back a percentage of every purchase as cash on
customers’ Apple Cash card each day. Goldman
Sachs CEO David Solomon said that the card
was the company’s “most successful credit
card launch ever,” though time will tell how
successful the card will be as the dust settles.
Apple also announced Apple Arcade at its
March Services Event, another subscription that
features over 100 new and exclusive games for
just $4.99 per month. With more than a billion
gaming customers on the App Store, Apple
naturally wanted to tap into the changing
market and increase its market dominance,
ahead of Google’s entry into the sphere with
Stadia, and reviews so far have been positive.
Whether it can persuade consumers to continue
coughing up $5 per month for a few premium
games remains to be seen, but it’s an interesting
strategy nonetheless.
Finally, Apple TV+. Apple had been rumored
to have been working on its own Netflix
competitor for a number of years and following
the announcement of the new streaming
service, sunk more than $6 billion into
creating original content to compete on a
global scale. Available for just $4.99 per month
with a year’s free membership for anyone who
buys an Apple device, it will take time for the
new platform to compete with Netflix, Amazon
Prime, and Disney+, as it won’t be able to build
a bank of content on a similar scale for many
years. However, the initial reception and quality
is impressive, and we’re looking forward to
seeing what happens.
Apple also launched a number of new products
this year, taking its hardware to the next level.