Does applying result in a hard inquiry to a credit bureau and possibly affect my credit score?

Hi, Goldman Sachs does a soft pull/inquiry of your FICO 9 report from TransUnion. It uses the information contained in the report as part of the basis for determine if they will offer you the Apple Card MasterCard. Here is a support article that goes into more detail about how your application is evaluated.

https://support.apple.com/en-au/HT209218

I hope this helps.