According to well-known analyst Mark Gurman, Apple plans to expand its growing services by selling groceries.
In the latest version of his Power on Newsletter, Gorman outlines several new services currently in the pipeline at Apple HQ. One of them, he says, is an InstaCart-style service that offers grocery delivery, with the added benefit that grocery nutrition quality will be integrated with data from Apple’s health app.
Health and fitness are the clear priorities for Apple right now, especially with the Apple Watch line’s exercise monitoring, sleep tracking and biometric sensors being key components. The company’s Fitness + Offer – another subscription service added to the portfolio at the end of 2020 ার offers a wide range of guided workouts, but any fitness fan will know that exercise is part of a balanced fitness regime, where nutrition is reasonably high. It is important to maintain long term health, lose weight and build muscle.
Services like MyFitnessPal have proven to be popular for helping users track their calorie intake and weight loss goals, but they can also find the right food type and serving size when entering data. A service that provides groceries whose nutritional value is effectively pre-logged would be more user-friendly and (theoretically) more profitable as it could also make money from food.
Gurman, remember, you’re not sure if grocery service is a commercial slam dunk, it may seem like a complex and in fact a worrying low margin offer; For this reason, it is entirely possible that Apple will decide not to proceed with the plan. Like many classic Apple products, however, the application of the service may be within the 360-degree approach that the company may bring. Most grocery services do not have access to comprehensive health data, nor do they have the ability to integrate their items with directed workouts or push users into the service through iOS nudges.
New payment service
According to Gurman, Apple is currently exploring food supply as not the only new service. He further claims that the company is working on new payment services to expand its Apple Pay offer.
One of these, which has been rumored for some time, is a hardware subscription program where users pay a regular fee to effectively lease the latest iPhone, iPad or Mac. The other is a “Buy Now, Pay Later” feature for Apple Pay that will be similar to Clariner, allowing Apple Pay users to split purchases into equal interest-free payments.