“During Tim Cook’s Keynote address last month, the way he began the introduction of Apple Pay was quite interesting,” E. Werner Reschke writes for TGAAP. “He said Apple was on a goal to “eliminate this…” and then a picture of a wallet appeared on the screen behind him. He then followed by saying that Apple Pay was the first step in that process.”
“So what else is in our wallets and purses that Tim Cook thinks Apple can bring into the 21st century? Well besides purchasing power, our little leather pouches carry our IDs,” Reschke writes. “At first, drivers licenses come to mind… and that may very well be on the project plan at Apple Central. However our ID’s are also in the form of all the cards we carry around as members to various associations. Costco, American Airlines, Hilton Hotels, Safeway,… the list is pretty much endless with all the companies that issue cards with magnetic strips to identify us as members in their organizations and businesses.”
Reschke writes, “While Apple could take a big leap and try to get licenses and passports as part of Apple’s secure ID/NFC system, what we may see are baby steps at first with membership cards.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: We have far too many membership cards to juggle! The service desk people at these places know us by first names since we never seem to have our plastic membership card with us when we need them. Do it, Apple, please!
My interim solution has been the iLid case on my iPhone 5 and 5S. But since they seem to be out of business now, I bought a Verus Card Slot case for my iPhone 6 Plus. Holds 2 cards – my Drivers License and Costco-AMEX card.
I’d stop bypassing the neighborhood Speedway gas stations. Quit carrying the card to lighten my wallet.
I want to have the ability to use Apple Pay for everything, and to dump eBay.
Loyalty cards, insurance cards, membership cards, and contact less access cards.
Wireless encrypted cash transactions.
KeyRing iPhone app does the trick for me. Integrate TouchID and I’m hooked.
Oh, Hell I’d didn’t understand Cook at all. I thought he was saying they were trying to get us to empty our wallets buying Apple products.
Now that’s funny!
Problem: the primary purpose of loyalty cards is to violate your privacy–to collect information about you. One of the major features of Apple Pay is security AND anonymity–the vendor is not supposed to see any of your information. I see a slight conflict here…
You completely miss the point.
There is no problem with loyalty cards becoming virtual objects within an iPhone All the loyalty card does is identify you to the company that issued it. Collecting data about your dealings with that company is done by the company’s computers and linked to the ID on your card. This will happen exactly the same regardless of whether the card is presented as a physical card, quoting the account number over the phone, or via an electronic representation of that card.
If you opt for a loyalty card, you are deliberately opting in to having your sales habits within that company analysed. On the other hand, if you pay with a credit card via Apple Pay and do not use a loyalty card, the company is unable to engage in data mining activities. You retain control of your privacy and would have to specifically opt in to grant a retailer extra access to your data.
Apple Pay will come.
I can not wait until then.
Consumers will win.
Haiku almost complete.
I wonder if Apple is using the device encryption issue to convince government to allow IDs to be added to the phone. Apple will give a little if government gives a little.
I have little fobs for getting petrol and in the supermarket. I just leave them in the car. Beyond that I have a credit and debit card, my driving license, and some emergency cash. I got rid of all the crap I never even needed to use years ago.
I’m sure all these things will go electronic eventually, but I can’t see it happening overnight, or even needing to. All Apple need is for it to get traction, for it to be something people can use at a fair amount of places, and which they then start choosing to.
I really don’t anticipate government identification being replaced based on the simple fact that if you run out of battery power you can’t use your phone or watch to convince anyone that you are who you claim to be.
true, but….
how secure are the flimsy plastic cards that have information printed on it, for all to see, and how easy is the falsification of this flimsy plastic card (think 16 year olds who want to buy beer) and you start to see the parallels with credit card fraud
just sayin’
Their massive offshore cash hoards being repatronized could be used as leverage to gain the government’s support, not to mention offering a secure way for the government to step into modern times.
Been flogging the potential of this especially coupled with the watch at some point being the killer aplication without much sign of people or indeed analysts seeing it. Now it seems nearly everyone can’t wait to be part of it. Why I can’t help but laugh at those who bang on about can’t see any need for a smart watch blah blah blah. Personally can’t wait for the time when I can bin the concept of endlessly searching through cards to find the one I need for whatever I need to do. Will take time but in a few years we will look back and laugh at Stone Age it all was.