Apple Card Will Likely Be Launched During WWDC 2019

Apple made a lot of exciting announcements during the Special Event in March, but by far, the most distinguishing one is the release of the ‘Apple Card.’ It marked Apple’s greatest move into the financial industry and the service is expected to be integrated into Apple Pay by this Summer.

As a testament as to how appealing the service is to customers, 15 million people had watched the ad on YouTube — making the video even more popular than the introductory video of Apple’s current best-selling iPhone: The iPhone XR.

Revival Of An Old Idea

But the Apple Card wasn’t at all a recent idea. In fact, Steve Jobs - the late CEO - had proposed the idea since 2004, at the time when iTunes was blowing up across the country. The original plan for the Apple Card then was to offer users free music from iTunes instead of getting cash back or flyer miles: The main benefits of those who own a credit card, then.

Though most people never got to know about the Apple Card project in 2004, the company had gone far enough into the project to draw up advertisement campaigns and graphics. Aside from a view of the card itself, there were also captions written in the same witty language the company is using today referencing to favorite artists at the time.

Though Ken Segall - Jobs’ foremost creative director for ads - said that Mastercard’s unwillingness to collaborate with Apple effectively shut down the project before it could kick off.

That is, until its revival in 2019.

'Available Summer'

During the March Special Event, though Apple didn’t give us an exact release date, it did say that the Card will be available in ‘Summer.’ Since it is such a great product, there is no better date to release it than this year’s WWDC. Apple Card will surely be one of the things that Apple focused on in its next iteration of iOS, so why not just release it then?

Sure, Apple could host another event later into the summer, but the schedule would be quite packed considering how it would be deep into the holiday season.

Speculators also think that the suspiciously lackluster new beta version of iOS 12.4 could be hinting that the update was actually to plant the seed codes for Apple Card. The update didn’t contain any bug fixes at all, unlike ordinary releases.

That’s not the most significant hint, however. Ben Geskin - a leaker, posted images of actual, physical Apple Card online. He claimed these cards were passed out to employees and although the pictures actually look similar to the real deal, the name on the card was edited out to protect the cardholder's identity. There’s even packaging for the card, so not only this proved that the card is the real thing but also the launch to consumers is close by.

But Anthony Karcz - a contributor from Forbes speculated that the Card would be released without any events before WWDC. It wouldn’t be surprising, actually, since Apple has been releasing products without much fanfare for a while now. Most recently, they released the 2019’s iteration of the MacBook Pro rather quietly just about a week ago. Though it is understandable why Apple did this: The MacBook Pro has been under-fire for its problematic keyboards.

But the Apple Card is big - judging by the attention it got online alone, we don’t think that they would go this route and ignore the enormous opportunity to draw public attention.

Should You Get Yourself An Apple Card?

Sure, the design is extremely fanciful and flashing it in stores will surely draw some appreciations. Still, the Apple Card is made neither for rewards nor points seekers. The 1% cash back benefit isn’t really that great, you can find card services that offer better perks, even double. You will get 2% cash back when you use Apple Pay, and 3% when you spend the card or Apple Pay on Apple products. Unless you’re really into Apple products, none of these rates are actually worth the trouble.

But the Card is not without its positives. Experts are expecting the Card to be pretty inclusive in its qualification process and can be relatively easy for most financially stable people to get. Furthermore, since Apple Pay is pretty popular nowadays in the U.S., made available to 74 largest merchants, the cash back benefits could be pretty high if you know how to shop.

One of the best (If not, the best) thing about Apple Card is its privacy features. The physical, Titanium Apple Card won’t have a fixed credit card number or CVV. In fact, the card wouldn’t even have anything on it at all aside from the chip and your name.

The iPhone’s Secure Element will create and store a unique card number for every purchase you made through the Wallet app. This means Apple will have zero ideas as to what you had bought or what your shopping pattern is. Though the issuance company (Goldman Sachs) will, the stricter privacy can be a driving incentive for users to get an Apple Card when they could’ve signed up for services with better perks elsewhere.

Apple also doesn’t joke around when it said that Apple Card took full advantage of the iPhone’s hardware. Acquiring the Apple Card, you will also have access to budgeting and spending monitoring features that would let you track and make payments to keep interests as low as possible. Since this is the feature Apple is most proud about, if they were to release the Card during WWDC, we’re sure they would make this feature a focus.

WWDC 2019 At the Latest

So draw up your schedule for WWDC 2019 if you’re interested in hearing more about the Apple Card. You can also sign up on Apple’s site to get notifications when the service becomes available if you’re interested in applying.