iPhone for life: Is that what you want?
A trademark for a program "iPhone for life" was revealed this week by a set of international trademark offices. This trademark was filed for by Apple and seems to be associated with mobile data carriers and Apple Partners of several sorts. The important part here isn't the program with which this trademark will likely be associated. The important parts of this reveal are the implications for the person who signs up.
Loyalty headlines
VIA a Patently Apple report we're to understand Apple's registered for a trademark on a phrase that screams brand loyalty: "iPhone for life." We've been reporting on this Apple/iPhone brand loyalty situation for nearly a decade. Check back to September of 2011, when iPhone loyalty "dwarfed" that of other phone makers. In 2013, an analyst by the name of Carl Howe suggested that iPhone loyalty will surpass Android "peak".
In 2018, analysis suggested Android loyalty beat iOS loyalty, and that all other competitors were basically gone from the race. That's iOS – for three devices, iPod touch, iPad, and iPhone, VS Android, on hundreds or thousands of different devices. While Apple made new phones every year, they continued to call them "iPhone", and consumers responded as expected.
If we look at a non-affiliated trade-in site like bankmycell, we can see that Apple's iPhone trade-in brand loyalty was the most extreme of the brands for the year 2019, followed relatively closely by Samsung. Apple had a 74.6% loyalty rate, while Samsung had a loyalty rate of 63.9%.
Loyalty program future
Over the past few years we've seen a few programs pop up that offer what this "iPhone for life" system likely portends. There's a distinct possibility that Apple won't deliver a program for users all that different from their own already-active "iPhone Upgrade Program." The important thing here is the wording.
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Apple's been working with a goal for consumers for a while, one that could easily be summed up with the phrase "iPhone for life." With the iPhone, as it is with all Apple products, Apple wants the user to feel that their purchase is more important than the cash they've spent.
They want the user to feel that they've entered into an partnership with the company, agreeing that Apple's efforts to create a product were done to improve the wellbeing and existence of the end user. Apple's always sold the idea that you'll be buying an "iPhone for life" and that you'll ideally want to continue using an iPhone for the rest of your life, upgrading whenever you feel it's time to change up to whatever Apple's made last.
Apple's "iPhone for life" program will most likely be the equivalent of a subscription system where the user is allowed to trade-up for whatever iPhone is newest whenever a new iPhone is released. Signing up a program such as this will cement further the grip Apple has on iPhone users around the world, both in their minds and on paper. Stick around as we see what Apple's got in store in the very near future.