“Evidence that Apple wants to combine payments and iMessage is piling up. And it looks like the tech giant doesn’t plan to stop there,” ian Kar reports for Quartz.
“A patent filing published earlier this month (Dec. 2015) indicates that Apple is not only looking at allowing people to send money over its text messaging service, but other services built into the iOS platform, including phone calls, email, and calendar invites,” Kar reports. “Apple is paying attention to a key trend in the technology industry: the convergence of messaging and payments.”
“Jan Dawson of JackDaw Research first wrote about the possibility of Apple Pay and iMessage after Apple’s mobile wallet launched. He told Quartz: ‘With Apple, its about adding value to the ecosystem. The iPhone is maturing as a product, and [Apple] is wrapping other services into the iPhone experience,'” Kar reports. “The function could work in a number of ways, according to [Apple’s patent application] description. It explicitly mentions a ‘phone call, text messaging conversations, an email thread, calendar events,’ among other uses.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It doesn’t matter if it’s profitable, it only matters if it’s easy for users, just works, and makes the iOS platform even stickier. It’s also yet another service that the knockoff peddlers of the world will have to try to copy and likely take a loss on running, hurting their razor-thin margins all the more. It’s a win-win for Apple all the way around.
SEE ALSO:
Why Apple wants to get into the unprofitable world of payments between friends – December 1, 2015
Apple reaches agreement to bring Apple Pay to China, sources say – November 25, 2015
Apples’ revolutionary Apple Pay expands to Canada and Australia – November 17, 2015
Apple is making a grab for Venmo’s P2P payments turf and might use iMessage to do it – November 13, 2015
Apple discussing mobile person-to-person payment service with major U.S. banks – November 11, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Fred Mertz” and “David E.” for the heads up.]