T-Mobile’s free iPhone offer leaked ahead of launch

Almost everything about the iPhone 16 has been leaked repeatedly over the past few months, with one major exception. We’ve barely gotten any iPhone 16 price leaks, which is actually good news. The lack of rumors warning of impending price increases suggests that Apple will keep the iPhone 15’s pricing structure for another year.

There’s a catch to all of this. Apple could change the starting price of the iPhone 16 Pro without technically increasing it. There might not be a $999 128GB iPhone 16 Pro this year. Instead, the cheapest iPhone 16 Pro could be the 256GB model, which would still cost $1,099.

Apple did the same with the iPhone 15 Pro Max last year, and the handset is one of the most popular models in the iPhone 15 lineup.

Just days before Apple unveiled the iPhone 16, T-Mobile accidentally posted a placeholder offer for the new handsets. It suggests that the carrier will still offer eligible buyers a free iPhone 16 Pro once pre-orders begin. This would be in line with T-Mobile’s “iPhone 15 Pro at our expense” offer from last September, which allowed you to save up to $1,000 on the purchase of a new iPhone.

A Redditor shared the message from T-Mobile indicating that the “The iPhone at our expense” offer is returning for the iPhone 16 series.

This seems to be a mistake by the carrier as the offer contains placeholder information. According to the leaked placeholder, the iPhone “NPI” will be available for pre-order on “September XX at Xam PT”. The promo also uses images of the iPhone 15 Pro instead of official images of the iPhone 16.

This suggests that T-Mobile will be ready to offer its customers the actual “iPhone 16 Pro on us” offer once Apple announces the new handsets on September 9.

The iPhone 15 Pro promotion lets you save up to $1,000 on the purchase of an iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max with a qualifying trade-in. You must also be a Go5G Plus or Go5G Next subscriber, as the savings will be applied as a bill credit.

Under last year’s terms, you got a free 128GB iPhone 15 Pro provided you qualified for the full $1,000 discount. If you bought a different storage variant of the iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, you would have had to pay the difference over 24 months.

This means that technically only one of the seven iPhone 15 Pro options is “at our expense,” namely the 128GB iPhone 15 Pro.

If T-Mobile makes the same offer for the iPhone 16 Pro, that means at least one iPhone 16 Pro option will be available for free to buyers who trade in a device that gets them the full discount. So we’re looking at two possibilities. If the iPhone 16 Pro price starts at $999, T-Mobile will offer buyers a maximum discount of $1,000. If the iPhone 16 Pro starts at $1,099, as explained above, the maximum discount should rise to $1,100.