{"id":24712,"date":"2019-03-25T16:42:22","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T20:42:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=24712"},"modified":"2019-05-20T16:43:51","modified_gmt":"2019-05-20T20:43:51","slug":"apple-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2019\/03\/25\/apple-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Card"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mitchel Broussard<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Apple today revealed a brand new service called “Apple Card,” a new digital and physical credit card that users will be able to sign up for right from their iPhone. Apple says this sign-up process takes just a few minutes and then they can start using the Apple Card right away in stores, in apps, or online worldwide. Apple partnered with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard for Apple Card.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Apple<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Get 3% back on everything you buy from Apple, whether you buy it at an Apple Store, apple.com, the App Store, or iTunes. That includes games, in‑app purchases, and services like your Apple Music subscription and iCloud storage plan.<\/p>\n

Get 2% back every time you buy something using Apple Pay. That’s in every category, with no limits. Imagine all the things you use a credit card for every day — at Target, Walgreens, Lyft. You’ll get 2% back on just about everything.<\/p>\n

If you happen to come across a store, website, or app that doesn’t take Apple Pay yet, Apple Card still gives you 1% of your purchases back in the form of Daily Cash.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

This doesn’t seem like anything special compared with existing no-fee rewards credit cards, and you can already get 3% back on Apple purchases with the Apple Rewards Visa<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n

Mark Sullivan<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The card includes a feature that makes sense of cryptic receipts using machine learning. It also provides analytics on purchases, like a neat bar graph showing spending habits.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I don’t really get the idea of per-card spend tracking. I want to track this stuff across all payment methods, and I certainly don’t want the data locked away in a limiting app.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2019-03-25): John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

What a crock of shit this “low interest rates” line is. Those interest rates are usury, right in line with the rest of the credit card industry. 24% interest ought to be criminal, and 13% is not<\/em> “low”.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-03-26): Brian Roemmele<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Consider a 99¢ app purchase, currently Apple incurs about 13¢ payment processing fees of the 99¢ transaction. If the user is induced, and have no doubts Apple will offer inducements, to use Apple Pay Cash Daily Cash to pay, Apple pays $0. Lets look at that again, $0 vs. about 13¢. This alone would represent millions of dollars of new revenue for Apple. Payments for Apple will move from being a loss leader to a net revenue stream.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Owen Williams<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

this is incredible copywriting because it literally doesn’t mean what it looks like it means on first glance (but also, sort of does just enough to not be a lie)<\/p>\n

Yeah I can see at least four intentional holes:<\/p>\n

1) [Goldman Sachs] can use it for marketing\/any purpose internally
\n2) they can analyse that data internally and sell the results
\n3) they can share it with apple
\n4) can share\/sell outside of marketing (pretty broad...) as it likes<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Adam BBH<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Issuers don’t access credit card transactional data in a way that would allow this. They service the card via processor portals. The payment processor (MasterCard) would be the one who sells data and it’s only sold in high level aggregate, anonymously.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Steve Troughton-Smith<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I think Apple Card is gonna be huge for iOS users, if they can roll it out internationally. People trust Apple to make amazing things, and I can’t imagine many currently enjoy the relationship they have with their credit card provider. I’d love an Apple Card, for one<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

I get better customer support from my credit card providers than I do from Apple, and their admin\/payment Web sites work better.<\/p>\n\n

Matt Levine<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Boy I tell you what, I find it kind of useful to have my credit card number printed on my credit card, but I guess that is just me. Perhaps a sleek user interface is more important than a useful one.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-03-27): John Gruber<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

As someone who had his card number stolen a few months ago, I appreciate this. Those static card numbers are archaic. It sounds like Apple is pushing the whole industry forward here.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-03-28): Jeff Porten<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

In fact, scratch the surface, and there’s quite a lot that’s stunning about these Apple Card policies. What appears to be a few user-friendly features could have massive ramifications.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Peter Berg<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Unless you spend more on Apple products than gas, groceries and restaurants combined, there are many better rewards cards for you.<\/p>\n

See @NerdWallet and thank me later.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-03-29): Matthew Panzarino<\/a> (tweet<\/a>, Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

Apple Card has no late fees and no penalty rates. You will continue to pay your agreed upon interest rate on your outstanding balance, but that rate will not go up.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Neither the physical card nor the app will display a signature. A network change a few months ago means that signatures are not required at point of sale for any credit cards.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The physical Apple Card, of course, has no number. The app displays the last 4 digits<\/i> of the card number that is on the mag stripe of the card only,<\/i> you never see the full card number.<\/p>\n

Instead, Apple provides a virtual card number and virtual confirmation code (CVV) for the card in the app. You can use this for non-Apple Pay purchases online or over the phone. This number is semi-permanent, meaning that you can keep using it as long as you want.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

When you get Apple Card the virtual PAN is pushed to auto fill in Safari. So when you sign up you’re going to automatically have access to the virtual card number Apple generates for you on Safari on iOS and Mac.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Joe Wituschek<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

There are a number of other cash back credit cards that already match<\/a> or exceed the cash back rewards<\/a> that Apple Card is going to feature, as well as also having no annual fee and offering bonus offers for when you sign up. Let’s take a look at three cash back credit cards that go pound-for-pound against Apple Card.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2019-05-20): Ken Segall<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Well … not so fast. The truth is, Steve Jobs actually did<\/em><\/strong> do this. At least he tried to.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The year was 2004, when Apple was a very different company. It had only recently reinvented the music industry with iPod and iTunes, forever changing the way we buy and discover music.<\/p>

Steve thought the time was right for Apple to offer its own credit card. He would call it … (drum roll)… Apple Card.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Purchases would earn iPoints, which could be redeemed for your favorite music on iTunes.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mitchel Broussard (Hacker News): Apple today revealed a brand new service called “Apple Card,” a new digital and physical credit card that users will be able to sign up for right from their iPhone. Apple says this sign-up process takes just a few minutes and then they can start using the Apple Card right away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2019-03-25T20:42:25Z","apple_news_api_id":"7f0bb498-795a-49b8-ab50-6afb12e51d19","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2019-05-20T20:43:57Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABg==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/Afwu0mHlaSbirUGr7EuUdGQ","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1788,995,31,1610,169,355,173],"class_list":["post-24712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-card","tag-apple-pay","tag-ios","tag-ios-12","tag-payments","tag-privacy","tag-stevejobs"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24712"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25307,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24712\/revisions\/25307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}