Apple turnover
Betty Crocker
The world's most valuable company needs more money. Apple, with a market capitalisation of only $2.8 trillion, may introduce hardware as a subscription service, starting with the iPhone.
The proposals are sketchy, but could include options to upgrade hardware as part of the package. This will doubtlessly lure the magpies who live for new-and-shiny. The opportunity to upgrade to the latest-if-not-greatest will be too much to resist. And the subscription will be cheaper than buying outright…for those who habitually upgrade, that is.
I recently looked at the cost of M$ Office 365, compared to upgrading to the newest version of the suite. I calculated that outright purchase was the cheaper option in the long-run. It's one of the reasons that I ditched Adobe software years' ago.
For me, I suspect that the same would be true for Apple hardware. I still use the same iPhone 6s that I've owned for six years. My two iMacs and my MacBook Pro are between four and six years old. Yes, it would be nice to upgrade at least one of the iMacs, but I don't need to; they adequately do what I want of them. As for the newer iPhone, fuck that! I want a home button, gestures are confusing, and of no use to an old man with fat thumbs.
Some on Wall Street have previously urged Apple to switch to a subscription model. Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst Toni Sacconaghi pitched the idea of hardware subscriptions in 2016, saying at the time that it could help Apple get to a $1 trillion market valuation. Apple hit that milestone without embracing the approach -- it’s currently worth $2.84 trillion -- but Sacconaghi recirculated the report on Thursday.
Mark Gurman, Apple Is Working on a Hardware Subscription Service for iPhones, Bloomberg
And therein lies the problem: analysts; coupled with the fact that Apple's now headed by a bean counter. A very wealthy bean counter—so wealthy that he has to give his fortune away to look good—at the head of the wealthiest company in the world. Yet they need more of our money.
Hopefully, this won't come to pass, or will be limited to iToys. I'd hate to have to become familiar with 'nix again, after all these years. (oldman)