Apple pulled back on plans to make its Stocks app good
The story is that Apple wanted to let users buy and sell stocks using their iPhones, presumably via the Stocks app, and it looks as if Apple and Goldman Sachs had a plan, but then stepped back.
“Siri, buy 1,000 Arm shares”
The plan, intended for introduction in 2022, would have put Apple up against other stock-trading apps. Developed during Covid when interest rates stood at zero percent (and I incidentally wrote this), the service would have been introduced in partnership with Goldman Sachs, but Apple decided to put the plan on ice as the markets slumped.
In the end the partners decided to introduce a high-yield savings account that already has over $10 billion in deposits. It sounds as if the infrastructure for the service already exists.
“One source said the infrastructure for an investing feature is mostly built and ready to go should Apple eventually decide to move forward with it,” writes CNBC.
Feed the need
Ostensibly at least, the plan was kicked into the grass because the partners felt it would not be a good look if casual investors lot their shirt in the event of a stock market collapse, or as inflation and interest rates soared.
That’s interesting, I guess, as if the world’s biggest company and one of the world’s oldest banks feel that way, then perhaps we should all have a big, long think about that.
Thing is, right now there are over a billion devices in use all carrying an app which is really only a subset of some of the features you’ll find in other investment apps, or via online stock trading websites.
Why not partner if you won’t do it?
Even if Apple doesn’t want to offer such a service in its own right, surely there’s an opportunity to partner more intensively with others who already do.
Why not let users integrate information and purchasing from third party stock trading services within the Stocks app?
Doing so would at least make the app useful, and I imagine there has been some kind of plan in this regard since 2007 when Steve Jobs proudly showed the app to us for the first time.
Why not re-tool it with an API to bring in third party partners if Apple doesn’t want to offer stock trading tools itself? Or, if the infrastructure for an Apple stock-trading service already exists, why not just switch that service on and see what happens?
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