In the Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman notes that Apple’s current plan, when the service launches, will essentially allow the buyer to spread the cost of his iPhone over his 12-24 months. explains that the iPhone upgrade is expected to behave very differently from his program. The new hardware subscription service is completely different. Subscribers to the same subscription service must pay a monthly fee (such as an Apple Music subscription) to use the device and can upgrade to a new one later. As soon as new models are available.
Apple’s hardware subscription service has been around for a while and was released after being featured in a Bloomberg article in March of this year. A few months later, the same sources claim that Apple’s hardware subscription service is currently in testing and will be announced later this year or early next year. Subscription services essentially allow buyers to subscribe to Apple hardware rather than buy it outright. Buyers have to pay a monthly fee and can upgrade to new iPhone models as they become available.
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Also important are the pricing and fine print that separates the line between owning a device and simply using it. Gourmand explained in the newsletter that the subscription fee also depends on “the device the user chooses.” Apple is expected to benefit from this new hardware from his subscription service, as it is expected to earn more than the average iPhone retail price. This should work well for Apple, which releases new versions of its flagship devices every year. Consumers can get new and updated devices at a lower cost and don’t have to pay the full cost of buying a new device all at once.
Gurman said Apple is still testing the new hardware subscription service and working on how it will integrate with Apple One bundles. The source also claims that the new service is expected to launch later this year or next year, and that Apple didn’t announce the service when he launched the iPhone 14, “reducing the complexity of the launch date.” It remains to be seen how many Apple devices will be part of this subscription service and whether this will extend to Apple’s Mac ecosystem as well.