Apple

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.04.01-200748/https://www.wsj.com/finance/banking/apple-card-visa-mastercard-deal-3ce762da

Visa has offered Apple a roughly $100 million payment to get the tech giant’s credit card, part of a battle between the country’s biggest payment networks for the splashy Apple card. 

The Apple card is up for grabs because Goldman Sachs, the bank behind it, is getting out of the consumer lending world. For months, big banks includingJPMorgan Chase and Synchrony Financial have been vying to take over as issuer. What hasn’t been known is the equally fierce fight playing out between the networks to win Apple, with Visa and American Express trying to unseat Mastercard, according to people familiar with the matter.

Archive: https://archive.is/2025.03.30-130133/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-03-30/apple-readies-biggest-push-into-health-yet-with-revamped-app-ai-doctor-service-m8vl97k2

Apple Inc. Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has maintained that, when all is said and done, his company’s greatest contribution to society will be in health care. 

It’s a bold statement for a company best known for consumer devices (albeit, one that has made forays into everything from Hollywood movies to financial services). It’s even bolder when you consider that the Apple Watch has yet to live up to the dream of becoming a “medical lab on your wrist” and the company’s Health app is still fairly rudimentary.

But the company has some moon-shot initiatives in the works that could indeed transform the health industry. That includes a 15-year-plus project to create a noninvasive glucose monitor. The idea, which originated while Steve Jobs was still alive, is to add a sensor to the Apple Watch that can inform users if they are prediabetic, helping them potentially avoid the full-blown condition. 

While the project remains active and has reached key milestones, the company is still many years away from delivering the feature. Apple also has hit some snags with other health sensors, such as those for blood oxygen and hypertension. The former was stripped from the Apple Watch due to a patent fight, and the latter continues to suffer roadblocks in development.

Against that backdrop, Apple’s health team is working on something that could have a quicker payoff — and help the company finally deliver on Cook’s vision. The initiative is called Project Mulberry, and it involves a completely revamped Health app plus a health coach. The service would be powered by a new AI agent that would replicate — at least to some extent — a real doctor.

I first wrote about this plan a couple of years ago, when it was code-named Project Quartz. Since then, the effort has taken many twists and turns and has roped in other parts of Apple, including its artificial intelligence group. Development is now full steam ahead, with a release due as early as iOS 19.4. That update is scheduled for spring or summer of next year.

users in Australia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, and Malaysia will soon have access to the hearing health feature set that Apple has been rolling out for the last several months.

Apple's USB-C to 3.5mm audio cable is available now for $39.00.