I'm not exactly sure just what the "Apple Credit Card" was... but from the copy, it seems like it was really just a loan, not an actual credit card that could be used anywhere else. (It says 10% down, too, which isn't how actual credit cards work.)
Since it required another credit card, seems like they "outsourced" the work of checking creditworthiness to them (clever). I'm wondering if the homeownership was some form of collateral? Because while it would have been fine for most of the country, it would have eliminated a large proportion of people in Manhattan mainly.
(Although Manhattan was very different in 1984, much of it not nearly as gentrified as today. Not sure if lots of business people were renting on the Upper East Side, of if they mostly owned co-ops there or a house in Westchester or Connecticut.)
Even today, in Vietnam, 'credit cards' are just secured debt cards. You get a card, it looks and works just like a regular credit card. But, your max balance on the card is the amount that you've deposited into a special time locked account that they can pull from if you don't pay your bill every month.
This is how countries with no credit report system work and probably similar to early days of credit cards in the US.
Those were called charge cards [0]. When I was younger I didn't know the difference and thought everything was a credit card. Imagine my surprise when I bought my university books on my AMEX charge card and got a bill for the full amount due in 30 days. It was a terrifying lesson. They also had low or no credit score limits so a bunch of college friend were surprised when we applied and got a card just being 18, no income, and no credit history.
The "Apple Card" in this example is just a store charge card, of which there are many. Macy's, Banana Republic etc, will all offer these, but they're only usable at the retailer that issued it.
