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One very important topic that this otherwise excellent article does not touch on is "international transaction fees."  There are a good number of us Americans who reside outside the USA but who still have bank accounts in the US and we of course want credit cards that tie into those US accounts.  It behoves us to consider credit cards which we can use both in the USA and abroad without getting hit with silly foreign transaction fees.  

Having research many, many cards, I find that the Apple Card is pretty much the only one that offers NO FOREIGN TRANSACTION FEES while also offering us the card itself with no annual fees.  Many cards, like certain AMEX cards, also offer no foreign transaction fees but only if you pay a hefty annual fee.  For that reason, I cannot give an immediate nod to Reward Cards over the Apple Card because the key consideration for me is the no foreign transaction fee part.  For truly, if a rewards card gives me slightly more rewards than the Apple card, and yet that rewards card charges me foreign transaction fees, there's no merit to the rewards card. 

The AppleInsider article unfortunately doesn't say these important details but the product web pages do (keyword: full grain leather, hence the price):

Premium full-grain Italian veg-tan leather and robust hardware for many years of service, guaranteed.

Proudly handcrafted in Louisville, KY.

I just finished reading the editorial.  <deep sigh>  Meanwhile... SIRI still can't pronounce my daughter's name correctly, despite having "trained" it numerous times.  SIRI doesn't understand the context of my speech, and SIRI cannot perform even the most basic of tasks at times.  To say SIRI is a blithering idiot most of the time would be an understatement.  

Talking about the failings of other voice assistants in no way makes SIRI better.  And yes, we desperately need a better SIRI.  That remains true regardless of Alexa and Cortana.  I can only hope the next editorial will kick Apple's engineering department firmly in the place they need it most.  We loyal Apple lovers deserve the insanely great.  We aren't getting that now with SIRI.  And don't come along and tell me "it can't be done!"  Those crazy enough to think that they can change the world (of SIRI) are the ones who do.

Some may find this interesting with regard to the 4th Amendment and ports of entry...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_search_exception

To keep Mac sales, specifically notebook Mac sales, from declining further, Apple needs to consider the needs and demands of The Rest of Us, and not just millennials who don't care about how good a keyboard feels, about what happens when you trip over the power cord, who don't care about how useful an SD card slot really is, who don't mind dongles, who don't care about a TouchBar they never use, who only use battery power and therefore don't care if there's no extension power cord in the box, and who don't care about fun things like the glowing Apple logo.  Generation X has the buying power, not millennials, and we also have a lot of legacy equipment too.  Our needs are different from theirs, yet like them, we want to buy Macs. Indeed, we of the older generation have a longer history with Apple and therefore have a more vested interest in seeing something appealing come out of Apple.  But we only want to buy Macs when those new Macs suit our needs.  Currently for me, only the iMac does that.  Apple notebooks have been ridiculous since late 2016.  Despite the fact Apple already had the MacBook and Air lines to satisfy the Johnny Ive death quest for ultimate thinness, Apple chose to gut the MacBook "Pro" in like manner, thereby rending all Apple notebooks largely the same.  It's now back the for Performa confusion days at Apple. 

Some argue that Apple is now an iPhone company so the Mac doesn't matter.  If that silliness is true, Tim Cook's commitment to the Mac would then be a lie, and then we have the bigger question of "why bother"?  That's especially true of the Mac Pro.  If rumors are right about the forthcoming Mac Pro being so expensive The Rest of Us cannot afford it, and thereby deliberately keeping the potential number of buyers to the same or less as the Apple Watch solid gold Edition buyers, why the heck do they even bother designing the thing?  Seriously!  It makes zero sense.  Zero.

No, we need a true MacBook "Pro" and a 17" version, and an affordable Mac Pro too.  One cannot argue in defense of the status quo anymore.  Something big needs to change in Apple's design labs where function starts to take a little more priority than form.  And I personally hope that change will be a stark IMPROVEMENT over what I've seen in the last few years.  We need a Steve Jobsian style shakeup in Cupertino.