What Apple can do to take Apple Pay to the next level

Apple Pay is “a system that offers real tangible advantages over the status quo; the ability to pay with your iPhone or your Apple Watch offers not only more convenience than paying with a physical card but also bestows much needed security on every transaction,” Dan Moren writes for Macworld. “It’s become more and more popular, but there are still lots of places where you can’t yet use it.”
“Adoption’s just one part of the equation,” Moren writes. “Even without Apple Pay being ubiquitous, there’s still room for Apple to improve what its contactless payment system offers.”
“I’d love to see a way to send money via direct device-to-device transfers using NFC, perhaps using a similar system as AirDrop. After all, if you can drop a picture to someone you don’t know, why not a payment as well? You’d still need to authorize with your passcode, Face ID, or Touch ID before the payment, and, as with an iMessage account, a device is associated with a specific Apple ID,” Moren writes. “As long as I’m pipe-dreaming, let’s throw it out there: cross-platform Apple Pay.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: At one point, according to our sources, Apple was strongly considering Messages for Android, which would have opened the door for Apple Pay Cash transfers between iOS users and those who settle for a bad imitation that, BTW, isn’t exactly known for privacy or security, two things that are rather necessary for people to feel confident in while making cash transfers. Along the winding Messages for Android path, Apple likely concluded that iMessage exclusivity was worth more to them than incremental P2P cash transfers. We’ll see if that stance holds true past this year’s WWDC, too.
SEE ALSO:
Loup Ventures: There are now 383 million Apple Pay users, up 135% year-over-year – February 20, 2019
Apple debuts three new ads for Apple Pay (with video) – January 23, 2019
Driven by Apple Pay, contactless payment systems to represent 1 in 3 in-store transactions globally by 2020 – Juniper Research – July 30, 2018
Apple Pay dominates with far more users than Samsung Pay, Google Pay, and other OEM pay systems combined – June 27, 2018
Apple Pay Cash international roll out begins – February 23, 2018
watchOS 4.2 delivers Apple Pay Cash to Apple Watch – December 5, 2017
Apple releases iOS 11.2 with Apple Pay Cash – December 2, 2017
Google’s ‘Chat’ is not end-to-end encrypted like Apple’s iMessage – April 23, 2018
Messages and five other apps Apple really needs to make for Android – March 15, 2017
Why I remain unconvinced when Apple denies plans to introduce iMessage to Android – June 17, 2016
Why Apple’s holding back Messages for Android: Hardware sales – June 15, 2016
Apple’s new iMessage is great, but why the hell isn’t it on Android, yet? – June 14, 2016
Apple’s iMessage and Siri will allow iOS 10 users to send money via Square Cash – June 13, 2016
Apple to deliver iMessage to Android at WWDC – June 9, 2016