“Apple has signed on with Pirq, a startup from Seattle, to offer food and drink daily deals to its employees in the Bay Area, with the service working by way of an iPhone app, location-based technology, and a Microsoft Tag code to redeem the discounts,” Ingrid Lunden reports for TechCrunch.
“A source tells TechCrunch that this is the first part of a potential ‘four phase’ implementation that could see Apple offering a deals service out to all iPhone users,” Lunden reports. “The deal with Apple being announced today will see discounts of between 20 percent and 50 percent at nearly 50 venues in Cupertino, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Mountain View, and it is Pirq’s jumping-off point for offering a wider service in San Francisco further down the line — within the next 12 months, according to Pirq.”
Lunden reports, “Assuming all progresses as planned, the intention is to offer the service in a progression of circles: ‘First the Apple community, then the blogger community, then the community of users who get notices of Apple products early, and then finally the wider community of iPhone users.'”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz,” “Dan K.,” and “Sarah” for the heads up.]
Just the start of Apple’s foray into the mobile payment world.
Microsoft Tags? Aren’t those Microsoft’s proprietary version of QR codes that aren’t getting any traction? Why would they go with those?
——RM
Tell me it ain’t so…Microsoft Tag codes???
There’s already Qpons, and you don’t have to go through Micro$oft.
http://qponsnow.com
Has anyone else noticed that critical comments of the Times or its “journalists” disappear shortly after posting.