Apple is going to be releasing “Apple Pay,” which will allow users to tap their phone to a reader, hold their Touch ID, and then their payment is done. They’ve already gotten their readers in more than 220,000 stores, including some major retailers. My major concern with Apple doing something like this is security, but apparently they’ve got that handled. “When it's time to check out, the device account number and a dynamic security code are used to complete the transaction. Apple will never know what you purchased, the company claims, and you'll still get rewards points on the credit cards you use.” Now this is all well and fine, but I’m still a bit concerned considering the whole iCloud scandal.
What’s crazy about this is that Apple is pretty late to the party, and yet they’ve managed to already get 220,000 stores on board. Google launched Google Wallet, which does basically the same thing, on May 26, 2011. For Google Wallet you tap the checkout terminal, and you’ve paid. What’s interesting about this is that, Google Wallet didn’t do so well. According to an article written in June of 2013, “Wallet has been downloaded fewer than 10 million times in the two years since its launch, according to Play, Google’s app store” (Millian). I think everyone can agree that Apple knows what they’re doing from a marketing standpoint (excluding U2). I feel like Apple is going to have an easier time getting people to adopt Apple Pay, compared to Google Wallet. In Apple’s case, everyone has the same phone, an iPhone 6 or an iPhone 6+. There’s uniformity with iOS users that Android user’s lack. Clearly Apple has the sway to get companies to adopt this system (that’s obvious with the amount of stores that are going to be utilizing it) before it has even been released. I think that Apple waited so long to see how Google Wallet was going to perform. Once it was evident that Wallet wasn’t doing so hot, Apple decided to wait a couple years. This gives them the opportunity to see what Google did right and wrong, and to then build on it.
The major concern with electronic payments, like Apple Pay, is security. Apple does not have the greatest track record right now with keeping people’s online information safe. Looking at the way Apple is going to keep the information secure sounds like it could work, but I have one major concern with it. “Instead, users take a photo of their credit card and add it to their phone’s Passbook.” I’m not the most knowledgeable when it comes to online security, but taking a picture of your credit card and uploading it to the internet sounds like a horrible idea. If Apple can manage to keep the way of payment secure, I think that it will be a natural progression from the credit card. It would definitely be much easier, if we could all drop our wallets, and just carry a phone around, and, at this point, there really is no reason why we shouldn’t as long as it’s secure.
Google Wallet Article
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