“For years, tech companies have dreamed of a future in which people ditch their wallets and pay for things with their smartphones. And for years, that has not happened,” Mike Isaac and Brian X. Chen report for The New York Times. “But Apple may be on to something.”
“In the three weeks since the company released Apple Pay, its first stab at a mobile wallet, some major retailers are seeing a wave of consumers eager to check out at the register with their iPhones,” Isaac and Chen report. “Whole Foods, the high-end grocery chain, said it had processed more than 150,000 Apple Pay transactions. McDonald’s, which accepts Apple Pay at its 14,000 restaurants in the United States, said Apple Pay accounted for 50 percent of its tap-to-pay transactions. And Walgreens, the nationwide chain of drugstores, said its mobile wallet payments had doubled since Apple Pay came out.”
Read more in the full article here.
Related article:
In only 3 weeks, Apple Pay is changing how consumers pay – November 17, 2014
Merely the opening salvo tip of the tsunami iceberg.
Triple mixed metaphors! Splendid!
I thank you sire! Always looking for a opportunity to overdo it. 🙂
Over done and done!
You sly foxy lady killer bees wax museum!
There is no such thing as “tap-to-pay” with Apple Pay. Your device just needs to get near the NFC terminal.
Mine was up on screen waiting for me to authenticate with my thumb before I even had it out of my pocket when I last used it. Talk about convenience…
Most cities have a known section where you go to “pay-to-tap.”
Not too shabby, actually there are some facts in the article. Nonetheless it’s fun time.
“But Apple may be on to something.” Now that’s an understatement. Duh ya think after becoming the world’s largest company, introducing the ipod, the iPhone etc. and so on ad nauseum that Apple is definitely onto something and has been for a long long time. Even the morons get it thus leaving only the analysts, jouranalists and those brainwashed by propaganda to scratch their butts.
“Apple, analysts say, has tapped into something.” Such a clear nebulous remarks full of insight. Is this Putzer Prize jouranalism? You betcha and hey, they even go into detail of what that something is: “the strength of the Apple brand and how much merchants and customers love how easy the experience ”
Imagine that, not only something specific, something close to clarity of thought. Now the Apple brand hasn’t always been strong but the “ease of use experience” goes way way back to the garage, back to the “power to be your best.”
Of special importance is that it’s not user friendly. This distinction is important because if Microsoft had installed such a system you’d need to contact your friends for nearly every transaction. The phone person who surfaces saying it’s not a connection issue. The bank representative that zunes and consults with the cashier about Microsoft Money. The NSA agent that Recites security reasons for taking another series of finger prints. Finally of course the Microsoft sales rep offering insights into how Microsoft Works and how user friendly it is. Lookie at all the friends it has.
While pleasant such musings are, I digress.
“Not all retailers are blown away just yet by early adoption of Apple Pay.” The article of course has to take a pot shot at Apple, any modern day jouranalist that doesn’t would automatically be suspected of having integrity, and I think they’d be heading for a syriass talk if that were the case.
Now here is where the absolute brilliance of jouranalistic innuendo dulls the senses:
“The research firm Gartner estimated that worldwide, people spent $235.4 billion through mobile payments in 2013, compared with $163.1 billion in 2012. But that number is much smaller in North America, where consumers spent about $37 billion through mobile transactions in 2013, up from $24 billion the previous year.”
Gosh you mean that the worldwide spending number is smaller the North American spending…ya think? Gee I know that’s not going to sit well with some North Americans who will insist that they spend more than worldwide because they think they are worth more than the rest of the world and they have the jouranalistic army of propaganda to prove it.
That brings us of course to the finale of any discourse involving North America and that is of course war. What flavor will it be? There is no big competition right now, it’s a pretty open field, so it’s going to be tough to use those so familiar headlines of “kill, blasts, threatens, slaughters, rapes, violates, water boards, pillages, hit, and of course the local favorite of going thermonuclear.” However with such a vast war nurturing arse nal at their disposal you know one just have to be insert or as previously mentioned some jouranalist will be heading for a syriass talk.
“Apple Pay is going to be a slow-burn success,” Mr. Dawson said. “Until then, it will be something of a novelty and something that most consumers use occasionally if they use it at all.
Ah yes, the slow-burn, no end to the torture after you get that first taste of blood.
/shjtt
Disclaimer: The /shjtt tag illustrates that this post is a satirical humorous joke tall tale and has nothing, absolutely nothing to do with reality. It’s fiction and opinion for the enjoyment of those from the MDN community who can appreciate such commentary.
Interesting remarks! It is amazing, isn’t it, that even with a flood of positive Apple reporting, today’s journalist is compelled to inject a jot of nerve toxin.
As to those sales numbers — by my calculations, sales INCREASED MORE in North America than in the rest of the world. — 54% increase in N.A.; 44% worldwide; 43% the world outside N.A. — Why do they feel the need to obscure that?
Thank you for your feedback, it’s always appreciated. Yes the “inject a jot of nerve toxin” as you put it is becoming happenstance these days. I guess they are feeding the fear paranoia aspects that the media has found sells papers. Go figure.
I take it by your calculations that you got the raw numbers from the article itself. That’s not really obscuring in my humble opinion as it’s amazing and fun what you can do when you have the raw numbers.
Consider the raw numbers for mobile payments reported as such:
2012 global: $163.1 billion
2013 global: $235.4 billion
2012 N.A.: $24 billion
2013 N.A.: $37 billion
In 2012 N.A. spent $24 billion of the $163.1 billion dollars. That’s 14.7% of payments via mobile.
In 2013 N.A spent $37 billion of the $235.4 billion globally. That’s 15.7% of global payments via mobile.
That’s like 1% difference globally, and it’s certainly an indication from my perspective that the rest of the world is embracing mobile payments at a much faster rate than North America. I’ve seen this phenomenon previously with mobile phone usage, and the quality/price of connectivity in North America.
At any rate the numbers are fun to play with. Enjoy your day.
I’m curious on how Wall Street and the news media are going to be able to downplay Apple if Apple Pay becomes a success. Hundreds of millions of consumers would be involved and Apple would be at the center of it. It would be hard to turn that degree of success into doom. Apple Pay doesn’t seem like it could be considered some type of dead-end business for Apple. It could be incorporated into all of their products although I’m not sure it can be improved upon. It looks as though Apple has really hit upon a service that increases the stickiness of the company’s products.
Analysts are always pointing out how nothing Apple can do will “move the needle” of company revenue, but there are whole companies unable to make as much revenue as Apple Pay could make for Apple in the future if billions of Apple Pay transactions take place. Apple Pay looks to have great potential and be hard to beat by rivals if Apple has certain types of licenses protecting it. There appears to be exciting times ahead for Apple and Apple shareholders.
Oh I would not worry about that. I mean syriassly, with the Gates of Dell, the world’s best Bush hunters experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory and the FUD spread of the jouranalists and analysts a predisposed herd of people can be made to think and believe anything. Yes exactly like Orwell’s 1984.
Pay no attention to the lucid thinkers of the free and civilized world, they are just eating popcorn.
Oh by the way that I am particularly enjoying your recent wave of posts for the usual reasons of making me think, harmonious with some of my thoughts and having to do with the stock value of Apple, which is going to be climbing nicely.
This is a regurgitation of a NYT article. Be wary how NYT wrote the article. Unless it was an official release by WG and MCd, I wou not trust the article. Basically they are leaving room for IDC and Gartner to say that the doubling proves googl’s success since Apple is playing catch-up. Notice how they do not bother comparing WholeFoods numbers to a previous number.
If the MCD and WG numbers are from “sources” I do not believe the doubling number. I say, previous to Apple pay the numbers were insignificant.