Jonny Evans writes for Computerworld:
With iPhone 11 ordering beginning today, the world may be waiting to join the iPhone Upgrade Program, and it is becoming clear Apple is slowly but inexorably moving to a business model in which its products and services are available for a monthly fee…
Apple gets an income it can predict. You get access for a price you can (I hope) more easily afford, and the platform remains unfragmented.
That’s a win/win.
MacDailyNews Take: As we just wrote on Wednesday here and here:
$99 per month gets you an iPhone and every Apple service. Presented like that, it’d be insanely irresistible. And every “new to iPhone” customer will immediately and irrevocably be steeped in Apple’s Hotel California ecosystem… We bet if Apple offered iPhones along with services bundled into one monthly fee – offer tick boxes for Apple TV+, Apple News+, Apple Arcade, Apple Music, iCloud Storage, etc. – they’d have a winning sales strategy (Apple Prime) on their hands!
That’s where you are wrong, kiddo,
Whole concept please! Who is kiddo and what is he/she/it wrong about?
I do NOT want a bundled price. I want to buy/rent only the service I want. My price for my iPhone PURCHASE is $45 a month from the carrier. I dont want to spend $99 a month to rent.
@Dd … I’m sure it won’t be all or nothing some will subscribe some will want piece meal…silly for you think otherwise,
Rental is dependency. Feudalism all over again.
Apple needs to keep the Mac as a PERSONAL computing platform. Let the free market decide if people actually want to rent everything.
Jeremy Rifkin spoke about this phenomenon of moving from ownership to access to services in the early 2000s in his book “The Age of Access”.
We are well on the way to this. Far too much “in the cloud”, sold as convenient, but essential for growth… at least Apple’s growth. I’m not. a big fan of subscribing to things, only to have them all disappear once your subscription lapses for whatever reason. I actually like owning the songs I have. I find more by listening to this weird thing called “radio”. Amazingly, its FREE! No subscription needed, and no one is pushing me to “like” stuff for their financial gain. And the college station I like doesn’t have commercials. anyway.. Yeah… I’m old but I like my stuff.
No one likes it when I say this but the best computer is the one you don’t see and that represents “Apple as a service”. Soon, MOST people with an emphasis on most will get all their computing needs met with devices connected to the web. Whether it’s through your phone computer, or iPod computer, or TV box computer, home iOT computer, tracking tags or car computer you will be accessing information. That is ultimately what it is all about going forward. Access to information and most people don’t need that.
Don’t need much more.
damn lack of editing.
so not that I disagree with you, but honestly, is this “rental” business model being pushed because its best for Consumers, or because its best for the people collecting the money ? ? And equally important, once the rental market reaches its peak, just like the ownership model has/is/ will…. what happens after the rental market? When the cost of rental continues to go up to increase profits… as it without a doubt will… when the $150.00/ month cost for all this hardware and software goes up to $450.00/ month, what happens then? Don’t think it will? Just take a quick look at your cable bill. All I want is for someone to explain to me what happens AFTER rental……
Is it truly “best” for consumers, or is it a mindset that’s developed over the yrs as people have been trained to ask, “what monthly payment can I afford?”
It’s long been in the works, but we’ve learned to dismiss to entire cost in favor of monthly payments. We want, but we often cannot have w/o this structure…our paychecks aren’t here yet and, or our bank accounts are shallow.
It does engender dependancy…both to the payee and to the consumer mindset that “I must have.” No wonder the vast majority of people entering retirement have barely a few years of bank.
“And every “new to iPhone” customer will immediately and irrevocably be steeped in Apple’s Hotel California ecosystem… ”
And they would deserve every bit of it. Yet it would be an improvement over iOS of today where you own it but don’t. I would even finally shut up about iOS censorship. It’s not censorship if you don’t own it. Just don’t call it a PC as some Apple shills attempted to do a few times.
For $99 a month they better also include Talk/text/data also since it sounds like you won’t be keeping the phone.
Lets see, 5 services at $9.99 = $49.95/mo.. That means the iPhone is $49.05/mo., monthly total $99.00/mo.. Add the necessary ISP charges for decent internet speed for Appletv +, etc. and phone usage, about $75.00/mo. for a grand monthly total of $174.00/mo. Can’t wait to pay more for the same and become captive to the Apple ecosystem! Sorry Apple, no cigar.