Anyone waiting on an iPhone subscription service should probable give up

Apple’s long rumoured iPhone hardware subscription service is seemingly bound for the scrap heap.

Back in early 2022, well-sourced reports emerged claiming that Apple was working on its own iPhone hardware subscription service. This would essentially allow you to acquire the latest iPhone through an ongoing monthly payment, much like you do with a service like Apple TV Plus or Apple Music.

This iPhone rental service (which is effectively what it would have been) was supposed to launch at the end of 2022, but has experienced several delays since that point due to software bugs and regulatory concerns.

Close to three years on from those initial reports, it has emerged that the iPhone subscription plan may have been scrapped. According to Bloomberg writer Mark Gurman, who wrote the initial report mentioned above, Apple has stopped work on its iPhone hardware subscription service altogether.

The team responsible for fundamentally changing the way Apple’s phones are sold has allegedly been disbanded and reassigned to other projects. This group was said to be operating from within the Apple Pay group, which also scrapped its Pay Later loan scheme earlier in the year.

It seems Apple is having a fundamental rethink about the way it offers payment services. Its previous ambitions to essentially set itself up as a financial service, offering what would be to all intents and purposes loans to its customers, no longer seem to be in place.

As Gurman points out, such an arrangement would likely have clashed with Apple’s network operator partners, who have come to rely on similar services. Stricter rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are also said to helped change Apple’s mind.

Whatever the case, it now seems certain that you’ll have to pay for your new iPhone 17 Air outright come the end of 2025.