Apple has lowered the price on its Polishing Cloth. Previously priced at $19, the plain off-white microfibre cloth could now be yours for just $9. Alternatively, you could just get an off-brand one that does the exact same thing for a fraction of the price.
Introduced in 2021, the Apple Polishing Cloth was advertised as being “made with soft, nonabrasive material” that “cleans any Apple display, including nano-texture glass, safely and effectively.” The tech giant also included a list of compatible Apple products in the cloth’s Apple Store listing, stretching all the way back to the 4th generation iPod Shuffle released in 2010.
Of course, the Apple Polishing Cloth was cross-compatible with a much wider range of unlisted devices from other brands. Because, again, it is just a polishing cloth. iFixit even did a teardown of the $19 cloth, discovering that it is really just two pieces of fabric glued together.
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“The polishing cloth makes clear that when it comes to innovating new ways to get people to overpay for something, Apple is still leading the pack,” former Mashable reporter Jack Morse wrote at the time.
Now the multi-trillion dollar company has made its Polishing Cloth more affordable, slashing its price by over 50 percent. The cloth’s Apple Store description appears largely unchanged, barring an updated compatibility list to account for new and retired products. However, the Apple Polishing Cloth is now $10 cheaper, down from $19 to a comparatively more affordable $9.
Even so, that’s still $9 for a basic microfibre cleaning cloth. If you aren’t concerned with having an Apple-branded cloth to polish your Apple-branded phone while checking your Apple-branded watch, you can easily pick up a bulk pack of microfibre cloths for less.
The Apple Polishing Cloth’s price reduction might be enticing to those eager to shell out their hard-earned cash for absolutely anything Apple-branded. Within days of unveiling the cloth in October 2021, Apple pushed back its delivery window by over three weeks, with backorders stretching into January before the end of the month. For everyone else, you’re probably better off saving your cash.
