part on the contract and any advertising material.

It's not exactly front-and-center, though. There's some miniscule print that says how much the phone is, whereas the overall monthly cost is in giant numbers.