Apple Can't Make A Wallet

Apple is capable of manufacturing incredible technology. But just because the world’s most valuable company can make a chip doesn’t mean it can make a good wallet.

When Apple’s FineWoven wallets hit the market, The Verge wrote that the “new FineWoven iPhone cases and accessories are categorically terrible.” That makes its rumored demise easy to believe.

So do we go back to the old leather cases? I hope not. Here’s a look at mine after two years:

At this point, it almost feels like Apple is purposefully building bad wallets. Or to be more charitable: the people designing the wallets do care, but it’s certainly not the department that’s making or breaking careers or getting a fat QA budget

I suppose it won’t matter in the long run. Apple Pay and its equivalents are slowly taking over. But until Holiday gas stations and Home Depot start taking Apple Pay, I am doomed to carrying at least one debit card and a driver’s license.

To get through the rest of my days with a wallet that I don’t stick in my back pocket, I recently bought Peak Design’s mobile kickstand wallet. It’s too early to tell y’all to buy it, but it’s hard to get any worse than Apple’s wallets. So, you know, do with that what you will.

News and tidbits

• TikTok is on the path to banishment. I deleted it a while ago, but not because I am worried about China spying; I just got tired of the algo telling me all the ways my future child could die from some obscure disease 🙃

• M.G. Siegler, formerly of TechCrunch and now a partner at Google Ventures, is writing again.

• Starbucks has no idea what “light cream” means. I either get no cream or somehow all the cream. No link here—I am just griping.