"The company advises users to clean their cards with a microfibre cloth and isopropyl alcohol to keep it looking sharp, and also warns to keep it away from things like keys and other sharp objects inside a purse or bag, and to keep it away from other cards."
This is comical to me, someone cleaning their credit cards.
Just because you utilize a credit card doesn't mean you have debt. I pay my credit cards (including my Apple Card) off entirely every month. I use them for the rewards and the convenience not to pretend I have more money than I really do.
When people are talking about debt as a problem, they're not talking about < 1 month credit card debt, they're talking long-term debt where you're paying a significant amount of interest. Debt that you pay off, and don't pay interest on, is not a bad thing. Heck, even debt that you do pay interest on, is not a bad thing in certain cases—mortgages in a healthy real estate market, for instance.
After like maybe 6 months of just carrying it in my pocket everywhere, the layers start to delaminate and it becomes frilley around the edges which then gets dirty and looks gross.
Anything that isn’t plastic and laminated would be a plus. Can’t imagine the Apple Card could look worse.
Wallets specifically exist to solve this problem, and if you’re not using one then you will see those obvious effects.
The issue here is that Apple is telling you not to use the things that are specifically designed to protect cards and such from these kinds of problems.
I agree that paying by phone is convenient and pretty cool, but you really need to be in a special kind of first world bubble to think it’s a valid and future proof complete replacement for a wallet. There are just so many failure scenarios that are so easy to imagine it’s hardly even worth talking about.
They're basically saying don't use leather because the dyes can bleed onto the metal and to avoid stuff like denim (which is generally rather abrasive and can pick up and hold random debris which can further scratch). People are acting like it's some conspiracy or that they need to buy some otter box style case Apple is just saying "stop doing this and this or you're going to call us freaking out wanting a new card" (people are already requesting new cards because theirs is scratched...).
Unfortunately, the real-world environment is naturally endowed with some grit that clocks in pretty high on the Mohs' scale. Just bog-standard "sand" can get up to 7 and it's not hard to find little bits of grit that go even higher, made either of pulverized naturally-hard materials or industrial stuff. A quick Google suggests titanium is a 6, which in addition to being scratchable by pretty much all the grit, makes it significant lower than most cell phone screens now. It's going to be hard to keep the sheen on those for any length of time.
Titanium, among the strongest consumer metals for a credit card expected to be used on a daily basis...whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute! Hold up a sec! You're not thinking of putting that delicate-of-a-flower card in your pocket are you? Are you mad!?! No, no, no sir/madam, this credit card isn't meant for your pocket...It is meant for you to constantly walk around with it being held in your hand in order to clearly signal to the world that your are not some meager peasant - just like every other over-priced Apple product. /s
I think your man (Butler / Servant) is meant to walk behind you carrying it on a silken pillow - whilst the Punka Walla holds an umbrella to protect it from the rigours of sunlight
Actually, that's the next model upgrade: dark titanium (like a black American Express card, that I've only heard of but never rich enough to see).
This dark titanium card offers an upgrade from the pedestrian titanium card, which brings numerous additional benefits to our cardholders, and yes, of course, including silken pillows (and associated pillow-holders), umbrella holders, and all other manner of servants. Beyond that, you get benefits such as...uh-oh, I'm sorry sir/madam, I just noticed - while looking at your credit score - that you don't qualify to even hear about the rest of the benefits that the rest of the 1%-ers (that's what we affectionately call our favorite customers) qualify for. Good day sir/madam. I said, good day!
How dare you put any exquisite apple product in some animal skin or hydrocarbon carrying case. Shame on you for treating our luxury product like some Visa. Pft.
/s
This is what bugs me about apple. I can remember Jobs saying iPhones didn’t need cases and if you put a case on it you’re doing it wrong.
Honestly, it seems like cases cost more money than they save people.
I have used iPhones for a decade without cases. I has one 50$ screen repair for dropping a phone on concrete. That’s less than some cases cost. On top of that you need to buy a new case for each phone generation, so even average cases would have been a net loss.
PS: I get into the habit of keeping keys and phone in different pockets pre iPhone which probably helps.
I'll give it to you. One phone every 2 years (personally I try to hit 3 but batteries don't always cooperate) and I typically spend $7-9 on a TPU case and $3-5 on screen protectors. So on average, $12 times five phones in a decade is $60.
I (don't) really feel like I wasted my money. Grip alone makes the case worth it to me!
So accidentally dropping your phone once has already cost you more than mine (<$50 case) and mine has spilled out of my hands more than once. Sounds like a pretty poor deal to me
When I bought an iPhone 7 Plus I started to drop it. After almost 2.5 years I dropped and shattered it 3 times. The only thing that used to break on the smaller iPhone was the back glass. I lost my 7 Plus kayaking and recently got a smaller XS. I haven’t dropped it at all.
Last phone I ordered a cheap case from amazon. For $10 it’s as good as my pelican case or any otter box.
If have good reflexes you can sort of kick the phone with your feet, so that a fall of ~1.5m into stone leaves only minor scratches on you un-cased phone.
The Jobs things was bad and it makes it harder to defend things like this, but this is Apple legitimately trying to inform some of their more clueless customers.
Of course any card is going to get dirty, there is literally nothing that can be done to stop it. But some people aren't that bright and would just automatically assume the "Apple" one is perfect and will stay perfect.
What I'm trying to say is, don't hate on Apple. Hate on the users who make running a story like this necessary.
Am I the only one worried about this card for other reasons? Didn't Apple take a sales hit because their stuff is too expensive and the average American doesn't have a lot of money? This seems like an unethical way around that little hurdle.
Making it easier to go into debt to buy the next Apple product is a worrying pattern to me.
> Didn't Apple take a sales hit because their stuff is too expensive
I don't think so—or at least, other phone manufacturers don't seem to think so, because they're offering up even more expensive phones. For instance, the Samsung Note 10+ is launching any day now starting at $1,100, and the 5G version starts at $1,300.
This is fantastic marketing by Apple--tons of articles about their new credit card. This is at least the second thread on it here.
The first and most important step in the marketing journey is awareness in the mind of the consumer... everyone here is now well aware that Apple just launched a credit card!
And for what? Just writing down in a "support" page what everyone already knows about credit cards: if you put them in your pocket or wallet they will get marked up.
Another step in marketing is product differentiation--why my product is better than yours. By creating a product support page for their card, Apple is implying that you should care what happens to an Apple card--which helps imply that it is somehow better, more valuable, than a boring old regular credit card.
Apple gets accused of being a luxury fashion company. But this card is no more expensive than any other rewards card. It's not actually a luxury product.
I think it's more accurate to say that Apple is extremely good at employing luxury fashion tropes to market their regularly-priced functional products.
I was about to suggest that maybe what you meant was "around your neck", and not in it...But then, I thought about it for a second more, and realized that your original statement is far funnier. Cheers! :-)
If Apple didn't publish this information in 3 months people would be complaining that Apple hid this information from its customers and there would probably be a couple class action suits. Damned if they do, damned if they don't!
This is comical to me, someone cleaning their credit cards.