Apple has reportedly ditched a hardware subscription service project for iPhones.
“The idea was to make owning an iPhone like subscribing to an app – with consumers paying monthly fees and getting new phones each year – but Apple recently wound down the effort,” Bloomberg stated, basing its report on people familiar with the matter.
The attempt to change the way people bought their iPhones, making it one long journey over a number of years or even decades, with the ability to update every year, has not taken root. For now at least.
Bloomberg said the move to shutter the operation was part of a broader shift in how Apple approaches payment services.
“The subscription effort was overseen by the company’s Apple Pay group, which also shuttered a ‘buy now, pay later’ program earlier this year.
“That service let shoppers pay off purchases over multiple installments, but Apple is now steering consumers toward third-party programs instead.”
In 2022 Bloomberg reported that the hardware subscription service would launch by the end of that year. It was then delayed, and delayed, “after suffering numerous setbacks, including software bugs and regulatory concerns. Top company executives had sent the work back to the drawing board before the project was finally scrapped”.
“Like the now-defunct Apple Pay Later program, the hardware subscription would use an in-house financial infrastructure and be based on loans provided by the company itself,” the news site reported. Early this year, Apple deployed the iPhone subscription service as a test for employees within its Pay group. Teams working on App Store billing and the online store were also involved. The service would have competed with – and likely upset – Apple’s wireless carrier partners, which increasingly rely on installment programs and promotions to sell iPhones and retain customers.”
