PAYMENTS: Apple introduces their own version of virtual payment.
By Joey Vangsness, Staff Writer
With the rollout of the newest generation of iPhones and iPads, Apple also introduced Apple Pay. The idea of Apple Pay is a familiar one: gadgets equipped with Near Field Communication (NFC) are used in place of credit or debit cards in stores’ checkout lanes. The technology of NFC has been around for years, but the week-old Apple Pay has already become its most popular version.
In September of 2011, Google released Google Wallet, an application available to both Android and iPhone users. Wallet allows users to make purchases both online and in-store through the application, forgoing the cumbersome task of pulling a wallet out of a pocket. Most major credit card companies now support Wallet and most major stores now accept Wallet and other forms of NFC payments. So why, three years later, are so many people only hearing about Google Wallet when it’s compared to Apple Pay?
Chalk it up to viral marketing and the mysterious aura of appeal Apple seems to always have. Apple Pay has been live for less than a month and already has more users and companies on board than Google acquired in three years.
Apple Pay is only available on the newest generation of iPhones, leaving those with older phones and tablets behind. However, those pitiable Apple customers still have a chance to abandon their physical wallets in Google Wallet, which is available on a wider arrangement of phones.
A variety of security measures and convenient features may make Apple Pay secure and simple enough to replace credit cards in our wallets and purses, but unless it becomes universally available to all Apple users, regardless of device, its lifespan is limited. The beauty of cash and cards is that you don’t have to buy an extremely expensive phone and accompanying data plan in order to pay for your groceries. So, if you wait for the hype to die down, you might see Apple Pay and Google Wallet fade into obscurity and a more universal, poor-people friendly NFC program appear in the future.