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By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: October 24, 2024 ~David Solomon, Chairman and CEO, Goldman SachsThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) typically receives high praise from Wall Street On Parade for leveling the playing field between the pillagers on Wall Street and the hardworking poor and middle class of America. But yesterday’s announcement of the CFPB’s settlement with Goldman Sachs and Apple over some of the most abusive conduct we have observed against consumers in decades left us with the impression that Goldman Sachs’ lawyers had browbeat the CFPB into a watered-down deal.The enforcement action by the CFPB pertained to years of abuses by both Apple and Goldman Sachs involving the Apple Credit Card. Under the CFPB’s settlement, Goldman Sachs will pay $19.8 million in redress to victims and a $45 million civil money penalty, bringing Goldman’s total settlement to $64.8 million. Apple will pay a $25 million civil money penalty for a combined $89.8 million by both parties.Let’s pause right here for a moment. Goldman Sachs had profits of $8.52 billion in 2023. The settlement amount of $64.8 million is less than 1 percent of its profits last year. That makes a mockery of holding a serial miscreant like Goldman Sachs accountable for putting Apple Credit Card customers through a living hell and destroying people’s credit rating in the process.Credit on the Apple Credit Card was provided by the taxpayer-backstopped, federally-insured commercial bank that Goldman Sachs is allowed to own – despite its checkered past. That commercial bank is known as Goldman Sachs Bank USA. For a snapshot look at how prudently it is managed, consider this: as of June 30 it held $544 billion in assets and $55 trillion in derivatives. (See Table 15 at this link. The derivatives report is provided by a federal banking regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.)The CFPB announced yesterday that Goldman Sachs had engaged in the following abuses in connection with the Apple Credit Card:[When customers complained about erroneous charges,] “the bank failed to consistently send acknowledgment notices within 30 days, conduct reasonable investigations, or send resolution letters explaining the determinations of its investigations within 90 days. These failures led to Goldman Sachs illegally placing damaging information on consumers’ credit reports and holding cardholders responsible for potentially fraudulent or unauthorized purchases.”The CFPB also wrote this:“The marketing of the Apple Card Monthly Installments plan led consumers to believe they would automatically receive interest-free financing when purchasing iPhones and other Apple devices with their Apple Card. The plan allowed cardholders to purchase Apple devices through a series of interest-free payments over a period of six months to two years. However, many cardholders were unknowingly charged interest because they were not automatically enrolled as expected. They also faced confusing checkout options about enrolling in the plan. For online purchases, Apple only presented the payment plan as an option to consumers using Apple’s own Safari browser. Due to Apple and Goldman’s actions, instead of making interest-free payments, thousands of cardholders purchased Apple devices on interest-bearing revolving balances and incurred interest charges.”Wall Street On Parade began reporting on the grotesque manner in which the Apple Credit Card was being handled as early as August 10, 2022. Our first report came one year after J.D. Power had lavished a customer satisfaction award on the Apple Credit Card provided through Goldman Sachs.The J.D. Power Award came in August 2021. We dug through customer complaints in the CFPB’s database for the same month, August 2021, and found the following telltale signs of big problems: (The redacted information has been redacted by the CFPB; typos are in the original.)A customer in California wrote this:“This problem has been ongoing since XXXX, I have had to open multiple disputes through Apple credit card (goldman Sachs) and every time I open disputes, they ALWAYS favor the merchant ( XXXX ) There were multiple unauthorized purchases on my card through XXXX, XXXX helped with most of them besides one order that was {$1400.00}. My credit card issuer Goldman Sachs is saying that the dispute keeps favoring them no matter what evidence I give them. I really want to sue or something, I have no idea what to do now…” (Read the full complaint here.)A customer in Massachusetts told the CFPB this:“My 11 year old computer died and I went online to apple.com to buy a replacement one. Their site advertises that you can get an Apple credit card with 0 % APR for the first 12 months and pay off the computer. When I tried to redeem that offer, their Goldman Sachs website came back and extended a {$2500.00} credit limit, which does not cover the cost of a computer on their site. I called in to get the limit increased to {$3200.00} because I make {$320000.00} a year and have a XXXX credit rating. When I called in, their representative told me the only way to request a credit limit increase to cover the cost of the computer was to accept the credit card offer and open an account. So I did. He told me the next day I had to call back to request a credit increase. There was no other way to get an increase on the application. I have just done that, and despite making a high salary, having zero credit debt and having an excellent credit score, Goldman Sachs / Apple has denied the application and not giving me a reason…” (Read the full complaint here.)A resident of Virginia wrote this:“On XX/XX/21, an unknown charge for {$840.00} was Pending on my Apple Card (Goldman Sachs), I submitted a dispute the same day and was told that, because the charge was still ‘pending’, they would monitor the charge and if the charge posted, the dispute process would start with no further action from me. If the charge did not post, it would just drop off of my account. Since then, I have made dozens of calls and chat sessions with Apple Card Support about this charge that posted to my account on XX/XX/21. On this date, I received a ‘provisional credit’ and exactly one minute later, the provisional credit was reversed. After many phone calls, I finally learned that the dispute that I repeatedly called about had been ruled in the merchant ‘s favor because, they stated, I ‘withdrew my dispute’ — this is a complete falsehood…” (Read the full complaint here.)In 2023, we took another look at the CFPB’s complaint database and found hundreds of cries for help from people being ripped off with the Apple Credit Card, including the following from a resident of Nevada:“Late last year, Apple credit card pulled a hard inquiry on my credit and issued me an Apple credit card. I did not request this credit card, so I contacted XXXX about this matter. Apple credit card closed my account and stated to me that they noted my account was closed because they could not verify that I requested, authorized, or applied for this credit card. I believe this credit card was requested by an XXXX store agent, without my authorization, when I purchased a new iphone. I believe this because the agent signed me up for several other offers that I did not request. These matters have been resolved with XXXX. Regarding the hard inquiry, the XXXX representative told me to contact each credit reporting agency to request that the hard inquiry be removed from my credit report. XXXX will be reporting this account as closed due to unable to verify that I applied for the credit card. Thank you for assisting in the removal of the hard inquiry with each agency.”This Nevada report suggests that salespeople in Apple’s retail stores may have been incentivized to open Apple Credit Card accounts without the customer’s approval. And yet, the CFPB settlement is silent on this issue.None of this egregious behavior by Goldman Sachs and Apple has made its way to the folks at J.D. Power. On August 15 of this year, J.D. Power made the following gasp-worthy announcement:“Apple Card (Goldman Sachs) ranks highest in customer satisfaction among co-brand credit cards with no annual fee, with a score of 654. This is the fourth consecutive year in which Apple Card and issuer Goldman Sachs have collectively earned a segment award….”Goldman Sachs’ history of abusing its customers dates back to the roaring 1920s. During the making of the stock market asset bubble of 1928, Goldman ran the Goldman Sachs Trading Company, a closed end fund known as a “trust” in those days. Goldman Sachs spun it off to the public at $104 a share. The trust was filled with dubious investments while paying Goldman a hefty management fee. Just a few years after the crash of 1929, the Goldman Sachs trust was trading at a buck and change. On May 20, 1932, Walter Sachs, President of the Goldman Sachs Trading Company, was interrogated by the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency. The Committee concluded that Goldman Sachs fleeced its customers to line its own pockets.On April 27, 2010 the U.S. Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations held a hearing and interviewed multiple executives of Goldman Sachs over its role in the subprime crisis and 2008 financial collapse. That hearing was followed by an in-depth report from the Subcommittee. Among the findings were the following regarding Goldman Sachs:“When Goldman Sachs realized the mortgage market was in decline, it took actions to profit from that decline at the expense of its clients. New documents detail how, in 2007, Goldman’s Structured Products Group twice amassed and profited from large net short positions in mortgage related securities. At the same time the firm was betting against the mortgage market as a whole, Goldman assembled and aggressively marketed to its clients poor quality CDOs [Collateralized Debt Obligations] that it actively bet against by taking large short positions in those transactions. New documents and information detail how Goldman recommended four CDOs, Hudson, Anderson, Timberwolf, and Abacus, to its clients without fully disclosing key information about those products, Goldman’s own market views, or its adverse economic interests. For example, in Hudson, Goldman told investors that its interests were ‘aligned’ with theirs when, in fact, Goldman held 100% of the short side of the CDO and had adverse interests to the investors, and described Hudson’s assets were ‘sourced from the Street,’ when in fact, Goldman had selected and priced the assets without any third party involvement. New documents also reveal that, at one point in May 2007, Goldman Sachs unsuccessfully tried to execute a ‘short squeeze’ in the mortgage market so that Goldman could scoop up short positions at artificially depressed prices and profit as the mortgage market declined.”For what Goldman Sachs has been up to more recently, see our reports: Goldman Sachs Criminally Charged by Justice Department – and Its Stock Closes Up $2.49 and Goldman Sachs Is Being Sued for 27 Separate Stock Offerings It Underwrote.To add further insult to injury, while much of the Apple Credit Card hubris was occurring, the CEO of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, was moonlighting as a D.J. (You can’t make this stuff up.) Solomon still sits at the helm of the company.FacebookTwitterWhatsAppLinkedInEmail
Investors3
1 month ago
Apple introduces powerful new iPad mini built for Apple Intelligence
October 15 2024 - 9:00AM
Business Wire
The ultraportable iPad mini is more capable and versatile than ever with the powerful A17 Pro chip and support for Apple Pencil Pro
Apple® today introduced the new iPad mini®, supercharged by the A17 Pro chip and Apple Intelligence™, the easy-to-use personal intelligence system that understands personal context to deliver intelligence that is helpful and relevant while protecting user privacy. With a beloved ultraportable design, the new iPad mini is available in four gorgeous finishes, including a new blue and purple, and features the brilliant 8.3-inch Liquid Retina® display. A17 Pro delivers a huge performance boost for even the most demanding tasks, with a faster CPU and GPU, a 2x faster Neural Engine than the previous-generation iPad mini,1 and support for Apple Intelligence. The versatility and advanced capabilities of the new iPad mini are taken to a whole new level with support for Apple Pencil Pro™, opening up entirely new ways to be even more productive and creative. The 12MP wide back camera supports Smart HDR 4 for natural-looking photos with increased dynamic range, and uses machine learning to detect and scan documents right in the Camera app.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241015440083/en/
The new iPad mini delivers powerful performance, incredible value, and the full iPad experience in an ultraportable design. (Photo: Business Wire)
The new iPad mini delivers powerful performance, incredible value, and the full iPad experience in an ultraportable design. (Photo: Business Wire)
The new iPad mini features all-day battery life and brand-new experiences with iPadOS® 18. Starting at just $499 with 128GB — double the storage of the previous generation — the new iPad mini delivers incredible value and the full iPad experience in an ultraportable design. Customers can pre-order the new iPad mini today, with availability beginning Wednesday, October 23.
“There is no other device in the world like iPad mini, beloved for its combination of powerful performance and versatility in our most ultraportable design. iPad mini appeals to a wide range of users and has been built for Apple Intelligence, delivering intelligent new features that are powerful, personal, and private,” said Bob Borchers, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing. “With the powerful A17 Pro chip, faster connectivity, and support for Apple Pencil Pro, the new iPad mini delivers the full iPad experience in our most portable design at an incredible value.”
A17 Pro Unlocks Powerful Performance
The new iPad mini gets a major update with A17 Pro, delivering incredible performance and power efficiency in an ultraportable design. A17 Pro is a powerful chip that unlocks a number of improvements over A15 Bionic in the previous-generation iPad mini. With a 6-core CPU — two performance cores and four efficiency cores — A17 Pro delivers a 30 percent boost in CPU performance.1 A17 Pro also brings a boost in graphics performance with a 5-core GPU, delivering a 25 percent jump over the previous generation.1 A17 Pro brings entirely new experiences — including pro apps used by designers, pilots, doctors, and others — and makes it faster than ever for users to edit photos, dive into more immersive AR applications, and more. The new iPad mini brings true-to-life gaming with hardware-accelerated ray tracing — which is 4x faster than software-based ray tracing — as well as support for Dynamic Caching and hardware-accelerated mesh shading. From creating engaging content faster than ever in Affinity Designer, to playing demanding, graphics-intensive AAA games like Zenless Zone Zero, users can take the powerful performance and ultraportable iPad mini anywhere.
Built for Apple Intelligence
With the power of the A17 Pro chip, the new iPad mini delivers support for Apple Intelligence. Deeply integrated into iPadOS 18, Apple Intelligence harnesses the power of Apple silicon and Apple-built generative models to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. Many of the models that power Apple Intelligence run entirely on device, and Private Cloud Compute offers the ability to flex and scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers.
The first set of Apple Intelligence features will be available in U.S. English this month through a free software update with iPadOS 18.1, and available for iPad® with A17 Pro or M1 and later. Apple Intelligence delivers experiences that are delightful, intuitive, easy to use, and specially designed to help users do the things that matter most to them:2
With Writing Tools, users can refine their words by rewriting, proofreading, and summarizing text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps.
Siri® becomes more deeply integrated into the system experience and gets a new design with an elegant glowing light that wraps around the edge of the screen when active on iPad. With richer language-understanding capabilities, communicating with Siri is more natural and flexible. Siri can follow along when users stumble over their words, can maintain context from one request to the next, and now, users can type to Siri. Siri also has extensive product knowledge to answer questions about features on iPad and other Apple devices.
In Photos, the Memories feature now enables users to create the movies they want to see by simply typing a description, and with the new Clean Up tool, they can identify and remove distracting objects in the background of a photo — without accidentally altering the subject.
Additional Apple Intelligence features will be rolling out over the next several months:
Image Playground allows users to create playful images in moments.
Image Wand is a new tool in the Apple Pencil® tool palette that can transform a rough sketch into a polished image.
Emoji will be taken to an entirely new level with the ability to create original Genmoji™ by simply typing a description, or by selecting a photo of a friend or family member.
Siri will be able to draw on a user’s personal context to deliver intelligence that is tailored to them. It will also gain onscreen awareness to understand and take action with users’ content, as well as take hundreds of new actions in and across Apple and third-party apps.
With ChatGPT integrated into experiences within iPadOS 18, users have the option to access its expertise, as well as its image- and document-understanding capabilities, within Siri and Writing Tools without needing to jump between tools. And privacy protections are built in so a user’s IP address is obscured, and OpenAI won’t store requests. Users can access ChatGPT for free without creating an account, and ChatGPT’s data-use policies apply for those who choose to connect their account.
Even Faster Connectivity
With faster wireless and wired connectivity, users can do even more on iPad mini while on the go. The new iPad mini supports Wi-Fi 6E, which delivers up to twice the performance than the previous generation,3 so users can download files, play games online, and stream movies even faster. Wi-Fi + Cellular models with 5G allow users to access their files, communicate with peers, and back up their data in a snap while on the go. Cellular models of the new iPad mini are activated with eSIM, a more secure alternative to a physical SIM card, allowing users to quickly connect and transfer their existing plans digitally, and store multiple cellular plans on a single device. Customers can easily get connected to wireless data plans on the new iPad mini in over 190 countries and regions around the world without needing to get a physical SIM card from a local carrier. The USB-C port is now up to 2x faster than the previous generation, with data transfers up to 10Gbps, so importing large photos and videos is even quicker.
Incredible Camera Experience
Great cameras, along with the incredibly portable form factor of iPad mini, enable powerful mobile workflows. The 12MP wide back camera delivers gorgeous photos, and with Smart HDR 4, they will be even more detailed and vivid. Utilizing the powerful 16-core Neural Engine, the new iPad mini uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically identify documents right in the Camera app and can use the new True Tone® flash to remove shadows from the document. The 12MP Ultra Wide front-facing camera in portrait orientation, with support for Center Stage™, is great for all the ways customers use iPad mini.
Magical Capabilities with Apple Pencil Pro
Apple Pencil Pro unlocks magical capabilities and powerful interactions, turning iPad mini into a sketchbook users can take anywhere. Apple Pencil Pro can sense a user’s squeeze, bringing up a tool palette to quickly switch tools, line weights, and colors, all without interrupting the creative process. A custom haptic engine delivers a light tap that provides confirmation when users squeeze, double-tap, or snap to a Smart Shape for a remarkably intuitive experience. Users can roll Apple Pencil Pro for precise control of the tool they’re using. Rotating the barrel changes the orientation of shaped pen and brush tools, just like pen and paper, and with Apple Pencil hover, users can visualize the exact orientation of a tool before making a mark. Apple Pencil Pro features support for Find My®, and pairs, charges, and is stored through a new magnetic interface on the new iPad mini. iPad mini also supports Apple Pencil (USB-C), ideal for note taking, sketching, annotating, journaling, and more, at a great value.
iPadOS 18 Brings Powerful and Intelligent New Features
In addition to the groundbreaking capabilities of Apple Intelligence, iPadOS 18 brings powerful features that enhance the iPad experience, making it more versatile and intelligent than ever. iPadOS also has advanced frameworks like Core ML® that make it easy for developers to tap into the Neural Engine to deliver powerful AI features right on device.
Designed for the unique capabilities of iPad, Calculator delivers an entirely new way to use Apple Pencil to solve expressions, as well as basic and scientific calculators with a new history function and unit conversions. With Math Notes, users are now able to type mathematical expressions or write them out to see them instantly solved in handwriting like their own. They can also create and use variables, and add an equation to insert a graph. Users can also access their Math Notes in the Notes app, and use all of the math functionality in any of their other notes.
In the Notes app, handwritten notes become more fluid, flexible, and easy to read with Smart Script and the power of Apple Pencil. Smart Script unleashes powerful new capabilities for users editing handwritten text, allowing them to easily add space, or even paste typed text in their own handwriting. And as users write with Apple Pencil, their handwriting will be automatically refined in real time to be smoother, straighter, and more legible.
With new Audio Recording and Transcription, iPad can capture a lecture or conversation, and transcripts are synced with the audio, so users can search for an exact moment in the recording.
New levels of customization come to iPad, and users have even more options to express themselves through the Home Screen with app icons and widgets that can be placed in any open position. App icons and widgets can take on a new look with a dark or tinted effect, and users can make them appear larger to create the experience that is perfect for them. Control Center has been redesigned to provide easier access to many of the things users do every day, delivering quick access to new groups of a user’s most-utilized controls. Users can even organize new controls from third-party apps in the redesigned Control Center.
The Photos app receives its biggest update ever, bringing users powerful new tools that make it easier to find what they are looking for with a simplified and customizable app layout that takes advantage of the larger display on iPad and helps users browse by themes without having to organize content into albums.
Users have new ways to stay connected and express themselves in Messages, with all-new animated text effects, redesigned Tapbacks, and the ability to schedule messages to send at a later time.
Better for the Environment
The new iPad mini is designed with the environment in mind, including 100 percent recycled aluminum in the enclosure, 100 percent recycled rare earth elements in all magnets, and 100 percent recycled gold plating and tin soldering in multiple printed circuit boards. The new iPad mini meets Apple’s high standards for energy efficiency, and is free of mercury, brominated flame retardants, and PVC. The packaging is 100 percent fiber-based, bringing Apple closer to its goal to remove plastic from all packaging by 2025.
Today, Apple is carbon neutral for global corporate operations and, as part of its ambitious Apple 2030 goal, plans to be carbon neutral across its entire carbon footprint by the end of this decade.
Pricing and Availability
Customers can pre-order the new iPad mini starting today, October 15, on apple.com/store, and in the Apple Store® app in 29 countries and regions, including the U.S. It will begin arriving to customers, and will be in Apple Store locations and Apple Authorized Resellers, starting Wednesday, October 23.
Available in blue, purple, starlight, and space gray, the new iPad mini starts at $499 (U.S.) for the Wi-Fi model, and $649 (U.S.) for the Wi-Fi + Cellular model.
The new iPad mini starts with 128GB of storage — double the storage of the previous generation. The new iPad mini is also available in 256GB and 512GB configurations.
For education, the new iPad mini starts at $449 (U.S.). Education pricing is available to current and newly accepted college students and their parents, as well as faculty, staff, and home-school teachers of all grade levels. For more information, visit apple.com/us-hed/shop.
Apple Pencil Pro is compatible with the new iPad mini. It is available for $129 (U.S.), and $119 (U.S.) for education. Apple Pencil (USB-C) is available for $79 (U.S.), and $69 (U.S.) for education.
The new Smart Folio®, available in charcoal gray, light violet, denim, and sage, is $59 (U.S.).
Apple offers great ways to save on the latest iPad. Customers can trade in their current iPad and get credit toward a new one by visiting the Apple Store online, the Apple Store app, or an Apple Store location. To see what their device is worth and for terms and conditions, customers can visit apple.com/shop/trade-in.
Customers in the U.S. who shop at Apple using Apple Card® can pay monthly at 0 percent APR when they choose to check out with Apple Card Monthly Installments, and they’ll get 3 percent Daily Cash® back — all up front. More information — including details on eligibility, exclusions, and Apple Card terms — is available at apple.com/apple-card/monthly-installments.
AppleCare+® for iPad provides unparalleled service and support. This includes unlimited incidents of accidental damage, battery service coverage, and 24/7 support from the people who know iPad best.
Every customer who buys directly from Apple Retail gets access to Personal Setup. In these guided online sessions, a Specialist can walk customers through setup, or focus on features that help them make the most of their new device.
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, AirPods, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision Pro. Apple’s six software platforms — iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, visionOS, and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay, iCloud, and Apple TV+. Apple’s more than 150,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth and to leaving the world better than we found it.
1. Testing conducted by Apple in September 2024 using preproduction iPad mini (A17 Pro) and production iPad mini (6th generation) units. Tested with Affinity Photo 2 v2.5.5.2636 using the built-in benchmark version 25000. Performance tests are conducted using specific iPad units and reflect the approximate performance of iPad mini.
2. Apple Intelligence will be available as a free software update for iPad with A17 Pro or M1 and later with device and Siri language set to U.S. English. The first set of features will be available in beta this month with iPadOS 18.1 with more features rolling out in the months to come. Later this year, Apple Intelligence will add support for localized English in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and the U.K. In the coming year, Apple Intelligence will expand to more languages, like Chinese, English (India), English (Singapore), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese, and others.
3. Wi-Fi 6E available in countries and regions where supported.
NOTE TO EDITORS: For additional information visit Apple Newsroom (www.apple.com/newsroom), or email Apple’s Media Helpline at media.help@apple.com.
© 2024 Apple Inc. All rights reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPad mini, Apple Intelligence, Liquid Retina, Apple Pencil Pro, iPadOS, iPad, Siri, Apple Pencil, Genmoji, True Tone, Center Stage, Find My, Core ML, Apple Store, Smart Folio, Apple Card, Daily Cash, and AppleCare+ are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241015440083/en/
Tara Courtney
Apple
tcourtney@apple.com
Skylar Eisenhart
Apple
s_eisenhart@apple.com
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