From the linked article [1]:

"...my bank account number changed in January, causing Apple Card autopay to fail. Then the Apple Store made a charge on the card. Less than fifteen days after that, my App Store, iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple ID accounts had all been disabled by Apple Card."

Wouldn't the same thing have happened if he didn't have an Apple Card, but instead had his credit card decline not only on their Apple subscriptions, but also the MacBook they traded in?

[1] https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account

At what point is a situation so convoluted that it can be considered an edge case? Because this story seems like it would qualify! Not only did someone's bank account number change without intervention but it seems Apple also got something wrong about the purchase on two different occasions (saying OP bought an iphone, not a macbook and applying the trade-in to their card without confirmation)...I take your point. But, wow.

Im frankly surprised AC works this way, all of my interactions with AC support and Apple makesit seem like one wants nothing to do with the other.

> did someone's bank account number change without intervention

Their bank account number changed for reasons unrelated to Apple. That caused their Apple Card monthly payment to fail. Which caused their payments to Apple, for subscriptions and a trade-in, to fail. So Apple cancelled their subscriptions.

Agree the support communication on iPhone versus MacBook is imprecise. But nothing indicates Apple acted improperly or in a manner they wouldn't with anyone else failing to pay for their services.

> At what point is a situation so convoluted that it can be considered an edge case?

People have edge cases all the time! Failing gracefully in edge cases is a critical feature for anything that's so deeply wired into your life like a payment processor or a cloud account!

At Apple's scale, an edge case is a question of when (and how often) not if.

Not sure, but that’s a good point.

Well, no, if the credit card charge is declined they don't offer the service.

They don't owe you anything if the charge fails. So no-one loses.

If they charge your bank account for a credit card bill that you owe, and it fails, they lose.

He paid his iCloud with his Apple Card, but didn't pay the credit card bill properly, so they basically clawed back the purchase.

The analogy is that if I pay for Netflix with Amex and miss an Amex payment, they can't directly cancel Netflix. Eventually if I continute to not pay, they'll shut down the card and Netflix won't be able to charge and will then cancel themselves, but that's a much more flexible process.

It's always good to have a few "fire breaks" between your most important accounts (email, payments, domains, etc.).

I've been loving apple card. I love that the rewards come in cash rather than airline points, so it's really easy to use the rewards.

A number of other credit cards do that as well (Capital One and Discover are the ones I've personally experienced)

On the flip side since most people like to share scary stuff because when things are going right, nothing is worth sharing...

I put 75k or more worth of transactions through my Apple Card in 2022 and I've had nothing but wonderful experiences with the whole thing, including with Apple and Goldman Sachs.

Same. I use my Apple Card instead of cash or my debit card in almost all cases (except Costco where I have to use Visa and I have their card for that). I've averaged a little over $27K/year since 2019 and have had zero issues. GS has been great when I've had to dispute charges and they took care of everything. I love how seamless it is and it just works. Also, I am a self-admitted Apple-whore and am totally invested in their ecosystem FWIW.

> except Costco where I have to use Visa and I have their card for that

I imagine this is due to some dispute with Mastercard on their fees for credit cards (you can use MC debit at Costco); Visa probably gives Costco a steep discount on fees.

> I imagine this is due to some dispute with Mastercard on their fees for credit cards

Costco has long had an official credit card and only allowed cards of that brand (whether theirs or not), for a long time it was Amex not Visa.

> Visa probably gives Costco a steep discount on fees.

Right; their single-card-brand partnership agreement is a tool for getting lower credit card processing fees.

> Right; their single-card-brand partnership agreement is a tool for getting lower credit card processing fees.

Volume rates in general are extremely common.

> Volume rates in general are extremely common.

This combines “volume” with “exclude our competitors”.

My point (theory) is that Mastercard isn't offering them a big enough volume discount. If they could pay 0.1% I doubt they would exclude MC even if it meant losing out on some Costco credit card accounts.

I'm saying excluding other card brands gets them a bigger discount from their exclusive card network than volume alone would, not that it pushes people to the Costco-branded card from that network (though it probably does that, too.)

In Canada, I believe you can only use Mastercard at Costco, interestingly.

The Apple Card is great because Goldman decided to get in the business of selling two dollar bills for a dollar as a growth hack. That's not something that will last forever.

What do you mean? In the US where Apple Card is offered, the 2% back for Apple Pay transactions seems sustainable. The only thing that has put GS into question is [0], but that's just overlending likely at the request of Apple to get Apple Card in more hands.

0: https://9to5mac.com/2023/02/16/apple-card-future-goldmans-sa...

They're alluding to the cost of acquiring a customer for GS through Apple Card.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/23/01/18/apple-card-is-a-d...

> Goldman Sachs spent a lot of money to help launch Apple Card and its other consumer services. A report from January 13 revealed the bank's consumer credit division lost $1.2 billion in nine months last year, and the losses were primarily related to the Apple Card.

> "In the consumer platforms, we did some things right. We didn't execute on some others," Solomon told CNBC on Wednesday. "We probably took on more than we should have, you know, too much, too quickly."

> Goldman helped launch the Apple Card in 2019 and reportedly spent roughly $350 to acquire every new Apple Card customer. And in 2022, it scaled back its efforts to turn its consumer savings business, Marcus, into a fully-fledged digital bank.

> Executives of Goldman's collection of businesses known as Platform Solutions believe its consumer division may break even in 2025, although that target was initially by the end of 2022. However, the bank isn't giving up on the Apple Card.

> "I think we now have a very good deposits business," Solomon said. "We're working on our cards platform, and I think the partnership with Apple is going to pay meaningful dividends for the firm."

You must not need to download those transactions as a CSV file. You can only pull it down one statement at a time!

Thanks Apple for making tax time just a bit more painful...

this horror alone is enough to make me avoid it. Reconciling transactions with my budget software is hard enough

Apple Card has Mint integration now as a way to get bulk CSV. Mint being an Intuit product in 2023 is problematic in its own ways, but the Mint <=> Apple Card OAuth flow suggests it may be an API others can (eventually, with effort) request access to.

I closed my Apple card account when Apple refused to stop deadnaming me on it without court documents.

AmEx et al never disrespected me thus.

Can you elaborate on this? (If it's too traumatic to talk about no worries. I'm just curious.) If I recall when my spouse changed her name after we got married, she also had to send in the appropriate government documentation. Are you saying that you were able to just call up AmEx and say, "Please change my name from Y to X" and they just did it without any requirement to prove it was still you? (That sounds like a huge security hole, if so.) I'd be interested to understand this in more detail if you're up for explaining it. But if not, I understand.

Their name change policy really is a bit ridiculous. I know somebody that had their first name printed in lowercase on the card because Apple/GS absolutely refused to change the first letter to uppercase without a birth certificate. Photo state ID would not do…

That said, asking for official documentation for a name change seems like standard bank policy. Are there banks that make this easier?

I wasn't asking for a name change on the account, just that they issue a card with the correct name on it.

Every other payment card creditor I have will issue me cards with whatever name I ask for on it. The name on the account/statement is irrelevant.

Ah, did they also copy over that name from your Apple account and then refused to put another one on the card?

That is indeed ridiculous – what makes that name (not validated with any government documents) more authentic than the one provided later on?

Strange considering that you subscribe to crockers rules.

"wonderful experiences"?

It's a credit card. You tap it and pay for stuff...

Well, Apple’s metal card doesn’t have NFC capabilities for security and to incentivize pulling out the phone for purchases. The metal card only gives 1% back while using the phone gives 2%.

Number of transactions would have been more informative than the total dollar amount.

Does it mean your i-devices will stop working as well? At least the emails I assume, maybe imessages...

If google shots down your account, you are out of docs, youtube, gmail... This can literally kill your career.

Not to mentions all the "sign up with google/apple" you used.

I don’t think so, but it’s trending more in that direction as Apple spins up more services.

The linked post doesn't actually say "If you don't pay your credit card bill we disable your iTunes/iCloud"

What it actually says is "If you don't pay your credit card bill, we decline new transactions since you're at your credit limit. If your iCloud uses your Apple Card and that transaction is declined, then your iCloud may be disabled."

Apple apologists should probably work on replacing their "bUt GoOgLe!" routines, since people have largely moved on from the Google ecosystem as a whole - and in some cases, like this one, Google is not even present in the same market (credit cards).

For US residents, the Apple Card is not a competitive credit card. There are enough credit cards with no annual fees offering at least 2% cash back on all purchases that the Apple Card's 1% back on general purchases is not a good value. Just about every credit card issuer in the US supports Apple Pay as well, allowing these 2% cash back cards to match the Apple Card's 2% on Apple Pay purchases.

It's 2% back anytime you use Apple Pay, though. Which I use, a lot, and it's nice not to think about which card to use in that scenario, which I imagine was their point. I know there are plenty of cards that will give 2% cash back on any transaction, too.

getting 3% back on apple purchases plus 0% interest for 12-24 months is pretty nice.

given theres no annual fee i don't really see the downside if you buy apple products.

It's not bad for using to buy Apple Products, but if you're only using one credit card, might as well get something that gives 2% on all purchases unless you reallllly buy a lot of Apple products.

at this point getting a 0% loan for 2 years is more interesting than the difference between 1-2% cash back.

i used to be really into optimizing cash back but it just ends up costing more mindshare than it is really worth.

That’s exactly the goal of the companies, and Apple’s offering is “good enough” there.

not sure what your point is. cash back cards aren't really interesting to me. you're better off not overspending on things that don't add to your quality of life than worrying about whether you're getting 1-3% cash back.

i do have a premium travel card that gives me points for dining and travel but these come with high annual fees so you're paying for it in a different way.

The point is that most people don't bother to juggle cards to get the best cash back each time; they just pick one and stick with it (which is why companies PAY Costco big bucks to be their card provider).

"getting a 0% loan"

Smart people don't do loans for a $300 purchase in the first place.

If it’s at 0% why not (genuine question). That’s just free money, right? Obviously the interest on $300 isn’t much but if you take 0% loans on everything where it’s available it will add up eventually.

Why wouldn’t I take free money? Heck even if it were 1% I’d still do it because I can earn more than 1% with a CD right now.

That didn't seem to have anything do with it being an Apple card, though?

People keep saying things like this, and rarely offer up the name of any better card when asked.

Apple Card offers 2% cash back on all Apple Pay purchases, which... exactly matches my no-fee card from Chase. Except I have to choose how to use the 2% from Chase when it eventually is available, while I can spend Apple's 2% the next day via Apple pay. I threw the metal card in a drawer when it arrived, so if your goal is tell people not to use the physical card, then sure, I'm with you. But I don't think that's the primary use of the card.

"and rarely offer up the name of any better card when asked."

Huh? This is public and searchable information. Even ChatGPT 3.5 can give you a comprehensive answer to "what are the best cash back credit cards?"

It seems like your complaint is that people aren't answering a trivial question. This isn't a valid argumentative position.

The apple card's terms are definitely sub-par. Double the cash back would be competitive with say: https://www.fidelity.com/cash-management/visa-signature-card

Cards that do 5% in special categories are also common.

> Even ChatGPT 3.5 can give you a comprehensive answer to "what are the best cash back credit cards?"

Is this a new version of "google it"?

Yes, with Bing

To be fair, I've searched for this kind of thing before, and the results are usually plagued with so much sponsored content that it's hard to tell what's really a good deal and what's something someone's being paid to tell me is a good deal. (I feel this way about pretty much all financial advice online, for better or worse.)

So what is the best general-purpose cashback card according to ChatGPT?

Q. what is the best general-purpose cashback credit card?

A. As an AI language model, I cannot recommend a specific financial product, but I can provide some information on what to look for when choosing a cashback credit card.

[Information on what to look for: Cashback, signup bonuses, annual fees, redemption options, and credit score requirements.]

It's possible Bing's AI does better, but I don't use the Edge browser, so I don't know.

Brave throwaway, you underestimate the knowledge you possess! You should be proud of your knowledge and gladly share it, rather than mock those unwilling to expend the effort you've expended to earn such knowledge.

Search results are plagued with spam to the point of uselessness, and this is precisely the sort of information I would not trust from an LLM because their sources are, as I said, plagued with spam and I don't want to chase hallucinated results.

In fact, for all that it's a trivial question, this is at least the fourth time I've asked it, and the first time I've gotten real answers--although not from you.

Perhaps the issue is that you don't seen to realize I've never gotten less than 2% from my Apple Card, and I get 3% back from Apple purchases? (Since I just bought an iPad Air + accessories for my daughter's birthday, that alone saved me more than $50!)

The Fidelity card you mention seems to require a Fidelity account, but that's okay, since I have one. However, the terms then seem identical to my experience with the Apple card.

I got my Apple card before Chase updated my cards from them to be tappable, and basically I use the Apple card for Apple Pay (2%) and purchases/subscriptions from Apple (3%), a Chase Amazon card for purchases from Amazon (5%), and a Chase Sapphire physical card (2% or 5%, depending on category) when a physical card is required (rarely these days, but at Walmart for one). It's not clear to me how Fidelity is any better than Apple card in this scenario.

Again, none of what you're saying makes sense. Spam doesn't prevent you from looking into the details of an offer. Hallucinated results don't stop you from looking up the details of a card offer.

It also seems like you've now changed your story and are explaining all the cards you have which outperform apple's.

You seem really defensive and agitated over this triviality. No one is mocking you for your mistakes. It's just that what you've said doesn't make sense, and is inconsistent. Please, just take it as honest feedback.

Hahaha, what an odd response! I mean, explaining how your tone was condescending while mine clearly expressed wry amusement would just be me being defensive now, right? So I won't.

My point stands: From the time this card was first announced, people online, especially on this very site, have been dismissing it as having "sub-par" terms, and yet when pushed, all of the alternatives offered up seem to be similar, or even worse.

Of the three credit card bills I (auto-)pay off every month, Apple card has by far the biggest bill, because I use Apple Pay a lot. When I travel to Hong Kong, I love the lack of foreign transaction fees, and still the easy convenience of tap-to-pay with my wristwatch everywhere.

I do have a Chase Sapphire Preferred card that also has no transaction fees--but it costs me $95/year, so I'd judge that to be sup-par compared to Apple's free card, except that I use it to book travel, so the cash back goes farther.

I'll look into the CapitalOne SavorOne that somebody else mentioned, but generally I don't look forward to spending hours of my life comparing nearly-identical credit cards, so I was glad to get some real answers this time!

Fidelity has a flat 2% card which has no annual fee. The cash back then automatically transfers to my brokerage account where it immediately loses money in the stock market, so maybe it works out to less than 2% :)

Citi also has a widely used cash back card for ~2%

it looks like the fidelity card cashback even exceeds 2% if you have a large brokerage account with them, which is cool. but it looks like you do need an active brokerage account with them to use the card at all. a good deal if you'd like to have a fidelity brokerage account anyway, but imo citi doublecash is the better general recommendation since it doesn't have the same cross-product dependency.

The Fidelity card really is a great general purpose low maintenance card. Plus, if your default cash position is SPAXX, it's currently earning 4.4% interest which isn't too shabby.

Wells Fargo, too.

Citi’s card has a 3% foreign transaction fee though, making it completely unusable abroad. Fidelity also charges 1%.

I’m actually not aware of any 2% card without any catches (Apple’s being that 2% is only for Apple Pay transactions, which is anything but ubiquitous when shopping online.)

> I’m actually not aware of any 2% card without any catches

The Bread Cashback Card (American Express)[1] and SoFi Credit Card (MasterCard)[2] give 2% cash back on all purchases with no foreign transaction fees, no annual fees, and no other "catches".

[1] https://www.breadfinancial.com/en/bread-financial-cashback-c...

[2] https://www.sofi.com/credit-card/

Yeah the foreign transaction fee is annoying on many cards - I don't have too many cards but I keep a travel focused card (capital one venture) for international travel.

Fidelity and Citi match Apple's 2%, okay.

I never redeem points for purchases. I always apply it to a billing credit. If you redeem points for a purchase you don't accrue points on that purchase.

Chase of course goes out of their way to make this as painful as possible. Currently their cash redemption menu is broken in their app. There is no way to automatically apply all points to a statement credit. My perception is that this the best use of points is reinforced by how much effort into trying to convince me to do something else.

> I never redeem points for purchases. I always apply them to a billing credit.

This may not be a good redemption. For Chase UR points specifically, you really ought to transfer them to Chase Sapphire Reward card and redeem them for travel ($100 in points becomes $150 in travel) or transfer them to airline/hotel partners for redemptions. For example, you can often find Marriott, Hilton, and Hyatt points redemptions that are substantially better (sometimes more than 50% off) than the cash value of the points.

My last Hyatt hotel stay, I redeemed 8,000 points per night for a hotel room that was listed at $267/night. In cases like this, you can more than triple the value of your points.

Hmm, thanks for the suggestion. I’ll take a look at those benefits. Typically I skip over those kinds of offers because they seem too good to be true.

It's definitely more effort to manage and there is a point of diminishing returns. But even if you just transfer to Chase Sapphire Reserve and redeem for travel (ignoring individual airline/hotel rewards programs), you should get a 50% bonus vs redeeming the points for cash.

I have a Chase Amazon Visa card that gives 5% back on Amazon purchases and some % on the rest. I happen to buy a lot from them (although less and less as I see more counterfeit-looking brands).

It also covers Whole Foods which is nice if you shop there.

This card also has no foreign transaction fees.

I have the same one! I use it for Amazon only.

My Goto card is Paypal 2% for everything, and 3% for PayPal (so online Walmart, ebay, anything which offers PayPal), as soon as txn goes through. Synchrony Bank's own mastercard also offers 2% on everything, at every statement end. Wells Fargo Active Cash also offera 2% everywhere. I use Wells Fargo Autograph for 3% stuff like Travel, Food. Discover & Chase come out only if there are 5% offers or categories. Capital Ones get only 99 cent charge a month to get it forgiven.

Apple card only for apple purchases, 0% apr && 3% cashback. I use android phone, so no apple pay possible. I wish it allows to be added to google pay with nfc.

Fidelity Investments credit card has blanket 2% cash back on everything and supports Apple Pay, to name one.

Which matches the 2% my comment already said I get with Apple card. And requires a Fidelity account. So I'm not sure it's "better," but thank you.

Its better in that it gives 2% on all purchases and can be (but does not need to be) used with Apple Pay, while Apple Card must be used with Apple Pay to receive the 2% cash back.

Apple Card is very convenient, but it's not the best in the rewards arena.

For example, CapitalOne SavorOne (3% for many categories) and Wells Fargo Active Cash (2% on all purchases). There are many others that are competitive for specific situations though, including Citi Custom Cash (5% in a single category). Most of these cards also offer a intro APR and/or bonus after $X has been spent.

Definitely true, but this means that you have to spend some time and effort on using the "right" card for any given type of purchase, and staying on top of any changes to your rewards as well, to say nothing of having to juggle multiple due dates and automatic or manual payments.

A flat reward on everything definitely has its appeals. (The Apple Card isn't quite that, though – paying online without Apple Pay only gives you 1% rewards.)

As I mentioned in the comment to which you're responding, I never get less than 2% from my Apple card, so the Wells Fargo doesn't seem better to me.

I'll look into the Capital One option, thank you!

Citibank double cash https://citicards.citi.com/usc/LPACA/Citi/Cards/DoubleCash/p...

That seems to give the same 2% I already get with my Apple card, but only 1% immediately, and the other 1% when it's paid, making it not as good as my Apple card's 2% immediately.

Inise it because it was really easy to add my college age child’s account - and flows directly into the iOS payment system

Not sure other cards offer the same simple process

None have privacy guarantees, and usually those rates are extremely subject to change, require quarterly activation, variable APR, high foreign transaction fees, or many other annoyances.

> None have privacy guarantees

The Apple Card's issuer (Goldman Sachs) and payment network (MasterCard) retain just as much transaction information for the Apple Card as they do for any other credit card.[1]

[1] https://www.engadget.com/2019-08-30-apple-card-privacy-adult...

> usually those rates are extremely subject to change, require quarterly activation

That's not true. I'm not aware of any US credit card offering 2% cash back on all purchases that regularly changes this 2% rate or requires quarterly activation for the 2% rate. If you can name even one 2% cash back card that does this, please do.

> variable APR

The Apple Card also has a variable APR. The Apple Card Customer Agreement says that the APR is "15.49% to 26.49% when you open your account" and "After that, this APR will vary with the market based on the Prime Rate."[2]

[2] https://www.goldmansachs.com/terms-and-conditions/Apple-Card...

> high foreign transaction fees

The Bread Cashback Card (American Express) and SoFi Credit Card (MasterCard) manage to offer 2% cash back on all purchases with no foreign transaction fee or annual fee.

Just "disable" ? At what point do they toss your data in the trash ?