Last month, Apple offered a sneak peek at the company's proprietary generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI) Apple Intelligence. It is slated to come with the new software update to devices with A17 Pro and M1 silicon (newer versions) later this year in September.
Before AI features could make their way to the devices, a new report has emerged that Apple may consider offering premium subscription models to customers.
It may launch "something like 'Apple Intelligence+' — with extra features that users pay monthly fees for, just like iCloud," said Mark Gurman of Bloomberg.
It doesn't surprise many as Apple, compared to others in the industry, is really good at monetising its services and is even fighting long bitter legal battles against government regulators in the US and Europe, who want the company to reduce its App Store commission charges on the app developers.
Also, to be fair, it makes for good business sense given the prevailing market conditions. Revenue from hardware for Apple has seen a continuous decline for the last several quarters.
But, on the bright side, there is a record increase in revenue from services such as Apple TV+, Apple Arcade gaming and other subscription models.
Recent studies have shown that most customers are holding on to their old phones and computers longer than before; earlier, people used to upgrade every year or two years; Now there is a rise in phone bills and trade-in deals are no longer lucrative.
Also, there is hardly any innovative features and radical changes in design between new one and three-year-old models.
And, people are now more conscious of the negative impact of consumerism on environment. The more the new devices they buy, the more the company has to mine for raw materials resulting in the deterioration of limited natural resources on the planet.
It is not just Apple, Android OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) too, face similar issues. Some of the phone makers such as Google and Samsung now offer seven years of OS updates to their flagship phones.
So, companies are now trying to find new avenues to improve revenue.
Already, Google has launched One AI Premium subscription which can access advanced Gemini features on its services such as Gmail, Google Drive, Google Docs and other productivity apps.
With the Google One AI Premium package, users get unlimited access to the Magic Editor feature on the Google Photos app. And, users also get 2TB of cloud storage.
To reel in new customers, Google is currently offering two-month free trials, and from the third month, they have to pay. In India, it costs Rs 1,950 per month.
Samsung has even confirmed that some of the advanced features of Gemini-powered Galaxy AI will be under a paywall in 2025.
So, Apple is also expected to follow suit and offer special Apple Intelligence+ with ChatGPT 4o and more capabilities, and it may even add few more GBs of Cloud storage.
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