5 ms·

The Design of Apple's Credit Card

32 points by helloworld 8y ago

devoply 8y ago
oooo ahhh it's a white card that any first year design student could've produced if you told her to make such a card for apple. how about being weary of giant tech companies owning everything? even if it's one that claims to endorse privacy, for now.
saagarjha 8y ago
> The corners are all concentric, with equal space between them. I don't think this is quite what concentric means.
greendude29 8y ago
How pretentiously stupid. Pardon my French, but there is nothing unique about this card, and neither is there a reason to fawn over credit card design in general. How ununiquely lame is it to do that. Apple is to the design world what the diamond industry was to humanity, people believe its special not because their is any objective or creative merit to it, but simply because they've been told its special.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  > there is nothing unique about this card I mean, it's a piece of titanium with no outwards markings except for the Apple logo, cardholder's name, and chip, which is uncommon if not unique. But I wouldn't really write a whole article about it, especially since there's nothing new in it other than what we can see in the introduction video.
- pertymcpert 8y ago
  There is something unique about the card, just because you don't like it doesn't make it not unique.
  - realusername 8y ago
    Like what? It looks like any generic high-end credit card, my current card looks almost like that. There's not much innovation you can do on the card itself anyway so it's not that surprising. If it wasn't made Apple, we would not even hear it on HN for sure.
    - 2_listerine_pls 8y ago
      It's a virtual-firt card. In your case, you had to obtain a physical card first. The fact you get a different number for each payment is an important security feature that I had not seen. The nicer user experience is another important feature. Normal cards use uninformative bank apps that suck. I guess bank execs only care about financial statistics and that's the likely reason nobody had done it as simple. Idiots.
    - pertymcpert 8y ago
      Show me a card that looks exactly like that.
    - pwinnski 8y ago
      You have a credit card with no personally identifying information other than your name on it? No card number, no expiration, no CVV, no phone numbers, etc? You have a credit card with no ink on it, just laser engraving? You have a credit card that is made of metal? Not with a metal core and layers of plastic on top of that, as several of the cards in my wallet are, but completely made of metal? Which card is this?
vinkelhake 8y ago
Is this satire or real? I'm halfway into the article and it could still go either way.
- DanBC 8y ago
  It reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY
manwithaplan 8y ago
I wonder if there will be an option to get a card with an edge notch like https://www.rbs.com/rbs/news/2017/04/natwest-launches-credit-card-designed-for-blind-and-partially-si.html https://www.rbs.com/rbs/news/2017/04/natwest-launches-credit...
- throwaway9d0291 8y ago
  So THAT's what the notch is for! My TransferWise card has one and I never knew what it was for.
jalgos_eminator 8y ago
Raise your hand if you thought we would be talking about the font that is on a credit card. That my friends is the power of Apple marketing. Its another show of wealth that upper middle class people will get to feel rich.
- jws 8y ago
  I’ll go there. The font is tailored to the limitations of the process. The laser isn’t going to make super angular inside corners so you want to limit the curvature of your outline. The default would be to go with a VAG Rounded or similar plotter mimicking font, but they haven’t gone there. We still have the nicely varying stroke weights. Then there is the laser process in the logos which uses two passes to make a V shaped bottom on the stroke so produce glints of specular reflection. This may not be totally new, but I’ve never seen one before. That’s a lot of attention to detail. Let’s contrast to American Express. My last three physical plastic cards have had their mag strips wear off, the signature strip one one couldn’t actually be written on with any pen I tried, the CVV rubs off so you can’t read it (hint: you need this to request a new card, so memorize it before it is gone) and one of them delaminated. Just bog standard plastic cards that have been evolving for half a century and I’m lucky to get 2 years service out of it. I don’t have an Apple card yet. Maybe we’ll be reading about cardgate in 6 months and people moaning that they want their 2015 Barclays backed card back.
omk 8y ago
Apple and its obsession with design and detail must drive its partners crazy. Would this be the first card with the network partner logo also moved to the back of the card? The simplicity seems obvious in retrospect, but I am sure a lot of work goes into it esp. from manufacturing perspective. The resulting card looks like something that would come out of a 3 year old replication of a credit card using the simplest shapes, yet comes off as supremely sophisticated possession.
i_don_t_know 8y ago
Do I have to go to the Apple Store and have it replaced every couple of months because a grain of dust breaks it?
chriselles 8y ago
I remember when General Electric made many things, and then financed a few of them. Then General Electric made a few things, and financed all of them. Is the Apple credit card an indicator of Apple shifting from innovation to financialisation? It worked out for General Electric, until it didn’t.
pwinnski 8y ago
I've got a reasonably-high-end card from Chase, and I was impressed that they moved all personal information other than my name to the back. The front has only my name, the "chip," and the name of the bank and card. Which is still two more pieces of information than the Apple card. And the back? It's a mess, and important info is being rubbed off every time I remove it from my wallet. And the card itself, the blue-colored surface plastic is separating from the metal core at one corner, so what seemed like a nice satisfying metal card now seems cheap and disposable. These are silly things to care about if you don't, but the fact that people do is why we have nice things. [0] https://millionmilesecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sapphire_Reserve_Upgrade_03.jpg https://millionmilesecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sa... is an example of the back of the card I'm talking about, though it is not my card.

32 points by helloworld 8y ago

oooo ahhh it's a white card that any first year design student could've produced if you told her to make such a card for apple. how about being weary of giant tech companies owning everything? even if it's one that claims to endorse privacy, for now.

saagarjha 8y ago

> The corners are all concentric, with equal space between them. I don't think this is quite what concentric means.

greendude29 8y ago

How pretentiously stupid. Pardon my French, but there is nothing unique about this card, and neither is there a reason to fawn over credit card design in general. How ununiquely lame is it to do that. Apple is to the design world what the diamond industry was to humanity, people believe its special not because their is any objective or creative merit to it, but simply because they've been told its special.

saagarjha 8y ago
> there is nothing unique about this card I mean, it's a piece of titanium with no outwards markings except for the Apple logo, cardholder's name, and chip, which is uncommon if not unique. But I wouldn't really write a whole article about it, especially since there's nothing new in it other than what we can see in the introduction video.
pertymcpert 8y ago
There is something unique about the card, just because you don't like it doesn't make it not unique.
- realusername 8y ago
  Like what? It looks like any generic high-end credit card, my current card looks almost like that. There's not much innovation you can do on the card itself anyway so it's not that surprising. If it wasn't made Apple, we would not even hear it on HN for sure.
  - 2_listerine_pls 8y ago
    It's a virtual-firt card. In your case, you had to obtain a physical card first. The fact you get a different number for each payment is an important security feature that I had not seen. The nicer user experience is another important feature. Normal cards use uninformative bank apps that suck. I guess bank execs only care about financial statistics and that's the likely reason nobody had done it as simple. Idiots.
  - pertymcpert 8y ago
    Show me a card that looks exactly like that.
  - pwinnski 8y ago
    You have a credit card with no personally identifying information other than your name on it? No card number, no expiration, no CVV, no phone numbers, etc? You have a credit card with no ink on it, just laser engraving? You have a credit card that is made of metal? Not with a metal core and layers of plastic on top of that, as several of the cards in my wallet are, but completely made of metal? Which card is this?

vinkelhake 8y ago

Is this satire or real? I'm halfway into the article and it could still go either way.

DanBC 8y ago
It reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cISYzA36-ZY

manwithaplan 8y ago

I wonder if there will be an option to get a card with an edge notch like https://www.rbs.com/rbs/news/2017/04/natwest-launches-credit-card-designed-for-blind-and-partially-si.html https://www.rbs.com/rbs/news/2017/04/natwest-launches-credit...

throwaway9d0291 8y ago
So THAT's what the notch is for! My TransferWise card has one and I never knew what it was for.

jalgos_eminator 8y ago

Raise your hand if you thought we would be talking about the font that is on a credit card. That my friends is the power of Apple marketing. Its another show of wealth that upper middle class people will get to feel rich.

jws 8y ago
I’ll go there. The font is tailored to the limitations of the process. The laser isn’t going to make super angular inside corners so you want to limit the curvature of your outline. The default would be to go with a VAG Rounded or similar plotter mimicking font, but they haven’t gone there. We still have the nicely varying stroke weights. Then there is the laser process in the logos which uses two passes to make a V shaped bottom on the stroke so produce glints of specular reflection. This may not be totally new, but I’ve never seen one before. That’s a lot of attention to detail. Let’s contrast to American Express. My last three physical plastic cards have had their mag strips wear off, the signature strip one one couldn’t actually be written on with any pen I tried, the CVV rubs off so you can’t read it (hint: you need this to request a new card, so memorize it before it is gone) and one of them delaminated. Just bog standard plastic cards that have been evolving for half a century and I’m lucky to get 2 years service out of it. I don’t have an Apple card yet. Maybe we’ll be reading about cardgate in 6 months and people moaning that they want their 2015 Barclays backed card back.

omk 8y ago

Apple and its obsession with design and detail must drive its partners crazy. Would this be the first card with the network partner logo also moved to the back of the card? The simplicity seems obvious in retrospect, but I am sure a lot of work goes into it esp. from manufacturing perspective. The resulting card looks like something that would come out of a 3 year old replication of a credit card using the simplest shapes, yet comes off as supremely sophisticated possession.

i_don_t_know 8y ago

Do I have to go to the Apple Store and have it replaced every couple of months because a grain of dust breaks it?

chriselles 8y ago

I remember when General Electric made many things, and then financed a few of them. Then General Electric made a few things, and financed all of them. Is the Apple credit card an indicator of Apple shifting from innovation to financialisation? It worked out for General Electric, until it didn’t.

pwinnski 8y ago

I've got a reasonably-high-end card from Chase, and I was impressed that they moved all personal information other than my name to the back. The front has only my name, the "chip," and the name of the bank and card. Which is still two more pieces of information than the Apple card. And the back? It's a mess, and important info is being rubbed off every time I remove it from my wallet. And the card itself, the blue-colored surface plastic is separating from the metal core at one corner, so what seemed like a nice satisfying metal card now seems cheap and disposable. These are silly things to care about if you don't, but the fact that people do is why we have nice things. [0] https://millionmilesecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sapphire_Reserve_Upgrade_03.jpg https://millionmilesecrets.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Sa... is an example of the back of the card I'm talking about, though it is not my card.