topic Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k? in Credit Cards

Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

cunningboy — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 06:38:47 GMT

Hi everyone,

I have around $230k in total credit card limits, and my credit score is about 770 across all three bureaus. No matter what I try, I haven’t been able to get my $5k Apple Card limit increased for the past three years.

After reading posts on this forum, I even let my Apple Card utilization go up to around 60% for a while, but that didn’t help either. My overall credit utilization across all of my cards is always below 2%.

I use my Apple Card for most of my everyday spending, but they still won’t approve a credit limit increase. Also, about five months ago, I financed a new iPhone through the Apple Card with the 0% installment plan. I’m wondering if that might actually be hurting my chances.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions or data points from people who’ve been in a similar situation.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

NoMoreE46 — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:05:33 GMT

My last CLI was $250 two months ago vs $1,000 to $2,000. I am at $19,250 and always PIF. Card and overall UTI is 3%.

What are the reasons GS have replied with on your denials? The 0% is not hurting. It could be now related to the transition to Chase.

@cunningboy wrote:
Hi everyone,
I have around $230k in total credit card limits, and my credit score is about 770 across all three bureaus. No matter what I try, I haven’t been able to get my $5k Apple Card limit increased for the past three years.
After reading posts on this forum, I even let my Apple Card utilization go up to around 60% for a while, but that didn’t help either. My overall credit utilization across all of my cards is always below 2%.
I use my Apple Card for most of my everyday spending, but they still won’t approve a credit limit increase. Also, about five months ago, I financed a new iPhone through the Apple Card with the 0% installment plan. I’m wondering if that might actually be hurting my chances.
I’d really appreciate any suggestions or data points from people who’ve been in a similar situation.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

BrutalBodyShots — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 14:38:34 GMT

In general, higher statement balances when paid in full monthly equate to the most lucrative CLI results, all other things being equal. This is because it shows the issuer you actually have a "need" for a greater limit. If you've been rolling with lower statement balances they probably aren't seeing much incentive to raise your limit. On top of that, you've got a very high TCL already and are only showing use of maybe 2% of it. That just says to issuers that you've got way more revolving credit available than you'll ever need or use, which can mean less CLI potential depending on what the issuer is looking at.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

DeeBee78 — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:09:24 GMT

Goldman Sachs is tightening lending before the handoff to Chase. Before the announcement my preapproval for the Apple Card was $10K. Ever since then it only shows $4K.

GS let in subprime customers that most large banks woujld have flat out denied.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

AndrewF — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 22:22:16 GMT

The Apple "Upgrade" Program from Klarna is the obvious way they get iPhones into the hands of peasants who don't have $1,000 cash money now that Goldman tossed their flaming bag of dog crap onto Chase for a substantial discount.

Chase isn't going to want to deal with peasants who obviously can't pay.

As far as the no CLIs, Chase probably wants them to stabilize the portfolio as much as possible during the hand off. Why would you want a portfolio that has a lot of people you're going to cancel cards on to be getting CLIs under another issuers model that failed them completely?

Chase is one of those banks that likes to lend money to people who don't need it. Like, they have outstanding credit card balances that they could pay off, but in their mind they have lots of imaginary money in a checking account while they're letting credit card balances go haywire.

Oddly, there's many people out there who are high income and can't do the math that shows that 3% on a savings account or 0% on a checking account is never going to beat 26% on a credit card.

We already see this dynamic at play with the Chase Amazon Visa. Amazon had to get a subprime bank, Synchrony, involved, to scoop up people Chase doesn't want. This is exactly what's going on with "Apple Upgrade by Klarna."

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

SeanA — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 23:09:36 GMT

Maybe they're not giving limit increases until the card switches issuers?

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

AndrewF — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:17:39 GMT

@SeanA wrote:
Maybe they're not giving limit increases until the card switches issuers?

Goldman let Apple steamroll them. Apple took no credit risk. They demanded that GS approve everyone who applied from people who aren't gonna pay because they have a long documented record of not paying, to people with an 850 FICO score that pay all their bills.

GS had little experience in consumer banking, especially with pricing subprime credit risk, suing people, and finding things to attach to, or actively mitigating credit losses by selling bad debt.

From Apple's perspective, who cares how that iPhone got paid for? Whether it was a consumer who pays their bills or the bank taking a loss, Apple still wins. They completely steamrolled Goldman Sachs.

Chase bought that product at a presumably steep discount to account for all the people it's gonna have to work through the lawsuit mills and send cancellation letters to regarding their Apple card that should have never been issued.

In that environment, I find it improbable that Chase hasn't stipulated that GS freeze credit limits before the handover. Why would you want an incompetent bank that got steamrolled by Apple actively making bad credit risks more dangerous?

When a dominant consumer card issuer like Chase evaluates taking over a distressed, subprime-saturated portfolio at a steep discount, their primary operational directive is portfolio stabilization. Chase has zero desire to let an exit-seeking, incompetent underwriting partner actively escalate credit limits or expand risk profiles right before the ledger is transferred.

I know firsthand what happens when something like this is allowed, at least on a small scale. Before selling the building I lived in previously, the landlord getting ready to sell it ensured 100% occupancy by writing off everything that tenants who should have been evicted owed him, then claiming they were all up to date on the rent and the building was completely full. Added to the many problems with the building he didn't disclose, the new landlord had the entire operation fall apart almost overnight.

Now Apple has to, again, find a way to shove overpriced iPhones and MacBooks into the hands of people who do not want to go out and earn $1,000 using their own two hands and sweat off their brow, and that's where Klarna comes in. They handle the untouchables.

This is how Apple props up sales and maintains the flow of overpriced devices, including to people who can't pay for that, without a massive sales drop.

Or in more clinical language...

When traditional credit cards dry up, apps like Klarna and financing installment schemes step in to capture the subprime tier. They chunk an overpriced $1,000 tech brick into small, double-digit weekly payments to completely scramble the consumer's internal budget calculus.

This structure allows Apple to continuously bypass wage stagnation, pushing luxury hardware into the hands of consumers who lack the liquidity to buy the asset outright. It prevents a catastrophic drop in retail sales metrics by turning the general population into permanent, subprime installment tenants.

What the consumer is not supposed to do is realize they've committed more money than the device costs to something they do not own, using money they do not know will come in.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

crystal626 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 05:09:12 GMT

@AndrewF wrote:
@SeanA wrote:
Maybe they're not giving limit increases until the card switches issuers?
Goldman let Apple steamroll them. Apple took no credit risk. They demanded that GS approve everyone who applied from people who aren't gonna pay because they have a long documented record of not paying, to people with an 850 FICO score that pay all their bills.

GS had little experience in consumer banking, especially with pricing subprime credit risk, suing people, and finding things to attach to, or actively mitigating credit losses by selling bad debt.

From Apple's perspective, who cares how that iPhone got paid for? Whether it was a consumer who pays their bills or the bank taking a loss, Apple still wins. They completely steamrolled Goldman Sachs.

Chase bought that product at a presumably steep discount to account for all the people it's gonna have to work through the lawsuit mills and send cancellation letters to regarding their Apple card that should have never been issued.

In that environment, I find it improbable that Chase hasn't stipulated that GS freeze credit limits before the handover. Why would you want an incompetent bank that got steamrolled by Apple actively making bad credit risks more dangerous?

When a dominant consumer card issuer like Chase evaluates taking over a distressed, subprime-saturated portfolio at a steep discount, their primary operational directive is portfolio stabilization. Chase has zero desire to let an exit-seeking, incompetent underwriting partner actively escalate credit limits or expand risk profiles right before the ledger is transferred.

I know firsthand what happens when something like this is allowed, at least on a small scale. Before selling the building I lived in previously, the landlord getting ready to sell it ensured 100% occupancy by writing off everything that tenants who should have been evicted owed him, then claiming they were all up to date on the rent and the building was completely full. Added to the many problems with the building he didn't disclose, the new landlord had the entire operation fall apart almost overnight.

Now Apple has to, again, find a way to shove overpriced iPhones and MacBooks into the hands of people who do not want to go out and earn $1,000 using their own two hands and sweat off their brow, and that's where Klarna comes in. They handle the untouchables.

This is how Apple props up sales and maintains the flow of overpriced devices, including to people who can't pay for that, without a massive sales drop.

Or in more clinical language...

When traditional credit cards dry up, apps like Klarna and financing installment schemes step in to capture the subprime tier. They chunk an overpriced $1,000 tech brick into small, double-digit weekly payments to completely scramble the consumer's internal budget calculus.

This structure allows Apple to continuously bypass wage stagnation, pushing luxury hardware into the hands of consumers who lack the liquidity to buy the asset outright. It prevents a catastrophic drop in retail sales metrics by turning the general population into permanent, subprime installment tenants.

What the consumer is not supposed to do is realize they've committed more money than the device costs to something they do not own, using money they do not know will come in.

So much for them freezing credit limit increases...

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

AndrewF — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 06:06:16 GMT

If you'll pardon my laughter "Oh wow, $500."

*slow claps*

Listen, I know you're an Apple fanboy. FWIW I think Apple steamrolling Goldman was hilarious. As much as I despise Apple, I like banks even less than that.

The Reality Check: A $500 increase on an active credit card line represents virtually zero marginal utility. In the real world, $500 barely covers a pair of airpods.

The Portfolio Reality: This microscopic adjustment actually confirms my macro-analysis of the Chase takeover. If Goldman Sachs were still operating their failed, loose underwriting model, they would be handing out standard four-digit increases to push volume. Dropping a tiny, insulting $500 crumb proves that the risk-management program has completely throttled the portfolio. They are keeping the lines on a leash to stabilize the ledger during the handoff.

I'm not really sure what an Apple Card is for.

If I wanted an iPhone, I'd just go pay cash today and own it, and not be tethered to monthly/weekly (Klarna, lol) payments on a contrivance for years.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

crystal626 — Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:08:28 GMT

Ah, so moving the goalposts now I guess. Typical.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

dfwxjer — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:38:40 GMT

@AndrewF wrote:
@SeanA wrote:
Maybe they're not giving limit increases until the card switches issuers?
Goldman let Apple steamroll them. Apple took no credit risk. They demanded that GS approve everyone who applied from people who aren't gonna pay because they have a long documented record of not paying, to people with an 850 FICO score that pay all their bills.

GS had little experience in consumer banking, especially with pricing subprime credit risk, suing people, and finding things to attach to, or actively mitigating credit losses by selling bad debt.

From Apple's perspective, who cares how that iPhone got paid for? Whether it was a consumer who pays their bills or the bank taking a loss, Apple still wins. They completely steamrolled Goldman Sachs.

Chase bought that product at a presumably steep discount to account for all the people it's gonna have to work through the lawsuit mills and send cancellation letters to regarding their Apple card that should have never been issued.

In that environment, I find it improbable that Chase hasn't stipulated that GS freeze credit limits before the handover. Why would you want an incompetent bank that got steamrolled by Apple actively making bad credit risks more dangerous?

When a dominant consumer card issuer like Chase evaluates taking over a distressed, subprime-saturated portfolio at a steep discount, their primary operational directive is portfolio stabilization. Chase has zero desire to let an exit-seeking, incompetent underwriting partner actively escalate credit limits or expand risk profiles right before the ledger is transferred.

I know firsthand what happens when something like this is allowed, at least on a small scale. Before selling the building I lived in previously, the landlord getting ready to sell it ensured 100% occupancy by writing off everything that tenants who should have been evicted owed him, then claiming they were all up to date on the rent and the building was completely full. Added to the many problems with the building he didn't disclose, the new landlord had the entire operation fall apart almost overnight.

Now Apple has to, again, find a way to shove overpriced iPhones and MacBooks into the hands of people who do not want to go out and earn $1,000 using their own two hands and sweat off their brow, and that's where Klarna comes in. They handle the untouchables.

This is how Apple props up sales and maintains the flow of overpriced devices, including to people who can't pay for that, without a massive sales drop.

Or in more clinical language...

When traditional credit cards dry up, apps like Klarna and financing installment schemes step in to capture the subprime tier. They chunk an overpriced $1,000 tech brick into small, double-digit weekly payments to completely scramble the consumer's internal budget calculus.

This structure allows Apple to continuously bypass wage stagnation, pushing luxury hardware into the hands of consumers who lack the liquidity to buy the asset outright. It prevents a catastrophic drop in retail sales metrics by turning the general population into permanent, subprime installment tenants.

What the consumer is not supposed to do is realize they've committed more money than the device costs to something they do not own, using money they do not know will come in.

I was just talking to my son about this yesterday. The original iPhone had no AT&T incentives and had to be purchased at an Apple store for full price. Everyone that had one had to fork over $600+ back in 2007. I remember standing in line to buy it and they weren't nearly as common to see as they are now.

People had to have decent/good credit to have AT&T and then come out of pocket for the iPhone.

Now everyone is so disconnected from the actual purchase price that cash poor people don't have a clue how much they're actually paying for these devices. People have warmed up to $150-200 a month phone bills to finance a device they can't actually afford.

Heck my kids have more in their savings accounts that most grown adults these days, and we're all still on 5-6 year old iPhones that are still working well enough. Subprime financing for such a stupid luxury purchase is insane to me. Of course the big cell phone providers are happy to continue the subprime financing because they know this subsect of consumers is so vain and addicted to their cell phone that they will pay the phone bill to keep their service on. These same customers would have zero issue defaulting on the phone payment if it wasn't directly tied to their phone service.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

AndrewF — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:43:59 GMT

@dfwxjer wrote:
I was just talking to my son about this yesterday. The original iPhone had no AT&T incentives and had to be purchased at an Apple store for full price. Everyone that had one had to fork over $600+ back in 2007. I remember standing in line to buy it and they weren't nearly as common to see as they are now.

People had to have decent/good credit to have AT&T and then come out of pocket for the iPhone.

Now everyone is so disconnected from the actual purchase price that cash poor people don't have a clue how much they're actually paying for these devices. People have warmed up to $150-200 a month phone bills to finance a device they can't actually afford.

Heck my kids have more in their savings accounts that most grown adults these days, and we're all still on 5-6 year old iPhones that are still working well enough. Subprime financing for such a stupid luxury purchase is insane to me. Of course the big cell phone providers are happy to continue the subprime financing because they know this subsect of consumers is so vain and addicted to their cell phone that they will pay the phone bill to keep their service on. These same customers would have zero issue defaulting on the phone payment if it wasn't directly tied to their phone service.

I was not impressed with the iPhone. It was basically just a screen with no apps that ran Safari. Even my Java 2 Micro Edition featur phone was more capable than the iPhone.

The J2ME phone came with my plan and the Webkit browser usually just said out of memory and didn't load anything, but it had Opera Mini as a .jar file and it ran fine.

"People have warmed up to $150-200 a month phone bills to finance a device they can't actually afford."

Not me. If you do a carrier plan, in three months you could have just bought a Google Pixel in cash, and then you still have 21 months left at that plan price because they're handing out iPhones to other people and making you pay for it.

I am totally not interested in that. Even without the "free" phone that's not really free, best they'll do is still like $90 if you only have one line. And you don't even get a phone. The reason why is they have bloated retail footprint with high rent and high pressure salesmen trying to get you on an "iPhone every year" plan.

Mint Mobile doesn't have anything like that. It's $20 a month and I get the phone I want to pay for and upgrade it whenever I feel like.

"People had to have decent/good credit to have AT&T and then come out of pocket for the iPhone."

As usual, you "need good credit" to do something catastrophically stupid for your bank account. Typical.

"Now everyone is so disconnected from the actual purchase price that cash poor people don't have a clue how much they're actually paying for these devices."

If you really want to blow their mind, do simple math by hand without a calculator on the back of an envelope. The people Apple wants as customers have their mind blown by someone who passed 3rd grade math class in the 90s!

"Heck my kids have more in their savings accounts that most grown adults these days."

When I was a kid, my parents said "We let you live here." when I asked for an allowance. I had my first checking account at First Federal Savings Bank when I was 9 years old, when I got my first job. By 11 I had three jobs and I was also in school. I didn't ask anyone if it was okay to have three jobs, let alone the government. I just did it because that's what was gonna happen and I didn't ask permission because I am a human being, not livestock.

When we went on a vacation to Disney World in 1998, I had $800 cash in my wallet. If I wanted something I just did what I always did and spent money I saved.

Most adults can't get that concept. They think a "DEBT CARD" (not to be confused with a debit card) is how you get money, and work is something to be avoided, or which lets you go into debt. They don't think you're supposed to live off the paycheck, they think you're supposed to show the stub to banks and ask permission to buy things that way with money they don't have.

Then they wonder why that doesn't work well for them. Why a child can amass more money than they have. 78% of American adults can't afford a routine $500 expense without going into debt.

"Subprime financing for such a stupid luxury purchase is insane to me."

The method is beside the point. Paying $1200 for a phone whose value goes down over a third in the first year is bad math.

"Of course the big cell phone providers are happy to continue the subprime financing because they know this subsect of consumers is so vain and addicted to their cell phone that they will pay the phone bill to keep their service on. These same customers would have zero issue defaulting on the phone payment if it wasn't directly tied to their phone service. "

My former neighbor who always reeked of liquor and weed got a $1700 Verizon shutoff bill. $300 of that was the device. The rest was service.

They keep you turned on until it's big enough to sell as highly desirable debt that's big enough to sue over. I can't imagine he ever had good credit. We've come a long way from needing good credit to do something stupid.

The carriers now obviously don't care about a consumer's credit worthiness; they care about addiction and compliance. They know with absolute statistical certainty that a subprime user will pre-allocate their food and survival margins to keep their blue text bubbles and scrolling apps running

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

crystal626 — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 03:47:03 GMT

@AndrewF wrote:
@dfwxjer wrote:
I was just talking to my son about this yesterday. The original iPhone had no AT&T incentives and had to be purchased at an Apple store for full price. Everyone that had one had to fork over $600+ back in 2007. I remember standing in line to buy it and they weren't nearly as common to see as they are now.

People had to have decent/good credit to have AT&T and then come out of pocket for the iPhone.

Now everyone is so disconnected from the actual purchase price that cash poor people don't have a clue how much they're actually paying for these devices. People have warmed up to $150-200 a month phone bills to finance a device they can't actually afford.

Heck my kids have more in their savings accounts that most grown adults these days, and we're all still on 5-6 year old iPhones that are still working well enough. Subprime financing for such a stupid luxury purchase is insane to me. Of course the big cell phone providers are happy to continue the subprime financing because they know this subsect of consumers is so vain and addicted to their cell phone that they will pay the phone bill to keep their service on. These same customers would have zero issue defaulting on the phone payment if it wasn't directly tied to their phone service.
I was 9 years old, when I got my first job. By 11 I had three jobs and I was also in school.

That's way too young for a kid to be working. I think even 16 is a stretch and shouldn't be allowed unless the kid gets straight A's. The only thing a kid should have to worry about is getting an education.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

AndrewF — Sat, 01 Aug 2026 06:06:17 GMT

@crystal626 wrote:
@AndrewF wrote:
@dfwxjer wrote:
I was just talking to my son about this yesterday. The original iPhone had no AT&T incentives and had to be purchased at an Apple store for full price. Everyone that had one had to fork over $600+ back in 2007. I remember standing in line to buy it and they weren't nearly as common to see as they are now.

People had to have decent/good credit to have AT&T and then come out of pocket for the iPhone.

Now everyone is so disconnected from the actual purchase price that cash poor people don't have a clue how much they're actually paying for these devices. People have warmed up to $150-200 a month phone bills to finance a device they can't actually afford.

Heck my kids have more in their savings accounts that most grown adults these days, and we're all still on 5-6 year old iPhones that are still working well enough. Subprime financing for such a stupid luxury purchase is insane to me. Of course the big cell phone providers are happy to continue the subprime financing because they know this subsect of consumers is so vain and addicted to their cell phone that they will pay the phone bill to keep their service on. These same customers would have zero issue defaulting on the phone payment if it wasn't directly tied to their phone service.
I was 9 years old, when I got my first job. By 11 I had three jobs and I was also in school.
That's way too young for a kid to be working. I think even 16 is a stretch and shouldn't be allowed unless the kid gets straight A's. The only thing a kid should have to worry about is getting an education.

My dad worked fixing televisions when he was 13. His father was an alcoholic and my dad ended up working so he could eat.

He ended up getting three college degrees and spending over 30 years just at RCA.

Why shouldn't a kid work? There's too many of them laying around doing nothing except looking at screens all day.

Technically you did need a "work permit" from the State if you were in school back then. I got around that because that's if you were working for a W2 employer. By staying off the radar I pretty much just did whatever the hell I wanted to. Working three jobs was at least something positive.

My aunt let me use her riding lawnmower when I was 9. I was expected to mow our lawn at the house when I was 10. I got frustrated with the safety bar on the lawnmower, so I just held it down with twist ties from loaves of bread.

I was setting off "out of state" fireworks in Indiana when I was about that age. One day the nosy neighbor lady called the police, they came out and asked me to stop and drove off. I just took them in the backyard where she couldn't see me continue to do it.

After I learned Integer BASIC on an early Apple computer (one of the semi-decent ones....by the 80s when the Mac came out they were already trash), I learned Intel assembly on a kit from Radio Shack.

Anyway, teaching kids to be passive, idle, that's sort of why the world is running the way it is I think. A child is not inherently dumb. They have to be intellectually neglected to become dumb. One way they get neglected is to not be challenged. An iPhone certainly never challenged anyone the way having direct access to the hardware with a complete programming language challenged me.

I would call modern parenting "Intellectual Child Neglect". They're raising people who can't even cook anything and depend on an iPhone for Doordash every night. I could cook when I was a child. I used all of the kitchen appliances and cooked.

In the 2010s, someone offered to port some assembly that I had written in the late 90s for a video game console emulator into C++. They asked me for help. I told them I don't use C++ but they were more than welcome to try. They got further along than I thought they would, but they maybe replaced about 10-20% and gave up. That program still needs 32-bit x86 libraries to run on an x86-64 system because there's few people around who would actually know how to port it. I admit I was guilty about not cleanly commenting everything back then because I was like 14-15, so even I've forgotten why some parts of it are like they are. But it does still work.

You'll never see it on any app store because of this. I'm at least confident that nobody has stolen it to incorporate into a proprietary software application.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

crystal626 — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:50:29 GMT

@AndrewF wrote:
@crystal626 wrote:
@AndrewF wrote:
@dfwxjer wrote:
I was just talking to my son about this yesterday. The original iPhone had no AT&T incentives and had to be purchased at an Apple store for full price. Everyone that had one had to fork over $600+ back in 2007. I remember standing in line to buy it and they weren't nearly as common to see as they are now.

People had to have decent/good credit to have AT&T and then come out of pocket for the iPhone.

Now everyone is so disconnected from the actual purchase price that cash poor people don't have a clue how much they're actually paying for these devices. People have warmed up to $150-200 a month phone bills to finance a device they can't actually afford.

Heck my kids have more in their savings accounts that most grown adults these days, and we're all still on 5-6 year old iPhones that are still working well enough. Subprime financing for such a stupid luxury purchase is insane to me. Of course the big cell phone providers are happy to continue the subprime financing because they know this subsect of consumers is so vain and addicted to their cell phone that they will pay the phone bill to keep their service on. These same customers would have zero issue defaulting on the phone payment if it wasn't directly tied to their phone service.
I was 9 years old, when I got my first job. By 11 I had three jobs and I was also in school.
That's way too young for a kid to be working. I think even 16 is a stretch and shouldn't be allowed unless the kid gets straight A's. The only thing a kid should have to worry about is getting an education.
My dad worked fixing televisions when he was 13. His father was an alcoholic and my dad ended up working so he could eat.

He ended up getting three college degrees and spending over 30 years just at RCA.

Why shouldn't a kid work? There's too many of them laying around doing nothing except looking at screens all day.

Technically you did need a "work permit" from the State if you were in school back then. I got around that because that's if you were working for a W2 employer. By staying off the radar I pretty much just did whatever the hell I wanted to. Working three jobs was at least something positive.

My aunt let me use her riding lawnmower when I was 9. I was expected to mow our lawn at the house when I was 10. I got frustrated with the safety bar on the lawnmower, so I just held it down with twist ties from loaves of bread.

I was setting off "out of state" fireworks in Indiana when I was about that age. One day the nosy neighbor lady called the police, they came out and asked me to stop and drove off. I just took them in the backyard where she couldn't see me continue to do it.

After I learned Integer BASIC on an early Apple computer (one of the semi-decent ones....by the 80s when the Mac came out they were already trash), I learned Intel assembly on a kit from Radio Shack.

Anyway, teaching kids to be passive, idle, that's sort of why the world is running the way it is I think. A child is not inherently dumb. They have to be intellectually neglected to become dumb. One way they get neglected is to not be challenged. An iPhone certainly never challenged anyone the way having direct access to the hardware with a complete programming language challenged me.

I would call modern parenting "Intellectual Child Neglect". They're raising people who can't even cook anything and depend on an iPhone for Doordash every night. I could cook when I was a child. I used all of the kitchen appliances and cooked.

In the 2010s, someone offered to port some assembly that I had written in the late 90s for a video game console emulator into C++. They asked me for help. I told them I don't use C++ but they were more than welcome to try. They got further along than I thought they would, but they maybe replaced about 10-20% and gave up. That program still needs 32-bit x86 libraries to run on an x86-64 system because there's few people around who would actually know how to port it. I admit I was guilty about not cleanly commenting everything back then because I was like 14-15, so even I've forgotten why some parts of it are like they are. But it does still work.

You'll never see it on any app store because of this. I'm at least confident that nobody has stolen it to incorporate into a proprietary software application.

There have been plenty of studies on the harm that comes to a kid that isn't allowed to be a kid and instead has to integrate into the adult world at a young age. You are the exception, not the rule. Studies have found that immense mental and physical harm as well as educational harm and being trapped in the poverty cycle come from children working instead of being focused on being a kid and going to school.

I'm not going to get baited into a big debate about it, it's not that important to me.

Re: Why Is My Apple Card Still Stuck at $5k?

AndrewF — Sun, 02 Aug 2026 19:22:01 GMT

@crystal626 wrote:
There have been plenty of studies on the harm that comes to a kid that isn't allowed to be a kid and instead has to integrate into the adult world at a young age. You are the exception, not the rule. Studies have found that immense mental and physical harm as well as educational harm and being trapped in the poverty cycle come from children working instead of being focused on being a kid and going to school.

I'm not going to get baited into a big debate about it, it's not that important to me.

The lesson of work is more important than the work itself.

Learning a work ethic, humility, skills, and saving towards a goal and thrift are never a bad lesson, at any age.

If people just learned work, savings, and thrift, it would be irrelevant whether they had an Apple Finance Card or not, because they would work, decide of the iPhone was worth their savings, and pay for it if it was worth it to them. End of transaction.

No debt, no interest, and no malware on iOS waiting to put it in Reduced Functionality Mode if you get behind on debt.

In pure software engineering, any software that runs background processes to restrict device features, lock out user applications, or flash non-dismissible warning screens without the operator’s ongoing, explicit root consent functions exactly like a digital extortion engine. It is the structural equivalent of ransomware, only it is signed with a trusted corporate security certificate and baked straight into the core firmware of the device.

Corporate EULAs like Apple's that only require the device to be turned on and logged into are "manufactured consent", and they require implied consent to "any nasty thing the device does not currently do can be added later".

PCs that come with Windows deliberately disable the keyboard driver in the UEFI (BIOS) setup program. It is required under the Windows sticker program. It doesn't improve boot speed measurably, but Microsoft calls it "Fast Boot". They want the keyboard disabled so the user can't interrupt the boot process, install Linux, not agree to the Windows EULA, and demand a refund from the manufacturer for the Windows license.

Ideally, people would learn not to do business with a company that scans their files and potentially calls the police, or writes code to brick their computer if they miss a payment. Once you develop a mindset that such treatment is okay, where does it end? They start with the people nobody will defend, then they expand the dragnet once nobody objects to it being there.

Anyway, all of my old, running, code that isn't even in C is still out there. On Linux it not only requires x86 32-bit compatibility, it requires X11, and it's going to stay that way forever unless someone wants to port it to Wayland. There's no reason to port it. XWayland is the port for people who are interested in Wayland. Those poor people.

It seems like while my X11 setup continues to work fine, I have yet to find hardware where the desktops that allegedly support it don't have implementation gaps, missing features, and stability issues that come and go and need MOAR protocol extensions or (lol) custom protocols (and we're back to extensions, only you can't even write them once and run them anywhere anymore).

I thought Quartz on the Mac was revolting. Well, it is. Instead of drawing simple, high-velocity two-dimensional geometric lines and bitmaps directly onto a frame buffer using low-overhead instructions, Quartz forced the CPU and early GPU blocks to continuously calculate complex PostScript paths, alpha-blending transparencies, and anti-aliased font weights for every single window refresh.

It was an absurdly heavy, resource-leaking display layer that required massive, hardware-accelerated overhead just to render a basic, flat desktop interface. It was the architectural prelude to the modern, un-optimized era of software bloat, where developers willingly sacrifice execution speed and battery longevity just to present glossy, drop-shadowed consumer GUIs using hardware that the manufacturer specced for maybe Windows XP, where the GUI was just a dumb framebuffer that didn't even have proper compositing.

Even when XRender came onto the scene and it was not necessarily being accelerated with the full power of a hardware 3d engine, it was more efficient than Quartz.

X11 developers took the opposite path. Instead of forcing a massive, bloated document-rendering specification onto the display server, they introduced XRender as a lightweight protocol extension explicitly designed for basic Porter-Duff alpha compositing operations.

XRender treats window elements as simple, raw pixel arrays (pictures) with an alpha channel. When it needs to render a drop shadow, a semi-transparent panel, or an anti-aliased font, it executes direct, low-level bitwise operations straight on the frame buffer. It skips the abstract vector math entirely, achieving smooth visual transparency for a microscopic fraction of the CPU's clock cycles.

Besides, remaining with X11 let's me do all sorts of things, like use a remote X11 client running on a PC with DOS.

The reason Quartz isn't as bad now as it was in the early 2000s is that it has been optimized somewhat since then and CPUs are way faster, so you're basically back to the "Microsoft Approach". Just give computers over 25 years to catch up with this garbage and they'll all be fast enough.

The absolute genius of XRender is that it was so fast that it ran fine even on hilariously broken display drivers from hostile manufacturers trying to get you to install their crashy proprietary mess. (Nvidia)

Keith Packard knew what was out there and he decided that XRender would run on it anyway.

One of the main improvements of the Free Software community is just the attitude of "I run this myself. Why would I want it to be slower?"

Proprietary companies like Microsoft and Apple don't care. They say "I get paid to look busy."

It's sort of like that farmer that got asked why the tomatoes at Walmart taste like cardboard and he just says "They don't pay me 1 cent for taste."