Tag: mobile payments

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.

Microsoft acquires Iain Kennedy, former payments product manager for Amazon

Microsoft may be getting serious about mobile payments. The company has recently hired Iain Kennedy, who was the payments product manager for Amazon for the past six years. Kennedy has extensive experience in the payments field and his work has helped Amazon find more success in the mobile space. Kennedy is now the product manager of Microsoft’s commerce platform, which may signal that the company is planning to take a stronger approach on the matter of mobile commerce.

Microsoft shows modest interest in mobile payments

Microsoft has a relatively modest interest in mobile payments. The company has dabbled in the field of mobile commerce in the past, but found that the market was too young and volatile to continue putting any serious effort into the sector. Now, consumers throughout the world have become enthralled with the idea of mobile payments, and many are demanding new payment solutions from the companies that they favor. This demand was enough to push Apple into the mobile payments space, but Microsoft’s efforts may be delayed to ongoing concerns regarding security and the viability of the market.

Kennedy could help bring Microsoft into the mobile commerce market

Kennedy has been involved in the developed of various mobile payment products. One of the products that he and his team at Amazon created was a digital wallet application, which could be used to make payments from a mobile device. This experience could go a long way with Microsoft, as the company has expressed interest in digital wallets in the past. A mobile wallet that is connected to the company’s gaming platforms could be well received by consumers, but exactly how popular it would be is impossible to say for certain.

New projects have yet to be revealed by Microsoft

While Kennedy has become the product manager for Microsoft’s mobile commerce platform, his work with the company may be completely unrelated to mobile payments. There has been no information given about the products that he will be working on, apart from the suggestion that they could change the way people buy and sell products in the real world.