larryjw

Unrelated to Apple Card downtime, but effects the closing of the previous month's account is how tips are handled by restaurants. Just to be clear, I reconcile accounts daily and doing so highlights the lag in the Federal Reserve system, in addition to how businesses do their own reconciliation.

In the restaurant case, charges for tips are handled often days after the credit card is billed for the food. I suppose the restaurants don't want to give tips to their staff until after the bill for the meal has cleared. It often takes five to seven days for tip amount to be charged to the credit card used to pay for the meal. The result is the end of month credit card statement from Apple can be incomplete for a week after the end of the month. 

I just did a test order of the Mini. I like buying with monthly payments. For the Mini, Apple only gives the option of one year of monthly payments -- not two years. Given the price of the Mini, Apple Care, Pencil and Folio, it's not a cheap device and certainly would benefit from a 2-year payment schedule. Compared to the iPhone 13, the Mini is $20+ per month more expensive. 

"Lucrative" means financial processes and institutions rather than building stuff makes the money. It also means they're making money off of people who can't afford the products you're selling. 

A few years ago, Macy's reported that 40% of their revenue came from their financing side. Again, people who couldn't afford Macy's products were jacking up Macy's. 

It used to be that 10% of the US economy was the financing sector. Today, it's 50%. It's just money exchanges without building anything.

No wonder BitCoin exists. 

AppleInsider made the mistake of entitling this article as Apple "telling" the judge .... 

In US courts, the lawyers prosecute the case, and are obligated to inform the judge of legal precedents, and to therefore give opposing counsel the ability to respond. Of course, the court, sua sponte, can cite law not brought up by counsel, but it's usually poor form. 

In the UK, the Courts are more active. 

35 US Code 10 Section 103 says

"A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made."

So, obviousness is not the same as the common usage of the term. The evidence for obviousness must be determined based on "experts" in the field.