I got all excited and then realized that almost none of the new services that were announced will offer me anything as a European. Apple Card most likely won't be coming to Europe any time soon. The streaming service is also not likely to come to Europe as it includes US-only services such as Hulu and Amazon Prime. I am aware that this is a bit of a 1st world problem, but all of these services being US-only can be re…
Apple announces Apple Card credit card
531–540 of 778 posts
Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#532I don't thing it is healthy to have big entities like this control fundamental services like payment processing. How long before the opaque governance of the App Store is applied to their payments offering? How long before activists start making this a new vector for deplatforming? Apple also announced a news offering ( https://www.techradar.com/news/apple-news-plus ) and I think the same concerns apply there.
In my case, Apple were attempting to charge me a monthly fee for an app that I installed last year before I ditched my iPhone. After using (and paying for) the app for a month, I realized I didn't like it and declined having a monthly subscription moving forward. After terminating my account with the app and uninstalling it Apple continued to charge me for it for months afterward. Repeated escalations in Apple's customer service labyrinth resulted in a massive amount of wasted time and, ultimately, an admission on their part that they didn't have a clear answer for what was happening or what I did wrong (one customer support person even told me that the same thing had happened to him once upon a time). Despite that, the relevant policy document they referred me to strictly prohibited me from being refunded for the erroneous charges. In the end, the only thing that saved me was being able to turn to my credit card company and flagging the months of charges as fraudulent. In this case I got all of my money back, but the experience really makes me wary of the idea of a big tech company being involved in my finances.
Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#533It seems to me that Apple can offer reduced fees due to the fact that they'll have less fraud as a result of requiring touch/face ID for every purchase. While interesting, it doesn't come close to solving what I feel is the largest problem with cards in the US today -- interchange fees.
This really isn’t why. Fraud cost is negligible. Apple literally gets a cut out of every NFC transaction. So they get to double dip here.
Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#534Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#535Earlier quoted context omitted.
I get 2-5% cash back on my American Express Platinum card in the UK... There are higher cash back cards also the cash back is usually capped on a monthly basis rather than on a flat %. So far for this year I have £341.92 cash back on the card. Mind you that this isn’t a new card I had it for 5 years.
Amex's own-branded cards aren't subject to the interchange limits, because they're vertically integrated (and there's no interchange).
Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#536Earlier quoted context omitted.
what card do you have?
Well if you want to maximize rewards you could use: - Chase Freedom / Discover It (Quarterly 5% categories (examples: Wholesale, Gas, Grocery, Department Stores, Mobile Pay, Home Improvement, etc.)) - Uber Visa (4% Dining, 3% Travel, 2% Online Purchases, 1% everything else) - American Express Blue Cash Everyday (3% Grocery, 2% Gas/Department Stores, 1% everything else) - Citi Doublecash (2% everything) - Costco Visa…
Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#537Earlier quoted context omitted.
Amex's own-branded cards aren't subject to the interchange limits, because they're vertically integrated (and there's no interchange).
And what exactly would prevent Apple from using the same scheme in the UK and Europe at large?
Much harder sell to get people to get the card if no merchants accepts it, and harder to get merchants to take it if nobody has one. There's a reason why the credit card market is almost entirely American Express, MasterCard, and Visa.
If they wanted to pay higher cashback than the standard interchange rates allow, they'd be charging merchants more than they're charged for accepting MasterCard or Visa, which means you'll end up with at most spotty acceptance like American Express.
Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#538I got all excited and then realized that almost none of the new services that were announced will offer me anything as a European. Apple Card most likely won't be coming to Europe any time soon. The streaming service is also not likely to come to Europe as it includes US-only services such as Hulu and Amazon Prime. I am aware that this is a bit of a 1st world problem, but all of these services being US-only can be re…
This entire field is completely messed up. One of my favorite movies this year is from India, I don't usually see Bollywood movies but Manikarnika rocked. It opened in January and now, it's been out on Amazon Prime since Saturday: https://www.justwatch.com/ca/search?q=manikarnika In Canada. In the USA? https://www.justwatch.com/us/search?q=manikarnika Not so much. This only drives piracy -- it obviously has been ripp…
I often thought about building something like this, but always came to the conclusion that the potential legal problems are not worth it. justwatch.com is a life saver when it comes to figure out where to get the content from. +1 for justwatch.com!
Re: Apple announces Apple Card credit card
#539Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can see what sure looks a mag stripe at 2m58s in the video at https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/25/18277417/apple-pay-credit... Disappointing.
Though very few and far between at this point, I'd say there are still a few times a year when I explicitly need to swipe a magstripe on my credit card - most recently a rural gas station in the California desert where I was seriously dependent on being able to fill up a tank. I think many people, myself included, would still consider a credit card without the option to fall back to magstripe a nonstarter for their p…