For some time now, “banks [have been] introducing various account management applications for the iPhone. While these stop short at use of these devices as a payment or debit card at least one major force in the banking industry payment solutions world is working on a solution that does just that,” Jonny Evans repots for Distorted-Loop.
“It’s attracted some interest from iPhone-types already, as representatives from the venture capital fund handling the $100 million iPhone developer ‘iFund’, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, recently took a look at the solution, which is being developed by Billing Solutions,” Evans reports.
“The solution enables developers to ‘easily add on-the-go purchase capabilities to their existing mobile applications,’ and while the focus of the product right now is on enabling developers to sell products and services within their applications, a secure credit card payment system for these mobiles can easily be imagined,” Evans reports.
“The only inhibiting factor to progress of the theorem will be security and identity – you don’t want to spark an explosion in mobile phone thefts by making it too easy for criminals to use these stolen devices to clean out people’s bank accounts,” Evans reports. “However, these barriers will be explored, potentially surmounted, and the introduction of new families of highly advanced mobile devices opens up such avenues.”
Evans writes, “Whether the public – you and me – will be prepared to accept such systems is open to question.”
Full article here.
Running Mac OS X or a mobile variant, “The Device” would allow the user to communicate via text, audio, and video. It would snap digital photos and organize them, do email, and browse the web. It would sync automatically with your desktop or portable Mac. It would run Sherlock for web services. With its large hard drive inside, and its included FireWire port, it would absorb the iPod by playing AAC / MP3 audio and interface with iTunes, but it would also play feature-length MPEG-4 movies, too, in full color… McDonald’s Drive Thru’s would accept payments via Bluetooth from ‘The Device.’ And, of course, it would have the basics like any PDA; your date book, to do list, calculator, etc. I figure a form factor about the size or a Newton or a bit smaller would do the trick. This would be “The Device.” iDevice? And only Apple, in concert with a partner like Verizon, Cingular, or Sprint, has everything in place to make “The Device” a reality today. – SteveJack, MacDailyNews, December 10, 2002