When the iPhone 14 arrived in September, there was one rumored feature that didn’t come with it: a subscription service. But according to a new report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple hasn’t given up on the project.
Gurman now says the program, which was planned “to debut it in 2022 or 2023,” is still in the works at Apple and “should still arrive eventually.” While there are few details about how the program will work, Gurman has previously described a hardware service that lets you rent an iPhone at a flat fee rather than buying one and financing it as with the iPhone Upgrade Program.
According to the latest report, the iPhone subscription program is one of several delayed financial services, including Buy Now Pay Later and the Apple Cash savings account, both of which were announced last year. The issues reportedly stem from Apple’s plan to create “a next-generation financial system” to underpin the new features. The initiative, dubbed Project Breakout, would allow Apple to handle all aspects of the financial agreement, including “interest calculations, rewards, credit checks, approvals and transaction histories.”
There are signs that the project is moving forward, however. Apple Pay Later, which was announced at WWDC in June, has expanded its internal testing and is expected to arrive” by March or April.” Gurman doesn’t give a timetable for the iPhone subscription service, but it will presumably accompany an iPhone release in September.
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.