Your Apple Wallet is about to get much better

As we await the stable release of iOS 18.4 in April, the beta versions are already giving us a solid preview of what’s coming. The latest beta release reveals a useful new feature for tracking your spending that is set to land in Apple Wallet.

In the first iOS 18.4 beta, the Wallet app introduced a menu labeled “Subscriptions & Payments.” Now, with the latest update, it has been rebranded to “Preauthorized Payments,” and as you might guess, this change shifts the focus more toward payments that have been authorized in advance.

This section in Wallet will now display merchants that you have given the go-ahead to charge your Apple Pay for things like subscriptions, automatic top-ups and regular bills. So, if you use Apple Pay for things like adding money to your transit card or paying for your gym membership, those transactions should show up here.

Apple seems to have recognized that calling this section “subscriptions” could be a bit misleading, so the new name – preauthorized payments – makes it clearer. However, while the name change is helpful, it doesn’t change the fact that you are still managing recurring payments across different sections rather than having them all in one place.

Right now, if you want to check your subscriptions, you can do it through the App Store or your iPhone’s Settings, which is a bit faster and easier. Just tap the Apple Account section at the top with your profile picture and you will find the Subscriptions section there.

Whether you go through the App Store or Settings, the Subscriptions page looks the same. It shows all your active subscriptions and when they are set to renew.

While this works, I think the new addition to Wallet is a nice step forward in making it easier to track your recurring payments. It gives you a better view of your spending, which has been a key focus of the Wallet app lately.

Still, I think Apple could make it even easier by bringing everything under one roof. Imagine being able to see exactly how much you are spending each month – whether it is for Apple TV shows, Netflix, or any other subscriptions – all in one place. It would save a lot of time and make managing your money that much simpler.