Technologies

Apple Pay Later Lets You Finance Purchases Up to $1,000: How It Works

The buy now, pay later option is open to «select users.» Here’s everything to know before trying it.

Apple joined the buy now, pay later game this week. A «prerelease version» of the long-awaited Apple Pay Later service is now available for «select users.» The company didn’t specify which users or how many, though it says it «plans to offer it to all eligible users in the coming months.»

Originally, Apple Pay Later was supposed to roll out at the end of 2022, after it was announced at Apple’s WWDC event last year. However, the product’s launch was delayed due to «significant technical and engineering challenges,» per Bloomberg.

Apple’s new payment service comes at a time when many retailers are accepting payments from BNPL apps such as Affirm, Klarna and Afterpay. Here’s what you need to know about the payment plan, how it works and when it will be open to all iPhone users.

For more on iPhones, learn all the cool new features in iOS 16.4 and 22 iPhone settings you should change right now.

How do I use Apple Pay Later?

Apple Pay Later lets you break the cost of purchases into four equal payments spread over six weeks. The first payment is due when you make your purchase, and the remaining payments are due every two weeks after that.

Once Apple Pay Later is set up on your phone, you have two options when completing a purchase: Pay in Full and Pay Later. Selecting the latter option will bring up a payment schedule displaying the amount of each of the four payments and when they’ll be due.

Stores and merchants don’t have to implement any changes in order to accept payments through Apple Pay Later. Transactions occur as they did before — the only difference will lie in how back-end payments are made. Apple Pay Later will work with any merchants who accept Apple Pay.

MasterCard Installments, the credit card company’s white-label BNPL service, is providing the merchant payments for Apple Pay Later. Apple has created its own financial subsidiary — Apple Financing — that handles loan approvals and credit checks. Banking partner Goldman Sachs is the official loan issuer.

Payments for Apple Pay Later must be made with a debit card; you can’t use a credit card. You can set up automatic payments or make additional payments at any time. Each BNPL purchase will be reviewed and approved or rejected using a soft credit check.

Apple Pay Later has no plan to charge fees for late payments, though it may use late payments as an excuse to reject future BNPL loans. The minimum purchase for Apple Pay Later is $50; the maximum is $1,000.

When can I use Apple Pay Later on my iPhone?

If you’re one of the «select users» to receive an invite from Apple, you can start using Apple Pay Later now. For the rest of us, based on the wording in Apple’s press release, Apple Pay Later will likely be enabled for all Apple Wallet users in a future update to iOS.

Apple has already released four point upgrades since iOS 16 launched in September 2022. The first update — iOS 16.1 — came in October 2022; the second — iOS 16.2 in December 2022; the third — iOS 16.3 — in January 2023; and the fourth — iOS 16.4 — in March 2023.

Based on that bimonthly release schedule, all Apple Wallet users can probably expect access to Apple Pay Later some time in May 2023.

How is Apple Pay Later different from Apple Card Monthly Installments?

Apple Card Monthly Installments is an Apple program that lets you finance the purchase of certain Apple products when using the Apple Card credit card. The length of the 0% APR period for these purchases depends on the product. Installment plans range from six months to two years.

Apple Pay Later isn’t restricted to Apple products, nor does it require the use of the Apple Card. With Apple Pay Later, you can finance any purchases from $50 to $1,000 using a debit card, as long as it’s connected to Apple Wallet. Also, the interest-free installment period for Apple Pay Later — six weeks — is much shorter than the payment plans offered by Apple Card Monthly Installments.

What other Apple Wallet features were added in iOS 16?

One new Apple Wallet feature that launched with iOS 16 is Apple Pay Order Tracking, which adds the ability for merchants to provide detailed receipts and delivery statuses for purchased products to customers via Apple Wallet.

Apple also expanded support in Apple Wallet for driver’s licenses and identification cards. Following IDs from Colorado and Arizona, Apple Wallet plans to add support for 11 more states.

You can now digitize and store your driver’s license in Apple’s Wallet app.

Apple

These driver’s licenses can be used at select Transportation Security Agency checkpoints. They can also be shared with other apps that require identification, such as alcohol purchases through Uber Eats.

Apple Wallet has also added support for sharing keys for locations such as hotels, offices or automobiles. New features let users share keys with friends or associates using email, text messaging or other messaging apps.

What other online services let you buy now and pay later?

Some existing online payment systems provide buy now, pay later short-term financing similar to what Apple Pay Later is offering. PayPal’s Pay in 4 program works very much like Apple Pay Later, except that purchases are limited to between $300 and $1,500.

BNPL app Sezzle also uses a system of four payments over six weeks, but permits users to reschedule one payment for up to two weeks later at no cost and postpone further payments for an additional fee.

Other BNPL apps such as Affirm and Klarna offer interest-free installment plans for short periods, or longer installment plans that add a variable interest rate.

Technologies

Google, Meta and Amazon Join Global Pact to Fight Rising Online Scams

The companies will share fraud intelligence and coordinate responses as AI makes scams faster, cheaper and harder to detect.

Modern online scams operate across multiple platforms, perhaps spanning social media, messaging apps, email and online marketplaces. Google, Meta and Amazon are among 11 tech, retail and payments companies that have signed a new agreement to combat online scams by sharing threat intelligence across platforms, Axios first reported Monday.

The initiative, called the Industry Accord Against Online Scams & Fraud, is designed to improve how companies detect and respond to fraud that spans multiple services. Participants say they will exchange signals, such as scam-linked accounts and fraudulent domains, and coordinate enforcement actions.

By sharing intelligence in near real time, companies hope to identify these scams earlier and stop them before they spread.

The effort reflects how modern scams operate. A victim might encounter a fake celebrity investment ad on social media, move to a messaging app where the scammer builds trust, then faces prompts to send money through a fraudulent website, payment app or crypto wallet — spanning multiple companies’ ecosystems.

Google said it now blocks hundreds of millions of scam-related results every day using AI, underscoring how both attackers and defenders are increasingly relying on the same technology. Meta removed more than 159 million scam ads in 2025 and is expanding AI tools to detect impersonation and warn users.

Online scams are growing rapidly, in part because generative AI has lowered the barrier to entry. AI can be used not only to produce realistic phishing emails but also to clone voices and deepfake videos that impersonate executives, public figures and even family members.

The agreement is voluntary and doesn’t create new legal obligations, but it comes after regulators’ increased pressure on tech platforms to address fraud more aggressively. The companies say they will begin building frameworks for reporting and intelligence-sharing, though it’s not yet clear how quickly those systems will be deployed or how effective they will be in practice.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, March 18

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for March 18.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I thought it was a fairly easy one, but read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Word before «card,» flood» or «photography»
Answer: FLASH

6A clue: Joust weapon
Answer: LANCE

7A clue: Brain, heart or lungs
Answer: ORGAN

8A clue: «Frozen» reindeer
Answer: SVEN

9A clue: What can be found on frozen roads or frozen margaritas
Answer: SALT

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Follow a dentist’s recommendation
Answer: FLOSS

2D clue: Baby bug
Answer: LARVA

3D clue: Shape made in the snow
Answer: ANGEL

4D clue: Very little
Answer: SCANT

5D clue: Egg layer
Answer: HEN

Technologies

Amazon Speeds Up Delivery Even More With 1- and 3-Hour Options

The retailer says the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities, with discounted shipping for Prime members.

Same-day delivery apparently isn’t fast enough for some Amazon shoppers. The retail giant said on Tuesday it’s adding new shipping options that will get products to front doors within a one- or three-hour window.

The company said in its announcement that the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities across the US, while the three-hour option is now live in more than 2,000 areas. Amazon’s web page at amazon.com/getitfast shows whether those options are available to shoppers for their location. More than 90,000 products will be available for those shipping windows, the company said.

For those who can’t get those services (including the author of this post, who lives between Austin and San Antonio in Texas), a message will display: «3-hour delivery is currently unavailable. Check back at a later time or shop products with Same-Day delivery below.»

Pricing for the faster delivery options is not cheap: It’ll cost you $20 for one-hour delivery and $15 for three-hour delivery for those without an Amazon Prime account, or $10 and $5 for customers who subscribe to Prime.

Last year, the company rolled out faster Amazon delivery options to 4,000 additional areas.

In a video of the podcast Learn and Be Curious with Doug Herrington, hosted by Amazon’s CEO of worldwide stores, Kandace Kapps, the director of the company’s same-day strategy team, spoke in more detail about the challenges of fast shipping. Kapps discussed shifts in customer buying habits over the last few years, such as more people buying household essentials like toilet paper on Amazon.

She said that Amazon can deliver so quickly by placing same-day delivery hubs close to customers in metro areas and by getting products ready to ship within 15 minutes, aided by warehouse robots.

«I think customers are going to continue to get magically surprised by how fast we can deliver to their doorstop,» Kapps said.

Herrington said fast shipping increases sales: «When we speed up the service, the probability that somebody buys a product from us goes up.»

Other retailers, including Walmart, have been adding same-day delivery options or exploring other ways to speed up shipping times to compete with Amazon.

Removing buyers’ moments of hesitation

Part of Amazon’s strategy, which has involved a massive buildout of locations, deployment of thousands of trucks, deals with other delivery services and investment in logistics software, is actually pretty simple: being there when people need last-minute items or make impulse buys.

«It’s about removing the last moment where you would’ve reconsidered the purchase,» said Stephanie Carls, retail insights expert at coupon and promotional-code website RetailMeNot, a sibling site of CNET. «It changes how you shop, not just how fast you get things.»

Carls said that Amazon’s super-fast delivery is removing the timeframe when people might change their minds about a purchase.

«There used to be a gap between deciding to buy something and actually having it. That’s when you’d price check, rethink it, or decide you didn’t need it after all,» she said. «This closes that gap.»

The retail expert said that competitors, including Walmart and Target, have been speeding up delivery times in some markets. Still, they’re not matching Amazon’s scale or product range at those speeds or levels of consistency.

«And that’s what starts to make everyone else feel slow,» Carls said. «Amazon’s advantage is how tightly connected its technology, inventory and delivery networks are, which makes this level of speed more repeatable.»