Ahead of August Apple Card launch, Barclays Card rewards offers end

After nearly a decade, Barclays has stopped offering Apple gift cards to new customers, and has stopped giving extra rewards points on buys from Apple in favor of a new Apple Card purchase plan.

The move to cut the Barclays Card rewards comes in advance of the Apple Card rollout in August. However, Apple Card customers will be given discrete financing terms for purchases from Apple.

At present, there is no detail on what needs to be purchased to qualify for the special financing terms — which would be provided by Goldman Sachs. According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, the card is expected to launch in August, but Cook did not detail the launch window beyond that.

"Thousands" of Apple workers are currently evaluating the card in a beta test process, Cook said during the quarterly earnings conference call. Leaks of Apple Card packaging have emerged since it was announced.

The Apple Card is a digital-first product in partnership with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard, which people can apply for directly from their iPhone and activate the same day, storing it in their Wallet app. For use at stores that don't accept Apple Pay, card owners will also get a minimalist physical card carved out of titanium.

Already announced cash-back for the Apple Card includes 3% cash back rewards from any direct Apple purchase, 2% from anything bought using Apple Pay and 1% from everything else. This appears to be above and beyond any special financing terms.

A Bloomberg report on Friday morning also noted that the Apple Card software has hooks in the iPadOS betas, meaning that it could come to the iPad at some point as well.

Apple has also detailed the Apple Card security, how users will monitor purchases, and how the card will work in physical stores.