“Apple’s not talking about it,” Cade Metz writes for Wired. “Tim Cook and company are too busy trumpeting a new iPhone that’s pretty much like the old iPhone (except there’s — gasp — no headphone jack!). But if Apple’s not talking about it, that probably means it’s far more interesting—and far more important. And indeed it is.”
“This week, with the arrival of the new iPhone operating system, Apple Pay now works inside web browsers. Yes, that’s more interesting than no headphone jack,” Metz writes. “And its importance will only grow in the next few weeks as Apple Pay, the company’s digital payments service, reaches the web on Macs as well as iPhones.”
“Since Apple first unveiled Apple Pay in the fall of 2014, the tech press has portrayed it primarily as a way of easily paying for stuff inside drugstores, grocery stores, and other physical shops,” Metz writes. “With Apple Pay, the bigger point is that it’s also a way of paying for stuff online. From the beginning, it let you pay for things inside apps, and now, you can use it on the web too. That’s when it becomes interesting… Apple Pay for the web is ‘a really big deal,’ says John Collison, the co-founder of Stripe, the San Francisco startup that helps businesses accept payments through all sorts of services, including Apple Pay. ‘It solves the big problem in ecommerce: the conversion problem.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple Pay for the Web takes the ease of buying at say, Amazon with 1-Click or Apple’s online store with 1-Click (licensed from Amazon in 2000), and makes it that seamless on every site that accepts Apple Pay. It’s a paradigm shift in e-commerce.
The big question and 800 pound gorilla in the room is will Amazon take Apple Pay onboard?
Apple pay is great. However, it needs a significant incentive (from Apple) in order to get adoption rates to some meaningful numbers. After a year of using it (and two years of it being available), I am no longer seeing incredulous faces of cashiers at the check-out registers (not even in South Bronx or Harlem), but I still see a lot of people in the line behind me fascinated (and many of them carrying big iPhones). Practically all of them ask “What app is that??” and I usually say “There’s no app! You have it on your phone too! Just enroll your credit card and you’re good to go!” And most had no clue.
Our iPhone is now on its tenth iteration. Those who joined during the 3G / 3Gs / 4 years have been on it for 6+ years, and for them, this is simply an biennial (or annual) ritual — when contract expires (or when new model is announced), get the new iPhone and hand down the old one to a child/niece/aunt. And vast majority of these people don’t really know what new technology and features they’re getting with that new iPhone, besides a better selfie camera.
A colleague, who used to have 5S, and recently upgraded to 6S, told me the other day “You should put a passcode on your lock screen; somebody can access your stuff when you aren’t looking”. When I told her that yes, I have a passcode, but I’m unlocking with the fingerprint and touch-ID, she was clueless: “What do you mean???!!” When I explained that even her old 5S had that feature, she was, well, clueless. An otherwise quite intelligent person, she skipped the TouchID set up when she first got the phone and completely obliterated it from her memory. And I’m sure many people are just like that. They have 6S (and soon 7), but they only know about and use the features that existed when they got their first iPhone 3GS.
This reminds me of an old joke about a farmer who bought himself a new Rolls-Royce. He was so thrilled with his new ride, he wrote a letter to the company, telling them how he loved his new car, especially the new plexiglass partition between the driver and the back seat. “Finally, I can drive in peace and my sheep in the back seat can’t lick my neck anymore!”
Apple should run some educational ads on some tent pole features to explain them better. Steve used to do that s at the keynote. He conducted mini tutorials for some features.
here’s waiting for Apple Pay to arrive in Germany….
I’ve used it on a few websites. It works good. Almost too good. But I sure am kinda pissed about retail locations now requiring your PIN code in addition, which takes the speed (magic) out of how it used to work since chip was enabled on the terminals.
I know this is not Apple’s issue/problem to solve but…
I try to use Apple Pay anytime I possibly can, to the point of asking clerks to give feedback to their employer’s management team to join the 21st-century and enable NFC if they don’t support it. Absolutely the most frustrating (first-world problem) thing for me is the inability to use it in fast food drive-through lanes… even at establishments (MCD’s, Whataburger, Chick-fil-a, etc.) that except Apple pay at their indoor terminals!
I can so easily imagine the simplicity of reaching my arm out the window to pay for my (wonderfully healthy) food with my Apple Watch! Instead, I have to dig my wallet out of my back pocket, pull out the card, hand it to the young person at the window, let them swipe it through a reader (or hopefully insert it into an EMV slot), wait for them to hand it back, slide it back into my wallet, put my wallet back in my pocket…. AARGH!!!
Please, fast-food industry, solve this problem … and then tout it to the millions of Apple users out there as a competitive advantage!
Have not had any problem using Apple Pay at McDonald’s and the such. Might take a second or third try, or holding the terminal on/over the watch longer. Always works with the iPhone, as the NFC transmission is probably stronger.