Apple offers more cash for iPhone and Mac trade-ins - but don't get too excited

Those looking to trade in an old iPhone when buying a new one - or a used Mac in the same scenario - will be interested to learn that Apple will pay out more cash for their hardware in the US, at least in some cases.

No, there hasn't been an uptick in cash pay-outs across the board, but iPhone 13 and 12 owners are getting more dollars for their handsets with some models.

As Mark Gurman (of Bloomberg fame) pointed out on Twitter, those models are the iPhone 13 Pro Max which will now score you up to US$600 (rather than a maximum of US$570), and the iPhone 13 Pro which is now at US$500 (up from US$470). Finally, the iPhone 12 Pro Max will now net you a return of US$420 (an increase from US$400).

So that's a jump of US$20-30, and no, that isn't a massive amount by any means. But it's still nice to see any extra money coming from Apple, considering that the company has been moving in a downward trajectory with trade-in values in recent times.

What about Macs? Well, there are a bunch of Macs with M1 chips that have received a boost to their trade-in values, getting some beefier increases than seen with the iPhones - up to US$60 more, in fact.

The MacBook Pro has been boosted to US$730 (up from US$670), and the MacBook Air is now at US$515 (up from US$460). The vanilla MacBook is pegged at US$125 (up from US$110), with the iMac at US$570 (versus US$530) and the Mac mini at US$375 (whereas it was US$340).

The trouble is, even with those increases, the Mac trade-in values look pretty poor compared to the initial price folks will have paid for these machines. At least when it comes to iPhones, you're getting a better percentage of the original asking price back.

Remember, too, that these are 'up to' values (meaning that's the best-case scenario if the device is in great condition).

You could certainly get more if you want to go to the effort of trying to sell your hardware second-hand elsewhere, but Apple counts on being a convenient, easy and trusted option for getting rid of your used hardware.

Whether or not it's responsible of the company to shoot so low with trade-in prices in some cases is another question, given that it should be doing all it can to encourage the refurbishment and reuse, or recycling, of second-hand hardware.

Another alternative could be to keep your device for a long, long time, and make a small fortune like someone recently did from selling an original iPhone. The catch is, naturally, that this piece of smartphone history was still sealed in its box, which is what made it so valuable as a collector's item.