Something to think about: if for whatever reason you can’t pay Apple, they will disable your iCloud account.<p><a href="https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account" rel="nofollow">https://dcurt.is/apple-card-can-disable-your-icloud-account</a><p>I refuse to get an Apple Card until they firewall the two and make them independent of each other.
My laptop died recently, and I went with an M2 MBP. I went in expecting to pay it in full, but with no interest/fees, why wouldn't I choose this? It beats inflation, even if only minimally.<p>Seems predatory towards people who are buying stuff they can't afford, otherwise I don't see how they make money (minus the overpriced laptop I just bought, I guess).
I am surprised to see Apple getting into the "buy now, pay later" game, as it's always seemed like a murky industry that works by exploiting poor people who aren't very good with money, and not something I'd expect Apple to want to be associated with. Can anyone steelman it for me? Is there a way of looking at this industry/practice other than "exploitative and predatory"?
Feels to me that something like this cheapens Apple's brand.<p>I don't mean to imply that they had an expensive brand and this changes the demographic (I hate businesses like that), I mean their brand, as far as I can tell, is "high quality, thought through, and works well".* This feels like they are exploiting their existing customer base.<p>* Pls don't argue if you disagree on the actual quality or whatever. This is about how it looks to me that they position themselves. Feel free to argue about how they might be positioning themselves :-)
> Apple Pay users can split purchases into four payments with zero interest and no fees<p>What's the business model for all these BNPL companies if they have zero fees and zero APR?<p>Are they counting on some % of users requiring extensions?<p>Are they getting a % of transaction value as fees?
One of the most valuable life lessons my parents ever taught me was "If you can't afford it now, you can't afford it at all."<p>YES, there is a time and place for financing (especially when interest rates were near zero and you have good impulse control) but the entire "buy now pay later" industry just reeks of preying on people that aren't as financially literate or have little impulse control, and I won't touch the companies with a ten foot pole.<p>Honestly a bit disappointing to see this from Apple.
Interesting given that JP Morgan lost $1B last year on the Apple card due to failing to correctly model the creditworthiness of customers.<p>Also surprising that the 3% transaction fee on cards has held up for decades; one would expect that competition would bring it down. Instead, it's created an opportunity for all sorts of businesses.<p>What I like most about this is that the Apple UI makes it dead-simple to see exactly what you spent and what you owe. To my mind, this is the huge benefit of Apple Pay services: instead of mindlessly throwing the card into any slot and getting a shock at the end of the month, you see your status at any time, including what you just bought. I believe this has huge benefits for people living hectic lives to manage their finances.<p>Apple's ability to win in personal financial services depends on their ability to reduce the errors, friction, and confusion that lead to support calls and missed payments. Unlike banks and cards that depend on a plethora of dark fees that confuse consumers, Apple's gambit is to smooth it out, particularly for the unsophisticated. If Apple can set the standard for the industry, I'm all for it. (Yes, I'm lookin' at you, GE Capital.)<p>Are services a distraction for Apple? Goodness, Apple is the economic size and complexity of a small country. Rather than dumping money into buying unrelated companies or X-moonshots that only puff egos, Apple management seems focused on incrementally extending the Apple way where it makes sense: to bring goodness to TV and credit cards and underserved markets, to tax their supply chains with best practices, etc. I wouldn't do it any differently.
This seems like a logical and interesting service that should drive quite a few sales for Apple as people impulse-buy status symbols they shouldn't really try to afford.<p>My big concern with using some of these "pay later" types of services is that it seems incredibly risky to your credit score even if you do everything right and pay it off on time.<p>If Apple or anybody else can clarify on this point, that would be great. Otherwise, I'd never touch this.
> Apple Pay Later allows users to split purchases into four payments, spread over six weeks<p>So you basically have to start paying early, every 1.5 weeks. This seems worse than credit cards where you don't have to pay it up to like 60 days later.<p>It also seems strictly worse for users than other BNPL's like Affirm where many purchases can be paid over the coarse of several months or years.
Feels like Apple is more and more seduced/mesmerized by the opportunity to provide random consumer services that promise large revenues. Why add yet another new product to your portfolio when you're still struggling so much with software quality?
This business practice seems to have become popular lately. It really gives me a bad feeling, probably because the idea of getting your customers into debt (to your own company) in order to buy your products just seems <i>wrong</i> at a fundamental level. I don't want to live in a world where everything is either rented or paid for with a loan.<p>I can obviously understand why it makes sense from a strictly money point of view, but what is the business strategy against this? All I can think of is pushing a brand message that is explicitly anti-debt and builds its reputation on treating its community of customers well.
I feel like Apple has lost their way with the focus on services.<p>If they are going to focus on services, they should make them best in class. I expect best in class software, but Apple Music still doesn’t have anything like Spotify Connect and it is still incredibly slow and unreliable software (for what it is).<p>I don’t understand how tarnishing the premium brand with BNPL is worth it long term. And I especially don’t understand how all of their 0% interest offers will make sense in a world of 5+% interest rates.
Is there some sort of insurmountable tech debt over at Apple that requires these slow rollouts and long development cycles? They announced Pay later at WWDC 2022, and it's just now releasing, and the Savings account was announced in October and would be available "in the coming months", but is only just now (likely) coming out - and given Pay Later is still limited release, I imagine the savings account feature will be as well.
Yuck my two cents. Apples jump into financial services and pay as you go services model has really rubbed me the wrong way. If i get another settings alert that I need to setup apple wallet, sign into icloud or now perhaps a notice that I can “pay later” …… geez I already purchased you laptop … leave me alone and just work.
I've never used a BNPL service, partly because I didn't know if it would complicate the process of returns. Does anyone know if there are complications, for example, if you buy two items and return one of them? Does the merchant give you cash that you then end up using to pay off the full BNPL amount? Or does the refund get routed the other way, to the BNPL service, and then eventually to you?<p>For users of a reward card, this alternative probably isn't that useful. I'd miss out on 2% cash back, and the zero-interest period is only 6 weeks, which is just a couple weeks longer than the zero-interest period on a credit card (which bills you once a month, effectively giving you 0-4 weeks of zero-interest). I can see how it could be good for younger folks who need to build up credit and can use this to do so responsibly.
Apple card already allows you to pay in monthly installments with no interest and gives you back 3%: <a href="https://www.apple.com/apple-card/monthly-installments/" rel="nofollow">https://www.apple.com/apple-card/monthly-installments/</a>
My favorite part of all these "buy now pay later" services is going to buy some charging cables, a few bags of flour, or other small random stuff and being offered to split a $19 purchase into 4 equal payments.
> with no impact to their credit[4]<p>> 4. Upon purchase, a user’s Apple Pay Later loan and payment history may be reported to credit bureaus and impact their credit.<p>What? Doesn't that footnote directly contradict the text that references it?
What's the value proposition of a zero interest/no fee buy now pay later scheme? Is it just reaming folks who miss a payment? A loss leader getting more users into the Wallet ecosystem?
> Users will be asked to link a debit card from Wallet as their loan repayment method; to help prevent users from taking on more debt to pay back loans, credit cards will not be accepted.<p>So in addition to the soft pull requirement, it's clear this is almost exclusively targeted at people with good finances.<p>Not being able to use a credit card is a huger bummer though. Buying something like a macbook pro is a decent way to meet the minimum on a credit card with a signup bonus if you're not a high rolling spender normally.
I haven't traditionally made use of services like this, but am I correct in that one might be able to make small gains with them, much as is possible with credit cards?<p>For example if there's a large purchase one needed to make and had the cash on hand for, wouldn't it be smarter to let most of that cash accrue some interest in one of the many 4%+ interest savings accounts now available while making payments on the 0% interest BNPL?
How easy do these deferred payment systems make it to manage the cognitive load of such volatile "long-term" payments? Do people just set up autopay?<p>Having a set of monthly rent/utility costs is fine, cause they aren't particularly volatile.<p>Credit card microloans are also fine because they are all managed under 1 balance.
Ahh, more "innovation" from the tech industry. So much BS that is easily a net negative to society.<p>Saturday Night Live had it spot on years ago: <a href="https://youtu.be/R3ZJKN_5M44" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/R3ZJKN_5M44</a>
I don't understand what an advantage there is if you finance a purchase but have to pay off the installments every 2 weeks.
I doubt that there are so many people getting paid bi-monthly.
I’ve used the existing payment thing to buy a MacBook Pro on my Apple Card back in 2021. I mean at 0% interest seems like it’s all in your favor if you’re not spending like a dumbass.
Responsible lending is providing collateral and then taking out a loan against that collateral. Don't spend what you don't have. This is not that.
Wow. I can finaly afford an iPhone 14 Pro. /s<p>Oh lord won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz. My friends all drive Porsches, i must make amends...