
The Design of Apple's Credit Card - helloworld
https://www.arun.is/blog/apple-card/
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manwithaplan
I wonder if there will be an option to get a card with an edge notch like
[https://www.rbs.com/rbs/news/2017/04/natwest-launches-
credit...](https://www.rbs.com/rbs/news/2017/04/natwest-launches-credit-card-
designed-for-blind-and-partially-si.html)

~~~
throwaway9d0291
So THAT's what the notch is for! My TransferWise card has one and I never knew
what it was for.

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greendude29
How pretentiously stupid. Pardon my French, but there is nothing unique about
this card, and neither is there a reason to fawn over credit card design in
general.

How ununiquely lame is it to do that. Apple is to the design world what the
diamond industry was to humanity, people believe its special not because their
is any objective or creative merit to it, but simply because they've been told
its special.

~~~
pertymcpert
There is something unique about the card, just because you don't like it
doesn't make it not unique.

~~~
realusername
Like what? It looks like any generic high-end credit card, my current card
looks almost like that. There's not much innovation you can do on the card
itself anyway so it's not that surprising.

If it wasn't made Apple, we would not even hear it on HN for sure.

~~~
2_listerine_pls
It's a virtual-firt card. In your case, you had to obtain a physical card
first. The fact you get a different number for each payment is an important
security feature that I had not seen. The nicer user experience is another
important feature. Normal cards use uninformative bank apps that suck. I guess
bank execs only care about financial statistics and that's the likely reason
nobody had done it as simple. Idiots.

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saagarjha
> The corners are all concentric, with equal space between them.

I don't think this is quite what concentric means.

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omk
Apple and its obsession with design and detail must drive its partners crazy.
Would this be the first card with the network partner logo also moved to the
back of the card?

The simplicity seems obvious in retrospect, but I am sure a lot of work goes
into it esp. from manufacturing perspective. The resulting card looks like
something that would come out of a 3 year old replication of a credit card
using the simplest shapes, yet comes off as supremely sophisticated
possession.

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vinkelhake
Is this satire or real? I'm halfway into the article and it could still go
either way.

~~~
DanBC
It reminded me of this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY)

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chriselles
I remember when General Electric made many things, and then financed a few of
them.

Then General Electric made a few things, and financed all of them.

Is the Apple credit card an indicator of Apple shifting from innovation to
financialisation?

It worked out for General Electric, until it didn’t.

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pwinnski
I've got a reasonably-high-end card from Chase, and I was impressed that they
moved all personal information other than my name to the back. The front has
only my name, the "chip," and the name of the bank and card. Which is still
two more pieces of information than the Apple card.

And the back? It's a mess, and important info is being rubbed off every time I
remove it from my wallet.

And the card itself, the blue-colored surface plastic is separating from the
metal core at one corner, so what seemed like a nice satisfying metal card now
seems cheap and disposable.

These are silly things to care about if you don't, but the fact that people do
is why we have nice things.

[0] [https://millionmilesecrets.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/08/Sa...](https://millionmilesecrets.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/08/Sapphire_Reserve_Upgrade_03.jpg) is an example of the
back of the card I'm talking about, though it is not my card.

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jalgos_eminator
Raise your hand if you thought we would be talking about the font that is on a
credit card. That my friends is the power of Apple marketing. Its another show
of wealth that upper middle class people will get to feel rich.

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jws
I’ll go there. The font is tailored to the limitations of the process. The
laser isn’t going to make super angular inside corners so you want to limit
the curvature of your outline. The default would be to go with a VAG Rounded
or similar plotter mimicking font, but they haven’t gone there. We still have
the nicely varying stroke weights.

Then there is the laser process in the logos which uses two passes to make a V
shaped bottom on the stroke so produce glints of specular reflection. This may
not be totally new, but I’ve never seen one before.

That’s a lot of attention to detail.

Let’s contrast to American Express. My last three physical plastic cards have
had their mag strips wear off, the signature strip one one couldn’t actually
be written on with any pen I tried, the CVV rubs off so you can’t read it
(hint: you need this to request a new card, so memorize it before it is gone)
and one of them delaminated. Just bog standard plastic cards that have been
evolving for half a century and I’m lucky to get 2 years service out of it.

I don’t have an Apple card yet. Maybe we’ll be reading about cardgate in 6
months and people moaning that they want their 2015 Barclays backed card back.

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devoply
oooo ahhh it's a white card that any first year design student could've
produced if you told her to make such a card for apple. how about being weary
of giant tech companies owning everything? even if it's one that claims to
endorse privacy, for now.

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i_don_t_know
Do I have to go to the Apple Store and have it replaced every couple of months
because a grain of dust breaks it?

