by Samra Anees
On March 25th, Apple hosted its Apple Event where it announced its upcoming services while placing a heavy emphasis on consumer privacy. While some services like Apple News Plus were underwhelming, three other announcements were big for Apple and something to get excited about. This blog covers the three biggest takeaways from the 2019 Apple Event.
Introducing Apple Card
Apple is breaking into the credit card sphere with a more secure, transparent way of making purchases through its new offering, Apple Card. The card, backed by Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, doesn’t even come with a card number; it generates a new card number every time you make a purchase, introducing a more secure method of making purchases and protecting the user from credit card fraud.
Apple Card (photo via Apple).
The card can be applied for directly through iPhone, and stores all financial information in the Wallet app, where it always accessible to you. While the app tags locations of where purchases were made for you to keep track, nobody else has access to that information except the user. Protecting these details is not only more private than traditional credit cards, but also protects the user from ad-targeting.
Apple Card offers a Daily Cash program, in which the user gets 2% Daily Cash (or cash back) every time a purchase is made using the card, and 3% Daily Cash on Apple purchases. A physical card will also be available for Apple Card users, but the card will only return 1% cash back.
Apple claims that there are no late fees or increased interest rates for late payments, but fine details should be read to determine if there are any limits to this.
Apple Arcade Versus Google’s Stadia
Apple Arcade (photo via Apple).
Apple also announced Apple Arcade, its gaming subscription service. While this raised some eyebrows considering Google just announced its cloud-based game streaming service, Stadia, there are a few key things that make Apple Arcade and Google Stadia different.
Apple Arcade is oriented more towards App Store game subscriptions across Apple devices, while Google Stadia offers more traditional games that can be played on devices like PlayStation and Xbox.
Apple TV Channels and Apple TV Plus Rival Netflix
One of the biggest announcements at the event was the introduction of Apple’s TV streaming services: Apple TV Channels and Apple TV Plus.
Apple TV Plus (photo via Apple).
With Apple TV Channels, users can choose a bundle of channels to pay a subscription to all in one app, rather than paying for a huge package by a cable company. The Apple TV app will come to Macs and televisions this fall and spring, respectively. It will be available in more than 100 countries, although pricing hasn’t been announced yet.
Apple TV Plus is more of a personalized package that will include original TV programming—a lot more like Netflix than traditional TV. This will be available in the fall, but there wasn’t much more revealed about this service than this.
Bottom Line
Although Apple didn’t announce many groundbreaking products at the Apple Event 2019, they did upgrade existing services and introduce some new ones. Apple News Plus, Apple Card, Apple Arcade, and Apple TV were the takeaways from this year’s event.
News Plus is an add-on to the news app, and Apple Arcade seems like an attempt to level up with Google’s Stadia. Apple TV Channels and TV Plus, while somewhat different, seem to be an alternative offering to Netflix. However, the Apple Card is probably the most notable and innovative announcement of this event. It seems to offer a much more secure and efficient way of making purchases that set it apart from other providers in the space. This will be something to keep an eye on as it rolls out.