Apple CEO Tim Cook introduces Apple Card during a launch event at Apple headquarters on Monday, March 25, 2019, in Cupertino, California.
Noah Berger | AFP | Getty Images
The Apple Card was designed to be loaded into a user’s iPhone, with spending history living inside the Wallet app and transaction data arranged in a colorful interactive interface.
But consumers who want to analyze their transactions in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for tax or budgeting purposes, a tool that many credit card companies offer, are out of luck. Transactions can only be downloaded in a PDF format with stagnant data.
Jed Schmidt, an independent programmer based in New York, found the omission particularly striking for a credit card launched in 2019 by a massive technology company in conjunction Goldman Sachs, a major bank. So he hacked a fix himself.
Schmidt created csv.wtf specifically to parse Apple Card statements and arrange the data onto a spreadsheet so consumers could export the information and dig into their expenses. The web app works on phones and desktops.
Source: Apple
“I was surprised, having adopted Apple Card pretty early, that it didn’t exist,” Schmidt, a former developer in residence at Union Square Ventures, said in a phone interview. “It didn’t occur to me that in 2019, Goldman Sachs, Apple, and Mastercard would ship a product that has no way to export transactions. Pretty surprising.”
It’s another example of the Apple Card lacking some standard features in its early days on the market. Last year, there was a period of a few months when Apple and Goldman weren’t reporting consumers’ payment information from the card to the top credit bureaus, according to MarketWatch. Apple Card transactions started to appear on credit reports in December.
It’s also a reminder to Apple customers that devoted developers are ready and willing to pitch in and create features that Apple leaves out of its products. When consumers complain on social media about the insufficient data export capabilities, respondents like Twitter developer Paul Stamatiou tout Schmidt’s tool. The service has also been promoted on the website Hacker News.
To use csv.wtf, you download monthly PDF statements through the Wallet app on an iPhone. Then the site extracts data such as date, description, and transaction amount, and puts it into a downloadable CSV file.
Schmidt charges $5 for the full version of the app. There’s a free option available that randomly removes one transaction a month from the report, so that $5 latte or $200 hotel room won’t be included. Schmidt said he has paying customers but doesn’t expect to get rich from the project.
He also understands why consumers would have privacy concerns, not wanting to upload sensitive financial data to a random server on the internet. Instead of uploading information, Schmidt’s tool runs JavaScript to convert the statements on a person’s computer or device, not in the cloud.
“I don’t want to see your financial statements, I don’t want the liability, I don’t have them on a server, I don’t want to deal with any of that headache,” Schmidt said. “Your financial statements never leave your phone. Everything is done in the browser.”
There’s so little tracking software on the website that Schmidt said he doesn’t know how many people visit the site or use the service, and he only gets alerts when somebody buys the premium version.
Schmidt expects Apple to release a tool of its own in 2020. Apple’s website says the ability to export Apple Card data “isn’t available yet,” a change from last year when the site said exporting was “not currently supported.”
Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment about when the feature will be released.
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