Isn't it obvious? They already offer financing on new machines with the Apple Card. You can put your iPhone or new Mac on an installment program. It's been around since at least 2020.
I must be missing something here. I don't disagree with anything you've said. My top comment is heavily downvoted. I am not saying I like this development.
> when it seems pretty obvious what Apple's strategy is here.
The concept of financing an expensive thing is overwhelmingly mundane and widespread. The word "obvious" means "self evident". Unless that logic also applies to all the other companies through time that provided financing, it is not self evident, since they're all contradictory evidence to your view of Apple's strategy (since it was not those other companies goal)! You're claiming that the motivations of financing applies differently to Apple than all other companies that use it, but not giving evidence why you think that, making it all an opinion/guess, not something obvious to anyone else.
Based on what evidence? This is the "making things up" the reply alluded to. It's not even remotely obvious to me, and I disagree with your concussion. Hardware is 75% of Apple's revenue
Sears had it in 1953. Amazon has had financing for everything since 2015 [2]. Dell [1] had direct-to-consumer financing since 2020.
[1] https://investors.delltechnologies.com/news-releases/news-re...
[2] https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...