malba2366

How are they going to detect sleep apnea if their pulse oximetry feature is still disabled?

Madbum said

Nah, stores might have been necessary 10 years ago, not anymore. Cash should be used for R and D and acquisitions and stock buy backs ,

The stores are a huge advantage to Apple.  Most of them are the top grossing store per square foot in their location.  Apple saves paying other stores margin by selling direct to customer, the stores.  Also, with their stores Apple owns the customer - ie. there is no chance that the customer walks into an Apple store and finds a product from Microsoft, Samsung etc. that better suits their needs which may happen at a retailer carrying multiple product lines.

It is really hard to pay out 2% cash back on basically all purchases and make money, unless you have a very carefully selected customer base (ie. like Chase/Amex do for their best rewards cards).  It is likely there is some stipulation requiring Goldman to be more lenient in approval than other issuers of cards with such generous rewards.