Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman says his sources tell him that Apple has dropped its plans to launch a hardware subscription service that would allow “subscribing” customers to get a new iPhone each year.
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, according to people familiar with the matter. The team was disbanded and reassigned to other projects, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the work was confidential.
Gurman first shared rumors about a possible Apple hardware subscription service in 2022. At the time, he said that Apple was looking to develop a simple subscription service that would involve customers paying a monthly fee to “subscribe” to a device.
The subscription-based service would make it easier for customers lacking the upfront cost of an expensive iPhone to instead pay monthly, rather than paying the entire cost of the device upfront.
While Apple already offers an iPhone Upgrade Program that allows customers to make monthly payments across a 12 or 24 month timespan, the subscription service would have involved an ongoing monthly fee, rather than dividing payments over a set number of months.
Apple apparently dropped its plans for the subscription service after suffering numerous setbacks, including software bugs and regulatory concerns. The subscription service team has been disbanded and reassigned to other projects.
