Why Apple Pay is a big deal

[sekker]

Great article that talks about how Apple took on the mobile payment mess.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/9/10/613215...ry-product

Makes total sense to me - and is exactly the kind of thing Tim Cook is great at. The big issue is pulling this off at scale. If Apple can't do it, nobody can.

And it confirms my view of the really important reason for Apple Watch - NFC and Apple Pay.

[GuyGene]

Amen sekker! I've said it a few times in posts here, but again - THIS - Apple Pay - will cause me to buy an iPhone. Wife and daughter have had iPhones since iPhone 3G days, but I haven't needed one - until Apple Pay. From what I know so far, the security, anonymity, etc. while paying with Apple Pay makes owning an iPhone more compelling than any other feature! I'm in.

[cbelt3]

With the upcoming use of "Smart Cards" for credit cards and two factor authentication, AND the hopeful overhaul of POS systems so that storage of a customer's credit card number will no longer be allowed, POS hacks will hopefully be a thing of the past.

[deckeda]

And it's a good thing Apple convinced Eddy Cue to stay on a while and shepard this initiative through. Apart from Jobs, he's just about the only guy that could meet with record label execs ... or banks ... and pull this kind of thing off.

Tim Cook, during the Keynote wrote:
"A BUSINESS MODEL THAT WAS CENTERED AROUND THEIR SELF-INTEREST INSTEAD OF FOCUSING ON THE USER EXPERIENCE."

OK, he wasn't shouting, I just copy/pasted from the Verge's pullquote. But that's the quote from the Keynote that resonated with me, and it was clearly the same message as "We realized that all cellphones are crap" from Jobs' 2007 Keynote. It's a game changer for fundamentally altering the mechanics of how we pay, AND for adding another layer of security.

Less than 3% of U.S. merchants who accept MC-Visa are ready with NFC, but they're all gonna have to get new hardware by next year anyway, if they want to continue to take "plastic" because of banks' rollout of chipped cards. So I think NFC is about to piggyback onto that.

[raz]

cbelt3 wrote:
With the upcoming use of "Smart Cards" for credit cards and two factor authentication, AND the hopeful overhaul of POS systems so that storage of a customer's credit card number will no longer be allowed, POS hacks will hopefully be a thing of the past.

Never underestimate the cleverness of the hacker or the stupidity of the implementer.

Remember the old quote about secure transactions on the web?

Imagine handing the waitress your credit card, and watching her walk to the kitchen cash register surrounded by security guards. Then, she pins your receipt onto a bulletin board next to the screen door.

[jdc]

That philosophy is something I hope stays strong with Apple.

Content above concept?

I just watched this a day or so ago -- the whole thing is summed up at 1:50: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF-tKLISfPE

[vision63]

Apple Pay is cool but the only problem I see is it seems to be available only on Apple phones. Which means it's going to be on a large but minority of phones. Instead of killing its competition in the crib, Google, Softcard etc, can make the same deals with their vendors and quickly be on par. It's not like they're going to do nothing. They're already in the game using the same terminals I believe. Apple Pay needs to be on Android and Windows phones.

[rjmacs]

vision63 wrote:
Apple Pay is cool but the only problem I see is it seems to be available only on Apple phones. Which means it's going to be on a large but minority of phones. Instead of killing its competition in the crib, Google, Softcard etc, can make the same deals with their vendors and quickly be on par. It's not like they're going to do nothing. They're already in the game using the same terminals I believe. Apple Pay needs to be on Android and Windows phones.

Then it's hardly Apple Pay anymore, though. It's not like Apple to license their stuff out like this. They'd rather compete in the market against Google Pay, Amazon Pay, etc. Over the course of their history, Apple has consistently wanted their tech innovations to distinguish their products from others, not enhance other manufacturers' products with licensed Apple tech.

[freeradical]

Why is mobile payment such a big deal? It seems to me like the classic solution looking for a problem. If you're in a store, restaurant, etc., you can pay with a credit card. All other purchases can wait till you get home.

[GuyGene]

freeradical wrote:
Why is mobile payment such a big deal? It seems to me like the classic solution looking for a problem. If you're in a store, restaurant, etc., you can pay with a credit card. All other purchases can wait till you get home.

Security.