In its continued full-court Earth Day press, Apple is expanding its Reuse & Recycling program to help responsibly recycle more devices and get current generation devices into the hands of more customers.
As of this morning, the iPad is now eligible for the in-store Reuse & Recycling program at Apple Retail Store locations that allows customers to receive credit for their aging Apple devices. In the past, customers could only receive trade-in credit for iPhones. Also new, Apple will now allow iPhone or iPad trade-in credit to be used on cross products. That means you can trade-in an eligible iPhone and use that credit towards the purchase of a new iPad. Previously, iPhone trade-in credit could only be used to buy a new iPhone.
Apple Specialists have received a list of 22 criteria that can be used to evaluate if a device is eligible for trade. Issues that would automatically make a device ineligible include: non-Apple parts, jailbroken devices that cannot be restored, Find My iPhone cannot be disabled, and several others.
iPads will be graded even more closely, and some flaws that would pass on an iPhone are not accepted for an iPad. For instance, Apple will accept an iPhone with a cracked screen but not an iPad. Notably, Apple will not accept trade-ins of current devices (iPad Air, iPad mini w/ Retina, and iPhone 5c/5s) or retired devices (iPhone 1/3G/3Gs and iPad 1).
An Apple internal document regarding this change reads:
Customers can combine trade-in values of one iPad and one iPhone but “cannot apply two of the same device to one Reuse & Recycle purchase,” according to a separate internal document. Exact trade-in values will be determined by Apple specialists using their EasyPay mobile POS devices.
Just like for iPhone, customers can bring in their iPad to upgrade toward the purchase of a new one. That’s not all.
Customers can also upgrade across devices. They can credit an iPad toward an iPhone purchase, and vice versa.
To clarify, Apple will now “responsibly recycle” any of its devices regardless of condition or age, but only some iPads and iPhones are eligible for trade-in credit.
