Apple Pay

I love technology.  The progression, the moving forward, the excitement of change.  It doesn’t scare me, it excites me.  Makes me feel like a little boy, dreaming about what could be.

Sometimes the word magical gets thrown around by Apple a little too much, all marketing it seems.  But Apple Pay is nothing short of magic.  Went to Wegman’s and used the phone to scan my loyalty card then held the phone up to pay as it took my fingerprint.  Magic.  Sometimes that is the beauty of Apple, the ease, and one of the reasons I switched.

Is it all roses?  No there are thorns.  Not all stores support Apple Pay, luckily they just have to support contact less payments.  When I went to Subway, who is listed as support Apple Pay on Apple’s website, beforehand I didn’t notice any PayPass or similar logos on the device, and didn’t want to bother the staff so I swiped my card and only noticed then that the screen itself had a small PayPass logo.  Wegman’s was plastered with logos.

And that really is the area of opportunity, a standard.  I do like Apple’s system though.  Its extremely secure with a dedicated chip and then a fingerprint reader with Touch ID.  Google Wallet required a pin code and thus more steps and is less private and secure.  But the confusion will remain until standards and their marketing can be addressed.  Take my experience at Subway for example and you’ll see it could slow adoption.

And the bigger dream, of course, is to be totally free of your wallet!  Things like Driver’s Licenses need to be digitized as well.  Today, we are stepping towards that new frontier and I am excited!