FRAME PASS

High unit pricing is pushing PC hardware towards a subscription model

- Phil Iwaniuk

Early in 2023, rumours began to circulate that Apple had plans to introduce a subscription service for iPhone hardware. Users would pay a monthly fee, and in return they’d get access to, but crucially not ownership of, the latest available iPhone model, whenever it was released.

This was different to buying an iPhone in instalments, or a ‘buy now, pay later’ credit plan. There was no end point. No final payment, after which the hardware became yours. Like the software on Xbox Game Pass, users would simply have been paying monthly to use it and when the monthly fees stopped, the access dried up.

By late 2024 those - rumoured - plans had been scrapped by Apple, said analysts. They cited regulatory concerns and software considerations. For anyone with a dedicated gaming PC, that was a close call.

Not because Apple's subscription service would have directly affected our access to the RGB tower of teraFLOPS we all keep for our arcane experiments, but because Apple's market position means it sets the trend. If the world's third-biggest company by market cap decides its customers shouldn't own hardware any more, but commit to indefinite monthly payments for it instead, you can bet that everyone from AMD to Zotac will pay attention.