Apple today launched a new Apple Card program and website that are designed to help people who have their Apple Card applications declined improve their credit to qualify, reports TechCrunch.
Starting today, declined Apple Card applicants will begin seeing emails that offer the Path to Apple Card program, which is opt-in and can run for four months. It uses the information from the initial Apple Card credit application to provide people with details on why they were declined as well as suggestions on how to improve financial markers that could help them get approved next time.
Examples of suggestions include resolving past due balances, making payments to secured and unsecured debt accounts on time, and lowering credit card and personal loan debt. Apple will send out a once-a-month update on progress toward improvement.
When a customer has completed the program, Apple invites them to reapply for the Apple Card. Apple has also launched a website that has specific details on how the Goldman Sachs approval process works and how people can boost their chances of approval before applying.
As TechCrunch points out, the suggestions that Apple offers are obvious to those with knowledge of how credit works, but there are many people who do not have a strong grasp on the factors that can impact credit worthiness, and Apple's program could help these people.
When it comes to privacy, Apple knows whether a person has chosen to participate in the program, but it does not store personally identifiable information or know details about participants' financial situation. Goldman Sachs does not share the information with third parties for advertising or marketing purposes.
Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones.
Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3.
Notification Summary Changes
Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries
Apple Intelligence...
Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today.
A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes.
While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device.
The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes.
The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner.
Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages.
Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far.
Apple Intelligence for Siri
Siri ...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 2:07 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Popular caller ID app Truecaller is rolling out an update that brings real-time caller ID support to its iOS subscribers.
Apple introduced Live Caller ID Lookup in iOS 18, allowing third-party caller ID apps to securely retrieve information about a caller from their servers, hence today's Truecaller update.
iPhone users can enable the Live Caller ID Lookup feature by going to Settings ➝ ...
Wednesday January 22, 2025 9:39 am PST by Joe Rossignol
New information has surfaced that indicates the rumored iPhone SE 4, iPad 11, and new iPad Air models are nearing launch.
A private account on social media platform X today revealed that iOS 18.3 or iPadOS 18.3 will be preinstalled on all of those upcoming devices when they are released. It is still unclear exactly when the devices will launch, but this information suggests that Apple will...
Friday January 17, 2025 2:42 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 is still around six months away from being announced, but a new leak has allegedly revealed a completely redesigned Camera app.
Based on footage it obtained, YouTube channel Front Page Tech shared a video showing what the new Camera app will apparently look like, with the key change being translucent menus for camera controls. Overall, the design of these menus looks similar to...
I think this should be taught at school. Most people don't have the discipline or even understanding what debt actually means so we constantly see people buying stuff on their CC because they feel its like they 'have' the money only to later see them struggling with payments etc. Its hard to resist the temptation when we have this plastic thing that can buy us anything and we face the consequences after a while. It makes us feel as those two things are not connected and often people don't learn from this and keep doing the destructive behaviour their whole life. Reducing quality of life as the struggle is a burden on their everyday life. I feel that CC was the worst financial invention. I think its safe to say that without it most people would be better off and have a better quality of life. So yeah, this should be taught at school as a 'life skill'. Along with cooking, taxes etc. I think most people would appreciate it :)
" As TechCrunch points out, the suggestions that Apple offers are obvious to those with knowledge of how credit works, but there are many people who do not have a strong grasp on the factors that can impact credit worthiness, and Apple's program could help these people."
Only if people actually change their behavior for good.
I think this should be taught at school. Most people don't have the discipline or even understanding what debt actually means so we constantly see people buying stuff on their CC because they feel its like they 'have' the money only to later see them struggling with payments etc. Its hard to resist the temptation when we have this plastic thing that can buy us anything and we face the consequences after a while. It makes us feel as those two things are not connected and often people don't learn from this and keep doing the destructive behaviour their whole life. Reducing quality of life as the struggle is a burden on their everyday life. I feel that CC was the worst financial invention. I think its safe to say that without it most people would be better off and have a better quality of life. So yeah, this should be taught at school as a 'life skill'. Along with cooking, taxes etc. I think most people would appreciate it :)
I agree. It should also be taught by qualified people and not coaches than need to fill a requirement to be employed. Both my sons took personal finance in high school and neither learned anything related. The class was taught by the football coach and unless you wanted to talk sports my boys said the class was like a study hall. They literally slept or did work from other classes. My wife and I are taking up the slack and teaching them about it.
As a European it's also hard to understand for me that Americans pay for so much stuff with credit cards (in other words: money that you don't have) and just apply for a new one as soon as the old one is maxed out (correct me if I'm wrong about this though). If I want to have something I save up for it and then buy it when I'm actually able to pay for it.
I'm the type of person that credit card companies hate... I pay my bills in full every month while I rack up the cashback for making use of the card.
If I can buy something on the card, it goes on the card... I just don't let it get away from me.
