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Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

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Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#191
post #167

EDIT: thanks everyone for quickly correcting my mistake, I missed the part that explained that more forms of contactless payments would be accepted I don't really understand why a merchant would use this feature. If you already use a PoS, why would you replace it with another one that only supports customers who own an Apple device? If you accepted only cash, maybe it's a small improvement because you can use your ex…

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Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#192
post #23
post #14

Clarification due to a somewhat confusing title: This is about the merchant using an iPhone to accept credit cards and other Tap to Pay devices. The customer was able to pay with Tap to Pay with their iPhone for a while now.

The long slow road to contactless payments. Almost 2 decades along in the technology adoption curve. I was ready for this in 2005. https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-manage... If course as the article points out, it wasn’t even new technology back then: “ Not Exactly New Tech Mobile introduced the Speedpass in 1997. Speedpass is a small device on a keychain (called a fob) that users wave in front o…

I remember doing a POC using a Samsung device for NFC ticketing for BART back in 2004.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#193
post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of sole trader workmen and taxi drivers and the like have the square terminal that, I just checked, costs €20. €20 to take payments from 100% of your customers rather than the 30-40% market share iPhone has here seems like a no brainer to me.

I think you misunderstand the product. You can take payments from any contactless credential. That means credit cards, Apple Pay, google pay, Samsung pay, and so forth.

Ah, the key piece is this statement:

> At checkout, the merchant will simply prompt the customer to hold their iPhone or Apple Watch to pay with Apple Pay, their contactless credit or debit card, or other digital wallet near the merchant’s iPhone, and the payment will be securely completed using NFC technology

The language is a bit verbose, but does look like it supports standard NFC based contactless also.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#194
post #14

Clarification due to a somewhat confusing title: This is about the merchant using an iPhone to accept credit cards and other Tap to Pay devices. The customer was able to pay with Tap to Pay with their iPhone for a while now.

I honestly don't see what's so revolutionary about this. Why would anyone shell out multiple hundreds of € when a device that accepts payments can be purchased for a fraction of the iPhone price? E.g the most expensive device here [1] is only 120 €, and it can also print the bill. The cheapest that does the job is a mere 20 €.

€120 for a CC processing terminal with the fees for setup? Doubt it. That’s the price of that little printer alone. Else they’ll be paying them back in processing fees.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#195
> Apple will work closely with leading payment platforms and app developers across the payments and commerce industry to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to millions of merchants in the US.

Is it just me feeling that Apple is again playing gatekeeper to iPhone APIs and hindering true competition by "working with leading platforms" aka. the big players, like Stripe or PayPal, essentially leaving startups and smaller players disadvantaged.

Why not just finally open the NFC API?

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#196
post #14

Clarification due to a somewhat confusing title: This is about the merchant using an iPhone to accept credit cards and other Tap to Pay devices. The customer was able to pay with Tap to Pay with their iPhone for a while now.

I honestly don't see what's so revolutionary about this. Why would anyone shell out multiple hundreds of € when a device that accepts payments can be purchased for a fraction of the iPhone price? E.g the most expensive device here [1] is only 120 €, and it can also print the bill. The cheapest that does the job is a mere 20 €.

Not only that, but also the potential for lock-in should be a reason to not use this.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#198
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No software company wants to sell hardware outside of Apple. They only do so when forced to support their services. Software scales with a marginal cost of $0 and is much less messy. Before smart phones and generic hardware was a thing, I worked at a company that wrote software for field services (“sending people places to do things”) we had to resell and maintain custom ruggedized windows mobile devices, mobile sate…

> No software company wants to sell hardware outside of Apple. You're right, but it's a strategic mistake. Hardware comes with more loyalty and brand awareness. How many consumers are aware of Square (cute little hardware squircle) vs Stripe? That brand awareness allowed Square to launch Cash App. I think this extends to the rest of big tech too. Amazon and Facebook would do well to learn from this. Amazon and Facebo…

Amazon doesn’t care if you buy a no margin Alexa device. They will gladly license Alexa to all comers. Kindle is available everywhere. People are “loyal” to Kindle not because of the device that relatively few buy, but because their whole library is tied to the Kindle app that runs everywhere.

Re: Apple unveils contactless payments via Tap to Pay on iPhone

#199
post #88
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Square is a different market segment, more of the first year, trendy-but-still-playskool retail merchant setup.

Could you expand how Square is different market segment? I thought POS terminal was one of their primary products.

Square is for small or entry level merchants who may be in their first year and can't afford an actual production grade POS or web integration, stripe is for those who've realized they've reached that point or have encountered Square's limits, and by them moving into the entry level market by supporting this method of transacting with iDevices, I'd say square should be considering their next move.
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