Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
You could see in Apple's big hullabaloo today a glimpse of the great bundles of the future, built around phones instead of televisions.
Take a look at the startling breadth of the emerging Apple suite of subscription offerings:
- What you read: Apple News+ ($9.99/month)
- What you watch: Apple TV+ (A new TV app that also features a variety of skinny bundle options at $9.99 each, as well as original programming from talent like Steven Spielberg, Reese Witherspoon, Alfre Woodard and Kumail Nanjiani.)
- What you listen to: Apple Music ($9.99/month)
- What you play: Apple Arcade (price TBD)
- How you pay: Apple Card, a new credit card that uses Apple Pay
The big picture: This isn't exactly like Amazon Prime, where you pay a big yearly cost in exchange for a huge array of offerings. But it appears to be a step in that direction, with hardcore Apple users now easily able to pay the cost of a subsidized old iPhone in annual subscriptions alone.
Between the lines: The Apple Card picked up the most instant buzz.
- Apple partnered with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard and says the former will not sell or share user data to third-party marketers and advertisers.
- The card comes with a rewards program, which collects rewards in the form of cash instead of points. Users can also get 2% of their spending via Apple Pay back on a daily basis and 3% on purchases from Apple.
- The card has no fees, and it comes with low interest rates. It will be available this summer.
- Apple Pay is adding public transit payments for its first U.S. cities — Portland, Chicago and New York. It's already available in a number of cities in other countries.
The bottom line: You get what you pay for, particularly on privacy. That's in cash for Apple, and data for Google.
Go deeper:
- Full coverage from Apple's event, by Axios' Kia Kokalitcheva and Sara Fischer.
- Apple pivots to media as iPhone sales fall