Tag: apple

Apple Pay may provide more momentum to the European payments sector

Mobile payments are likely to gain momentum with the inevitable expansion of Apple Pay. Though Apple has not yet brought its new mobile payments service to markets outside of the United States, the early success of the service makes it likely that expansion is in the future. Europe is one of the most attractive mobile markets in the world, with high smartphone penetration and an expansive mobile Internet infrastructure. Consumers in many European countries are using their devices to purchase products.

Report suggests that companies are taking steps to prepare for Apple Pay

In preparation for Apple Pay’s potential expansion to Europe, many companies are beginning to improve their own mobile services. A new report from IHS Technology notes that these companies are becoming more mobile-centric, hoping to position themselves so they can benefit from the launch of Apple Pay and other mobile payments services. Visa is one such company, which is expanding tokenization throughout Europe. This involves the use of digital tokens to replace financial information, making mobile transactions significantly more secure.

European consumers may show favor for Apple Pay

Apple has the potential to cause some disruption in Europe’s mobile market. There are several mobile payments solutions available to consumers throughout Europe, but Apple Pay has managed to generate a great deal of hype before even launching in this region. If the service does come to Europe, consumers are likely to abandon the mobile payments solutions they currently use in order to use Apple Pay, at least for a time. Retailers may also opt to use Apple Pay as a way to support mobile transactions.

Apple will face competition in the mobile payments space

Competition is likely to be fierce for Apple and the company is not likely to dominate the mobile payments field without a fight. Samsung recently announced that it will be launching its own mobile payments service in the near future, which will appeal to those with Android devices. Apple’s service is only available for iOS devices, and of those only the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus can make use of the service at this time.

The latest update of the app market for Android users lets users approach the iTunes experience.

Google Play has recently released a new update that many believe will help it to close the gap between itself and iTunes, especially since Apple has been recovering from a few blunders in their own App Store over the past few months.

Developers were paid a total of $7 billion over the span of 2014 in order to improve the Android marketplace.

This, according to a report from the Financial Times. Though that amount is notably less than the reported $25 billion that Apple paid its developers, it is still a considerable figure. This is particularly important as the results that Apple has been seeing have remained the same from June through the close of last year. Still, it paid $10 billion more than it usually would have, during that time, so it is expected that those developers will be seeing their earnings sliding downward. Conversely, Google Play developers will be watching their earnings increase.

For Android developers, this change in direction for Google Play should be seen as very positive news.

It also means, according to many, that it appears that the gap that has existed between these two largest stores is now closing up. The latest update for the Android store is quite s clear indication of that. For people who use Android 2.3 and up, the Play 5.3.5 version of the app is now available. This represents the majority of users of Android devices. It now offers a range of different functions to its users, which includes the expansion of the various notification options that are available within the settings. It is also now possible to choose whether or not the notifications for an app will be displayed.

The music store at Google has also released an update, which has aligned its appearance much more closely with the Play Store. There is now a home screen search function. That said, this specific update will be available only to those with a version of Android Kit Kat or newer.

Fortunately for those who can’t access it, the majority of the changes are in the design of the experience, so that it more closely resembles that of Google Play. The majority of the actual functionality has not been changed.