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| Chip on Apple credit card fails |
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| tooki:
--- Quote from: thm_w on December 15, 2021, 10:20:00 pm ---Goddamn these metal cards, they destroy credit card readers as the edges are sharp (not sure if this is specifically Apple or was another brand). The card should be the sacrificial material. It looks like the apple card is of normal thickness (0.82mm) though. --- End quote --- Bearing in mind that the physical card is intended to be the backup to the primary method of using Apple Pay (contactless via phone/watch), I don’t agree with your assessment that the cards are wildly damaging to terminals. I will tell you what is damaging, though: idiot people (cashiers and consumers alike) who think they need to ram a card into a reader like a gorilla, or that a magstripe needs to be blasted past the reader head at supersonic speeds. If anything damages the contacts of the chip readers, it'll be something that snags them. The Apple Card’s edges are slightly beveled, and subjectively feel less sharp than those of many a plastic card, which are often not cut particularly cleanly. |
| tooki:
--- Quote from: richard.cs on December 15, 2021, 10:40:34 pm ---Something is wrong here. These chips just don't normally fail, I've been using chip and pin since it was introduced here nearly 20 years ago, never had one fail, even cards that were horribly abused mechanically. Nor am I aware of anyone I know having broken one. Bad batch seems unlikely, if you've been through 5 cards it must have been over a significant period of time and a batch that big would surely have affected many others. Given it's a bit of an oddball card perhaps there's a card reader somewhere near you that kills it somehow, a bad design that shorts a power supply to the metal body or similar and lifts it to a damaging voltage relative to the contacts - easily done if you assume all cards are insulating. Or maybe the shorting of the card reader contacts as the card is inserted upsets some power supply with poor transient response and it murders the chip as it recovers. Who knows, but the conductive body is the main thing that differs from normal cards. Unless it's just some weird bug with your account and the cards are fine. --- End quote --- Exactly. But frankly, given that literally millions of these cards have been issued (3 million accounts, they say. And while the physical card does need to be requested as a separate step, I can’t imagine that many account holders haven’t requested it, given that it’s free and is an unusually handsome card), if Apple’s metal cards had inherent electrical compatibly issues, there would be widespread reports of them, and there aren’t. (Not to mention that Amex has been issuing metal cards for well over a decade, and it doesn’t suffer from compatibility problems, either.) Hence my suspicion that there’s something weird with the OP’s account or situation, be it something they’re doing without realizing it, or a shop they frequent that has a terminal that is somehow frying those chips, or something their post office is doing, etc. |
| thm_w:
--- Quote from: tooki on December 15, 2021, 10:42:45 pm ---Bearing in mind that the physical card is intended to be the backup to the primary method of using Apple Pay (contactless via phone/watch), I don’t agree with your assessment that the cards are wildly damaging to terminals. I will tell you what is damaging, though: idiot people (cashiers and consumers alike) who think they need to ram a card into a reader like a gorilla, or that a magstripe needs to be blasted past the reader head at supersonic speeds. If anything damages the contacts of the chip readers, it'll be something that snags them. The Apple Card’s edges are slightly beveled, and subjectively feel less sharp than those of many a plastic card, which are often not cut particularly cleanly. --- End quote --- If they are properly beveled, that is great, Apple may have designed it well. But I've seen hundreds of damaged credit card readers (plastic tab going in was gouged), where I tried myself with a new plastic card to reproduce the problem and was unable to. Making me think there are metal cards out there with razor sharp edges (or bent metal cards?). Don't disagree people ram them in, that is also part of the problem for sure. |
| amyk:
--- Quote from: magic on December 15, 2021, 09:31:34 pm ---So how does one test that stupid thing with a scope and/or logic analyzer to see if it's completely dead? :popcorn: --- End quote --- You can use a card reader, which will at least show whether it responds to commands and basic inquiries. |
| Halcyon:
--- Quote from: eti on December 15, 2021, 10:34:19 pm ---😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤦🤦 --- End quote --- This exactly the response most people come to expect from die-hard Apple fanboys. Emoticons with no substance. It's the online equivalent of when someone chuckles because they feel uncomfortable, nervous or don't know what to say next, particularly when you ask them "What exactly has Apple innovated recently?". |
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