Apple winds down work on iPhone hardware subscription service

Apple has wound down work on a project to build an iPhone hardware subscription service, Bloomberg News reports citing “people familiar with the matter.”
Mark Gurman for Bloomberg News:
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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.
The move is 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.
Bloomberg News first reported on the iPhone subscription service in 2022, when the program was due to launch by the end of that year. It was ultimately delayed until 2023 — and beyond — 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.

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MacDailyNews Take: Keeping their carrier partners happy and the government regulators off their back is a win-win for Apple.
Smart investors will profit from any wild overreaction to the “end” of Apple’s nonexistent iPhone hardware subscription plan.

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