Tag: Apple Pay

Square will begin supporting Apple Pay and Bitcoin through its new register service

Square, a prominent mobile payments firm in North America, recently announced that it will be registering its service with Apple Pay. The firm is yet another prominent entity in the mobile commerce space that has begun showing support for the Apple Pay platform. Square is not limiting itself to showing support for Apple Pay, of course, and has also announced that it is considering supporting Bitcoin, a somewhat controversial digital currency.

Register service aims to accept any form of payment that will become available in the future

The firm is currently developing a register service that will allow merchants to accept traditional payments, checks, credit cards, and digital currency. Eventually, the service is meant to accept any form of payment that could emerge in the future as a way to help merchants connect with the ever evolving nature of mobile technology and how mobile payments are influencing consumer behavior. Supporting Bitcoin is one of the first steps in this endeavor.

Bitcoin continues to gain traction despite volatile nature

Bitcoin is somewhat controversial because of its unregulated nature. The lack of regulation makes Bitcoin somewhat volatile in terms of value. The value of this digital currency often fluctuates with little reason. At the beginning of 2014, a single Bitcoin was worth approximately $1,000. Now, however, a single coin is worth $435. The value of this currency changes based on various factors, most of which are impossible to control. Because of its volatile nature, some merchants avoid Bitcoin, but others are beginning to embrace it in order to better accommodate digital consumers.

Square does not see Apple Pay as competition because they both accomplish different tasks

Square notes that Apple Pay is not considered to be a competition for Square. Jack Dorsey, CEO of Square, claims that Apple Pay is only a platform that enables mobile payments, while Square processes these payments. Square does not build a payment device, but rather serves as a payment processor for organizations that are involved in the mobile commerce space.

The latest smartphones from the company finally have near field communication tech, but its uses are limited.

For several releases, the tech universe had been expecting Apple smartphones to include NFC technology, but now that the iPhone 6 has arrived, and it does finally enabled with near field communication, it is being discovered that its uses are exceptionally limited compared to rival devices.

The near field communication technology will be compatible exclusively with Apple Pay.

At the same time that the devices were unveiled, so was the mobile payments service called Apple Pay, which uses NFC technology, also received its first moments in the spotlight. This allows the iPhone to be used in place of a credit or debit card at one of the many places across the country that accept this type of transaction. All that would be required to use the mobile device in this way is to tap it against an NFC-equipped terminal and then use the fingerprint sensor through Touch ID to verify identity and confirm the payment.

However, while other devices use NFC technology for a range of capabilities, this is not the case with the iPhone.

It looks as though Apple is continuing to hold back its use of certain forms of technology that are already becoming rather commonplace in the mobile tech market. For a few years now, other NFC enabled mobile devices have been used for pairing devices, exchanging contacts between smartphones, or even sharing photos and other media files. Tags located in public places such as in shops give consumers the ability to tap their devices and receive information about products or obtain discount coupons that can be redeemed at the checkout counter with another simple tap.

Many of these tasks can be accomplished with other forms of short range communication tech, such as Bluetooth – such as pairing devices, for example, as is the case with the upcoming Apple Watch – but Apple has opted to restrict the use of NFC technology in its devices, at least for now, exclusively to its payments service. This move is reminiscent of the release of Touch ID last year, at which time people had come up with all sorts of potential uses for the way that the fingerprint sensor could be used, only to discover that it was meant only for unlocking the device and conducting a small number of tasks.