Julie Verhage and Mark Gurman for Bloomberg:
Apple and Goldman Sachs’s hotly anticipated new credit card is now just weeks away from launch, according to a person familiar with the companies. The release will be the culmination of an intense, high-stakes development process for the Silicon Valley giant and the Wall Street stalwart.
The Apple Card is targeted to launch as early as the first half of August. That timing means the project is on schedule for the summer release date that Apple first announced in March. People who own an iPhone will be able to sign up for the card via the Wallet app, which will have built-in Apple Card support as part of the latest iOS 12.4 update.
In May, Apple expressed concern with the underlying technology Goldman Sachs had developed to power the credit card, according to people familiar with the discussions. At the time, Apple informed the bank that it was unhappy with some of the card’s mechanics and asked for changes. The pressure mounted on Goldman Sachs staffers as the card neared its planned launch date.
The different viewpoints appear not to have derailed the card’s progress toward its summer release. Apple employees and retail workers have been testing the card for several weeks or more, depending on their role at the firm.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Card is meant to be used virtually – via Apple Pay – not physically (via the titanium Apple Card) wherever possible as Apple Card’s cash-back rewards structure offers users just 1% on purchases made with the physical card, but 2% for Apple Pay transactions and 3% for purchases of Apple products or services.