The Apple Card’s new feature tackles one of credit’s biggest problems

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At its Spring Loaded event held virtually on Tuesday, the very first thing Apple announced was a new Apple Card feature called Apple Card Family. Available in the U.S. in May, Apple Card Family allows two people to co-own an Apple Card credit card, merging their credit lines while building credit together equally. Apple Card Family also lets parents share an Apple Card with their children. This comes almost a month after the New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS)  released  a report that cleared Apple and Goldman Sachs of gender-based discrimination. That followed an investigation initiated by online complaints shared shortly after the card’s initial launch in 2019. At the time, tech entrepreneur David Heinemeier Hansson tweeted that he had received a credit limit that was 20 times higher than what his wife Jamie was offered despite her higher credit score . The path to women’s credit independence started with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974. In its investigation, NYDFS found that gender was not a factor influencing Apple Card eligibility. Still, spouses’ credit scores, debt, income, missed payments, how they used their credit, and other credit history elements were considered. In the end, NYDFS concluded that none of the factors identified was an “unlawful basis” for a credit determination.   Despite this finding, there’s still a need for more transparency regarding the current credit score system. In Apple’s press release about Apple Pay Family, Jennifer Bailey, the company’s VP of Apple Pay, acknowledged that issue saying, “we designed Apple Card Family because we saw an opportunity to reinvent how spouses, partners, and the people you trust most share credit cards and build credit together. There’s been a lack of transparency and consumer understanding in the way credit scores are calculated when there are two users of the same credit card since the primary account holder receives the benefit of building a strong credit history while the other does not.” The path to women’s credit independence started with the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974, which put an end to lenders requiring women to have male cosigners on loans. Before then, women might have also been required to make larger down payments on homes than men with similar credit profiles. [Photo: Apple] While these practices became illegal, other factors also impacted women’s ability to access credit. Income is usually a primary qualifier for creditors, and considering the income gap between women and men, it is easy to see how that would negatively impact women’s credit. According to Payscale, as of March 2021, women earned 82¢ for every dollar a man makes. That pay gap does not affect credit alone. It also impacts the ability to repay debt such as student loans, which in return negatively impacts credit. Read More …

Hey, Apple, just make a TV already

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As part of its big “Spring Loaded” press event on Tuesday, Apple announced that it will fix your TV’s picture settings in one of the most roundabout ways possible. Just buy yourself an Apple TV streaming box, plug it into your existing television, then hold your iPhone up to the screen. The Apple TV will then use the phone’s image sensors to calibrate its own color output according to what Apple says are cinematographer-approved specifications. Apple showcased the feature as part of its second-generation Apple TV 4K , which launches next month, though the calibration option will also arrive on existing Apple TV boxes next week. It’s a neat idea, but it also digs up a rather old question : Why doesn’t Apple just make a smart TV itself? Read More …

Biden’s infrastructure plan could transform broadband in the U.S.

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People in Washington have been trying to fix the country’s digital divide for years. But the COVID-19 pandemic is pushing the stars into alignment for real action on broadband access and affordability in 2021. COVID-19 kept tens of millions of office workers and schoolchildren at home, with a broadband line becoming their primary connection to the outside world. A Pew study in March found that 31% of Americans are “almost constantly online.” Meanwhile, 77 million Americans lack adequate internet service at home, says public interest group Free Press, and just two-thirds of people in the nation’s bottom income bracket can access the internet from home. Congress has already included $3.2 billion in emergency funding for broadband access in the stimulus bill this year. But the big show for broadband stimulus will come in the bill that emerges from President Biden’s $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan–the American Jobs Plan . The plan proposes to fund all kinds of infrastructure, among them $174 billion for electric vehicles, $50 billion for semiconductor manufacturing and research, and $100 billion to build out broadband networks. Read More …

Netflix finally learns the oldest rule in Hollywood: Hits matter

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Netflix is dramatically upping its content spend in 2021—to $17 billion—signaling that it will be making more bets on big movies and TV shows as it fights to fend off competitors like Disney Plus and HBO Max. While the latter have built-in access to popular franchises like Star Wars and Wonder Woman due to their Hollywood studio parents, Netflix has had to buy its way into the franchise business. It recently made a deal with Sony to become the streaming home to Marvel films such as Spider-Man and Venom , and it paid $465 million for the two sequels to Knives Out , the whodunit thriller starring Daniel Craig. As co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on an earnings call on Tuesday, “big event content” is crucial to the company’s strategy going forward. Indeed, these big bets on known film entities (up until now, Netflix had mainly splurged on TV showrunners such as Shonda Rhimes, whose first big project, Bridgerton , was one of the few bright spots for the company so far in 2021) are likely to continue as the streamer wades into ever-more competitive territory and tries to maintain the momentum it enjoyed in 2020 as COVID-19 kept people strapped to their couches. On the earnings call, Netflix announced that its subscriber growth was slowing this year: In the first quarter, it added nearly 4 million subscribers, short of the 6 million it had projected. The news sent the company’s stock falling in after-hours trading, down 11%. Read More …

Amy Klobuchar: Apple, Google app store rules are “pretty outrageous”

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Executives from Apple and Google will testify in front of Congress on Wednesday, and are likely to face tough questioning about the way they manage their respective app stores. Apple’s chief compliance officer Kyle Andeer and Google’s senior director of government affairs Wilson White will appear in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, which is chaired by Democrat Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. The hearing  comes as Congress readies legislation that could revamp antitrust law to better deal with 21st century monopolies, and better arm government agencies to enforce the law. The main topic of discussion will be the revenue sharing requirement imposed by the app stores on developers. Larger developers must pay 30% of their app or subscription revenue to Apple or Google during the first year of inclusion in their respective app stores. Many developers, whether they’ll say so publicly or not, think the 30% fee is onerous. Some have spoken out, including the music app developer Spotify, the dating app developer Match Group, and the Bluetooth tracker app developer Tile–and all will testify Wednesday. They’ll likely find some sympathetic ears on the other side of the room. You can’t argue that telling consumers they can get a better deal another way somehow jeopardizes security.” Sen. Amy Klobuchar “The 15% to 30% tax is such a whopping amount of money that the companies are charged for advertising on the app store,” Klobuchar told me on Tuesday evening. “The thing that I noticed myself was, like other consumers, I sometimes wonder why I can’t get that app on the app store–what’s wrong with that company? I never understood it until I looked at this [app store issue], and it’s because they don’t want to pay that amount of money.” Klobuchar says she hopes hopes her committee can learn some things about the app stores and the app economy by hearing both sides of the debate. But, she said, it’s also important that the public learn about the business practices of Apple and Google. She zeroes in on the fact that Apple makes it very hard for developers to avoid using its In-App Payment system, and paying the 15% to 30% fee. Read More …