Your junk drawer might actually hold value today.
Apple tweaked the math on trade-ins. Not everything. But enough to notice if you were planning a refresh anyway. The tech giant has been taking back boxes since 2013. Thirteen years ago. The iPhone 5s launched that same year. It is now worth nothing. Literally zero. Apple tells you to recycle it. Good riddance probably.
But newer stuff? That changed.
MacRumors compiled the numbers. The iPhone 16 lineup got a lift. Pro Max up ten dollars, from 685 to 695. The Pro followed suit, 550 jumping to 560. Even the Plus got a small nod, moving from 455 to 465. The base iPhone 16 got the biggest surprise. Twenty-five bucks more. From 435 to 460. Why? Who knows.
“Value shifts based on the market, not just your feelings about your cracked screen.”
It wasn’t just phones. iPads got better treatment too. The Pro jumped twenty bucks to 690. Air and standard iPad models got fifteen dollar bumps each. Even the mini edged up from 250 to 265. Small gains but they add up.
Macs too. Mostly. The MacBook Pro saw a pathetic five dollar increase, going from 685 to 6Isn’t it 690? Yeah. Six hundred ninety. The Air and the tiny Mac mini actually got substantial boosts. Thirty-five dollars each. That’s dinner for three at least. Air went from 485 to 520. Mini from 340 to 375.
Watches were a mixed bag. The Ultra 2 and Series 9 got ten dollar raises. Ultra 2 is now 305. Series 9 is 130. But the older Ultra? Dropped. Ten dollars off its 215 value, down to 205. Harsh.
Here is where it gets messy. Some stuff stayed exactly where it was. The iMac didn’t budge. Neither did the Series 10 Watch. And then there are the losers. The Mac Pro. A $6000 beast from 2019. Its trade-in value fell forty-five dollars to 2045. Still high compared to anything else but still. A drop is a drop.
Apple didn’t just change its own prices. They slashed values for competitors too. Android owners took a hit. Samsung’s Galaxy S23 Ultra plummeted from 230 down to 200. That’s a thirty dollar loss on paper alone. The Pixel 8 Pro took a five dollar haircut, landing at 165 instead of 170.
Maybe they want you to stick to the family. Maybe supply chains are weird this week. It doesn’t really matter. The numbers are out. They are arbitrary.
You could trade in now. You could wait six months and hope for another bump. Or just keep using the phone until the battery gives up completely. Which it will. They all do eventually.
