Android Pay emerges as "new" mobile payments competitor

Image credit: Engadget

Google finally rolled out Android Pay last week as an update to the existing Google Wallet app on Android devices. The service will be joining the ranks with Apple Pay, as well as Samsung Pay which launches later this month on the very same operating system, to gain traction in the mobile payments space. While the new app is functionally the same as Google Wallet (which will now be split into a separate app to deal solely with online payments), it presents payment options to the user in a simpler, more direct way, and will likely be easier for Google to market to consumers who are already familiar with Apple Pay. One nice feature newly introduced in Android Pay is Auto-redeem, which brings up loyalty programs and special offers during some purchases with a limited number of retailers (probably why it has only been soft-launched so far).

Google Wallet was first introduced in 2011 as an Internet payment platform that also did mobile payments, similar to PayPal (Google even poached a PayPal exec to work on Wallet, just as they were about to sign a deal that would make PayPal the backend of the service, provoking a lawsuit from PayPal). In the mobile payment arena, Wallet failed to gain much traction for a number of years, mostly due to Google's near-nonexistent efforts to market the service, though the slow adoption rate among major retailers didn't help its success either.

If you've never used your phone to pay at a counter before, it works quite simply. Most retailers in this day and age have installed near-field communication, or NFC readers, atop their traditional credit card readers that can detect when another device with an NFC chip has been placed an inch or two away. From there, the user's pre-entered credit or bank card information is transferred between the two computers, and the goods have been purchased.

Though Google pioneered mobile payments technology originally, their competitors have severely lapped them in terms of features and technology. Last year, Apple announced their own payment service, which features compatibility with the Apple Watch, something no other player is boasting at the moment. Samsung Pay will work with card readers not outfitted with NFC in addition to ones that are, thanks to Magnetic Secure Transmission, a technology invented by LoopPay which Samsung bought earlier this year. Also in the works for early next year, CurrentC is a mobile payment system being developed by a group of retailers including Best Buy, Target, and Walmart that will link directly to users' bank accounts. This system will cut out credit card companies, eliminating fees that retailers would have to pay, but also fraud prevention checks that credit card companies do.

The adoption rate for mobile payment systems among users has not been amazing. Part of the blame resides on Apple and Google, for only allowing a certain subset of iPhone and Android users with the latest operating systems to use it. Another factor is the still-limited number of retailers currently offering support for mobile payments (not to mention CVS disabling them following the Apple Pay announcement). But there's also the matter of inherent advantage over traditional payment methods. Aside from the occasional coupon notification, or automatically applying one's rewards card to a purchase, there's no clear edge in reaching into a pocket and taking out a phone to pay for something, versus taking out a wallet to do so. Giving users tangible reasons to use mobile payments, besides the fact that it's pretty cool, will be the primary challenge faced by Google and Apple as all the new services offered by these companies begin to take their place in the market.

As Square found its niche in small businesses that didn't want a costly traditional card reader, Google and Apple will have to work on developing a hook to attract users to switch to mobile payments. Using Apple Pay on the Apple Watch has been described as a high point of the device in reviews. Perhaps there's something more that can be done there, as Android Wear, a version of Android designed to be used on smart watches, has yet to incorporate Android Pay support. Holding one's watch over a payment kiosk is a clear advantage over paying with a credit or debit card, as it actively removes a step from the process, unlike paying with a phone. We should see some substantial improvements to the services in the coming months as companies vie to assert their place in their customers' payment habits.

Form Factor

Many people don’t understand the design struggles that are associated with changing form factors. From the desktop to the now-emerging watch, screen sizes are constraining canvases that marketers, developers, and designers need to maneuver around in order to get into the heads of people who seek it. A popular term that has been tossed around with the advent of smartphones is “responsive design”, where the content of your application, website, or service are aware of the device they are running on and adapt accordingly. The ultimate goal of design should be to appeal and cater to the most people possible, and responsive design seems to be approaching that kind of With the Apple Watch approaching, it’s more important than ever to understand the dynamics that comes with serving the consumer in a way that is informative, responsive, and not overbearing.

Typically, web designers and application developers alike have moved towards the pushing of the envelope—what is the latest and greatest of technologies, and how can I shape my application to fit into whatever can run the best stuff? However, if you want your product to scale to the most amount of people possible, you have to think about the wide majority of people that don’t bother getting whatever can run the latest software—my grandmother doesn’t care about how many features her phone has as long as it does the basics of what she needs. And that is the world that we are now designing for—a place where the hot new technologies (watches, wearables, etc.) are just as powerful as the low-end smartphones and computers that a majority of the world is using. The Apple Watch (and others like it) are inadvertently making creators think about how to serve the under-served, which is definitely a turning point for the industry. Software and hardware are now getting to the point where speed is less likely to matter, and it’s more focused on getting the most amount of people the services that they want or need.

There is a huge emphasis to be ahead of the curve in our culture. To be involved in what is new and interesting. A lot of us chase after this dream without realizing all of the people they are alienating in the process. Sometimes, an underpowered (but popular) accessory needs to be created in order for people to think about the ones they’ve been leaving behind. The ones that haven’t upgraded their phones in 4 years but still want access to the good stuff. The ones that have no intention of trading up until their technology gives them a reason to. And I think we would all be better served if we think about these people more often than we think about the bleeding-edge. The scope that you can achieve by focusing on the many far outweighs the benefits of serving the latest and greatest to the privileged few that can take advantage of them. Build for the world, not just for your small group of tech-savvy friends.

Steve Jobs - Celebrate or Vilify?

The man that Steve Jobs was seems to come up often (as it probably should, considering he built a company that is one of the most profitable ones of all time), but it always seems to be a point of constant debate. It seems that nobody, despite what they believe to be true about his character, can stop thinking about his impact on the world and whether or not people should emulate his behavior. It’s almost embaressing to see the amount of back-and-forth there is on this topic, and the man has been dead for 3 and a half years now. You’d think that the man that released his biography (with Steve Jobs’ consent), Walter Isaacson, would have a pretty good account of who the man was in a nutshell—but apparently you’d be wrong.

I’m writing this after beginning to read the most recent biography of Steve Jobs, entitled “Becoming Steve Jobs: The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader”. This biography is fully endorsed by pretty much all of the senior leadership at Apple Inc., and is regarded by Eddy Cue (a senior VP at Apple) as “the first one to get it right”. It is front page news on the iBooks store, as well as getting plenty of  on all of influential Twitter feeds. I’m going to reserve my judgement on the book until I read it, but it seems like all of this press is just a way to recuperate some of Jobs’ “good name” that was seemingly tarnished by other people’s interpretations of Jobs.

Walter Isaacson, as I mentioned earlier, was commissioned by Jobs to write his biography. Jobs (according to Isaacson) was adamant that the account that was written was the truth, not just some ego-inflating piece of work that could be written by anyone. Isaacson’s biography of Jobs is not exactly a flattering approach to who Jobs was, but I think that is the point. Biographies are not meant to tell everyone about the good things you did and just stop there. Autobiographies are notorious for this, simply because when people look back on their own lives, they tend to cast themselves in a light that shows off what they accomplished. Biographies are sometimes incredibly insightful in this manner. They can take a person and expose them for what made them tick. And unfortunately, more often than anyone cares to admit, sometimes the greatest influential people of our time are kind-of jerks in their personal lives.

Jobs was perfectly comfortable with people viewing him in an unflattering light. He openly criticized work, ranted about whatever was bothering him that particular day or situation, and generally spoke his mind when it came to pretty much anything. He was not the kind of person to be put off by someone telling the truth (although sometimes he would take the truth and twist it in his own way). I’m not exactly sure why Apple seems to be on the defensive about Jobs’ personality and what he was like, which is exactly what these endorsements come off as. I’m going to read this new biography, but with a skeptical mind. Of course it seems like “the first one that got it right” to Cook and company—friends always view the people they are close to much more fondly, taking open criticism as an afront to their own memories (which may have been tainted by their reverance for Jobs).

I like Apple’s products, the culture that Apple has created, and I like the things that Jobs was able to do for the world. I don’t have any horse in this race, because I admire people from many different backgrounds and don’t think that Apple is the center of the universe. Jobs’ legacy will never be truly tarnished, simply because the things he did are so influential that they are impossible to refute or ignore. Becoming Steve Jobs is definitely going to be a great read, and if you want to know about the people Steve interacted with on a constant basis, definitely give it a shot. However, Jobs is the exact kind of person that deserves an unbiased biography—and I’m not sure if  will be the one you want to look for to get a definitive account of his life.