“The introduction of the Apple Pay service gives a real insight into Apple’s method of operation,” J. M. Manness writes for Seeking Alpha. “We cannot enter Apple’s boardroom, nor sit in on development sessions, nor ask the leaders, but this product can let us see a lot about its M.O.”
“To outsiders, it appears as if Apple Pay is arriving during a perfect storm – but a positive storm that gives it the wind at its back. A whole set of enabling factors have coincidentally occurred to favor the adoption of Apple Pay – things such as the setting of the EMV tokenization standards, and the availability of processor designs with Apple’s Secure Enclave technology (see: semi-monopoly),” Manness writes. “While some portion of this may be chance (the recent hacks into Target, Home Depot, etc. which puts security in the spotlight), others are Apple’s own doing – a combination of riding a technological wave, and directing that wave itself.”
“Apple tries to learn from its earlier mistakes. One of its largest product mistakes was the Apple Newton,” Manness writes. “I believe a profound lesson was learned, and this rule is strongly evidenced in the Apple Pay system and previous systems as well. You must wait until the concept, the software and the hardware capabilities are all available before you introduce a product… I’m not sure when Apple began working on the Apple Pay project. Undoubtedly it has been floating around for years. Two key patent applications occurred in mid-2012, so clearly Apple was thinking very seriously on this since at least a year earlier, which is about the time that Google Wallet was coming out. But rather than rush off to be the first with an NFC payments solution, Apple chose to wait for all the pieces to come into alignment before proceeding.
Much more in the full article – recommended – here.