Vlad Savov, always ready with the eloquent takes:
Or, maybe, you only give off the appearance of wealth. This being a credit card, the Apple Card is also a symbol for the United States’ addiction to debt, both at the national and personal level. Acquiring and using one may sink you deeper into debt, and any bank that issues a credit card relies on its users’ financial tardiness or illiteracy to generate exploitative interest on unpaid balances. There’s something fundamentally un-Apple-like about trying to profit from people’s weaknesses.
Apple is conspiring with Goldman-Sachs to earn money by preying on the weak and indebted. I don’t like using this line, but there’s no chance in hell that Steve Jobs would’ve signed off on an Apple credit card, especially not one with such predatory interest rates.
And the lock-in is already underway:
Effective immediately, Apple Pay Cash in iOS 12.2 and watchOS 5.2 will not allow sending person to person funded by credit cards other than the Apple Card.
Time is cyclical.
Steve Jobs, what? Steve Jobs was a mean and horrible person. I’ve gotten this from many angles. One time when he came to the Pasadena Apple Store and I happened to be there (worked very near). I asked a person who worked there if he was there. The person looked at me and said, “yeah, and he hasn’t talked to any of us.” He’d been there for quite awhile. Stevie was surrounded by big looking guys in suits. I was about 10 feet away from him at one point reading a book and I decided to break the bubble. I said loudly when he looked in my direction, “hi!” He stared at me with as a disgusted look as possible and slowly shook his head. I just kept staring at him. Another time I was at a very large talk at the University of Washington by a person who left Pixar and happened to go to Microsoft Research at the time. Someone asked him about working with Steve Jobs. He said, and I almost directly quote, “Steve Jobs nearly ruined my life. He nearly ruined my marriage, nearly ruined my job…” and it went on an on, in front of 400 people, no holds barred. Steve Jobs was a horrible person. If he had had the idea of this card? Lord Steve would have said, “I want a higher percentage. I want an insanely great percentage.” Just because some people are religious about Apple doesn’t make their heavenly leader a great person.
Precisely! When did this sanitizing of Jobs’ character begin? He wouldn’t have ever said “oh this is going to hurt poor people!” He had NO social conscience. Do people not bother reading about him before assigning sainthood to him?
Steve Jobs undoubtedly was an asshole, but he was amazing at maintaining the image of Apple as rebel upstart, with morals and ideals (emphasis on *image*). He wouldnever start giving out credit cards not because of the good in his heart, but because it would tarnish the image and brand of Apple as a plucky, rebellious upstart.
Tim Cook, on the other hand, is a slimy, lying, and scheming bean counter. He doesn’t give two shits about brand or image – all he cares about is extracting every last cent out of his customers, regardless of whether or not they’ll end up un debt.
Thom Holwerda,
I think people had an emotional connection to apple especially as an underdog, but as it became increasingly successful it kind of transformed into the same monster that other huge companies are. Apple’s “think different” slogan was already inauthentic even before Cook took over, owning a iphone didn’t have the same exclusive prestige it had only a few years prior. Steve Jobs himself was struggling to distinguish apple products in the growing commodity market. Shortly before he left due to his health, he was directing apple to sue smartphone competitors over software patents “I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this”. By that time it seems to me that apple had already lost the ball on innovation and was already turning to greedy business practices. Still, people want to pin all of apple’s innovation and greed problems on Tim Cook. I don’t think it would have mattered who took over because by the time apple was a wall street darling it had already lost it’s niche appeal. You could always buy it’s products but they’d no longer feel special simply because they weren’t.
I really don’t think it’s just apple, similar things go on with other companies, success & greed changes them fundamentally.
Thom Holwerda,
Two people mentioned they had an apple credit card from the 1990s, which was news to me and prompted me to look it up, It turns out this apple card is not apple’s first credit card if you allow “apple computer” credit cards to be counted. Here are some pictures and ads:
https://www.cultofmac.com/614988/apple-credit-card-histor/
https://www.buzzfeed.com/leonoraepstein/43-vintage-apple-products-people-are-going-nuts-for#980455
It offered a $2500 line of credit. From the limited information available I don’t think it was accepted by any other stores, it was just for apple store credit.
I’ve seen these kinds of store credit cards before many years ago, but these days consolidation has taken over and the vast majority are just rebranded visa/mc/amex/etc cards with localized “rewards”.
I strongly disagree. Steve Jobs was able to present an air of ’60s counter-culture, but the spectre of putting profit above all else was never well hidden. He quite openly said that the original Macintosh shouldn’t have any expansion ports, and that if users wanted more RAM he would like them to simply buy another computer.
Tim Cook, on the other hand, is a slimy, lying, and scheming bean counter. He doesn’t give two shits about brand or image – all he cares about is extracting every last cent out of his customers, regardless of whether or not they’ll end up un debt.
I could’nt agree with you more. You pracically took the words right out of my front-brain when it comes to my opinion (as well as FACT) about Tim Cook. Great post Thom!
–Jedd
Can confirm this impression. I saw Steve Jobs at a grocery store in Los Angeles ten years ago. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw him trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
Hm, that still would take her more time than simply scanning it once and typing ~”*15″ in cash register… 😛
This is just further optimization of the supply lines of cash flowing into Apple from microtransactions. Now they can double-dip on App Store purchases by getting 30%, plus interest at a ridiculously high rate.
Actually, in an ironic twist… they can’t. Why? Because the iTunes Store (and all other stores relying upon its infrastructure) don’t support Apple Pay as a form of payment! Five years on, and I still can’t use Apple Pay in the iTunes Store. But I can use PayPal…
Couldn’t agree more regarding our national addiction to debt. I had a devil of a time taking out a mortgage to buy the house I’m now living in. Why? Because I didn’t have a debt record (we call it a credit score). Because I’d never been in debt, never needed to be in debt, never bought anything I couldn’t afford… they didn’t want to trust me! WHAT???
darknexus,
Yeah, I use bank credit cards and pay them off every due date. There was one exception, when they forgot to send a statement, a fault they admitted was due to a glitch during a transition on their end, and yet they still had the gull to charge me $80 in late fees plus interest over what was strictly their mistake. I should not have paid them on principal, but they literally have the ability to take your money and ruin your credit regardless of if it’s their mistake or not.
What really pisses me off though is that employers can look at your credit to screen candidates, I think the practice should be outlawed. Employers should not have a right to see personal credit reports, they may want to be nosy but my finances shouldn’t be any of their business. My ability to do the job is all that should matter, not that I have more debt than my peers.
Anyways, congrats on the house. That’s something I’m not able to afford myself in this part of the country.
I think you can understand the logic behind not trusting anyone with a large loan who hasn’t already proven they are responsible over smaller amounts of money.
Certainly I can. I had a stack of paid bills and small amounts to prove it, and as many income and bank statements as they could have wanted. But oh no, I hadn’t had massive debt before and affording your bills and having plenty more from your income doesn’t count towards your responsibility in their eyes.
Eventually, I did find a lender that took all this into consideration and, surprise! Approved! The headaches I had to go through though, all because I was actually being responsible and not buying crap I couldn’t afford, seem indicative of a major problem in how we consider financial responsibility and what makes a trustworthy candidate.
After this amazing revelation, naturally, I use credit cards and pay them off. I have to make sure my debt record is good, after all, whether I need any further debt or not. Just in case, you know… And then there is Equifax and scumbags like them managing our debt records!
Sorry, I can rant about our fscked up credit system all day if you let me.
No, I get it. I’ve had friends that were unbanked for whatever reason, so there was no trail of them being financially responsible. All bills paid in cash, etc. They had real problems buying cars and computer electronics. Best buy in particular freaked out when they paid for a 3k laptop in cash. They surprisingly did not have a difficult time getting a loan for a house in the mid 2000’s. Banks would give anyone with a pulse a loan.
He already proved he is responsible… by not being in debt in the first place.
I mean, how backwards is that?
Bastards!
You know with the amazon credit card you get a full 5% off all Amazon purchases. Target credit card 5% off all items online and in store. Apple? umh 2% for apple things…
Well, it’s actually 3%, but your point stands.
It seems the first prediction of Cringely is already coming true: Apple will move into financials.
https://www.cringely.com/2019/02/27/2019-prediction-1-apple-under-tim-cook-emulates-ge-under-jack-welch/
I think people may, like in the magic trick, be watching the cup and taking their eye of the pea. The Apple card has no permanent number, it can generate a new unique number at any time and for a single transaction. Numbers are manually regenerated and do not automatically rotate. Each purchase requires a confirmation code that will refresh every transaction. All this makes it much harder for someone to use your card. even if skimmed or copied, to make an online purchase. Apple is trying to solve – or at least drastically improve – online security and privacy when using a credit card. That could be a big deal. Especially when tied to wearable or pocket computers. Connect the dots.
Strossen,
The one time use CC number idea described here is not even close to original. Amex, discover, citibank, bank of america, all offer (or offered) one time use credit card numbers going back decades, it just isn’t very popular with ordinary consumers.
https://www.quora.com/Why-did-American-Express-discontinue-their-one-time-use-virtual-credit-card-numbers
https://www.mybanktracker.com/credit-cards/faq/why-virtual-credit-card-numbers-not-worth-it-167574
Cryptographicly safe transactions are feasible today, the cryptographic primitives needed are decades old. Unfortunately the CC industry is many years behind. The problem is that it is hard to change the existing standards, merchant processing networks, user & ecommerce platforms, and people’s habits that keep giving the legacy technology so much momentum. Backwards compatibility is the main reason why we keep getting solutions that come up short in terms of cyrptography. Many of us in computer science could single-handedly design better systems than those in use, but achieving critical mass is notoriously difficult especially when there are powerful incumbents in the way.