The new Apple Card credit card has an iOS-only app to see transactions and make payments, so if you lose your iPhone you won’t be able to pay your bill online.
Nicole Nguyen for BuzzFeed News:
Apple Card is a new cash-rewards credit card that — Apple purports — is designed to be simple and transparent. But it’s also aimed at keeping you locked into your iPhone.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple “purports?” Purports means “to appear or claim to be or do something, especially falsely.” Is that really what Apple is doing? In fact, Apple Card is designed to be simple and transparent. Period.
There are no paper statements with the digital-first Apple Card. Unlike a traditional credit card, everything is accessed through the Wallet app on the iPhone, including transaction histories, total balances, previous statements, and payments. There’s no website to view the latest transactions made on the card or make a payment if you lose access to that Wallet app…
According to Apple Support, your options are: 1. Use an iPad or other iOS device to access the Wallet app, or 2. Call Apple Support (not, presumably, with the phone you just lost) and a representative will connect you to an Apple Card specialist at Goldman Sachs, Apple’s bank partner. You’ll need your full name, date of birth, last four digits of your Social Security number, and the phone number associated with your account to make a payment over the phone…
Nearly every other modern credit card offers users a way to access their account with a browser on desktop, giving them the flexibility to pay bills from any device — and Apple Card, despite its titanium, numberless, futuristic veneer, does not.
MacDailyNews Take: Actually, as per your own little report, Nicole, Apple Card gives you the flexibility to pay bills from not only your iPhone or iPad, but via any telephone in the world. Seems easy enough.
Easier than ham-handedly trying to gin up some exceedingly weak Apple Card FUD for hits, obviously.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “TJ” for the heads up.]