Apple needs to make it easier to manage subscriptions on iOS

Apple’s most recent quarterly earnings report was yet another reminder that iPhone sales aren’t as hot as they used to be and new areas of growth for the company will likely come from wearables (AirPods and Apple Watch) and services.

The latter category, services, is especially important, as customers hold onto their iPhones and iPads and Macs longer than ever before. 

During Apple’s Q3 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook revealed its plainly named services business grew 13 percent compared to a year ago.

This skyrocketing growth is one reason why Apple’s firing on all cylinders to nudge customers towards it services. Unlike selling hardware, selling services such as subscriptions to Apple Music, Apple News+, Apple TV+, and Apple Arcade, isn’t a one-and-done transaction — subscription fees are recurring.

But whether you hate that Apple’s trying to milk more out of existing customers by selling them content or love drinking the Kool-Aid, there’s one related thing the company needs to stop concealing: your subscriptions on iOS.

Go ahead, type “subscriptions” into the search within the Settings app and you’ll get two results: “Add Subscribed Calendar” and “TV Provider.”

Neither is what you’re looking for. For some inexplicable reason, Apple doesn’t easily display your subscriptions on iOS. 

For example, if you subscribe to Apple News+, Apple Music, or a month of HBO Now, how do you find out when the subscriptions end? How do you cancel them if you want to? 

In the case of Apple’s own apps, which have their own sections within Settings, you’d think tapping “News” or “Music” would give you the option to manage your subscription, right? Wrong. 

On iOS, to see your subscriptions, you have to jump through a couple of taps: iTunes & App Store > tap your Apple ID > View Apple ID > Subscriptions. Only then can you see your active and expired subscriptions, cancel the ones you don’t want anymore, or renew the ones you want to resubscribe to.

If Apple really cares about customers being in control of their data and services, then they should fix this. A way to open directly to this not-easy-to-find setting needs to be added to search. That, and put the Subscriptions on the first page within the Settings app.

There’s no good reason why it’s tucked four layers (five if you tap your Apple ID at the top of the Settings app first) deep.

Intentional or not, it’s bad design when I have to Google where this setting is every time I need to manage my subscriptions because I can’t remember that it’s hidden within my Apple ID, which is within the “iTunes & App Store” section.

Anti-Apple users will be quick to attack the company with: “Of course Apple doesn’t want you to easily see your subscriptions, because then you’d be more aware of how much money you’re wasting on services!” But I want to believe Apple’s not that evil or greedy.

Whatever the reason is, Apple can and should make it so that managing your subscriptions is front and center with all of iOS’s other settings. 

Correct this, Apple. It’s the right thing to do.