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The Almighty Buck Apple

Apple Announces 'Tap to Pay' Feature That Will Allow iPhones To Accept Contactless Payments (techcrunch.com) 61

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Apple has announced plans to introduce a new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone that turns the device into a contactless payment terminal. From a report: The company says that later this year, U.S. merchants will be able to accept Apple Pay and other contactless payments, such as credit cards and debit cards, by using an iPhone and a partner-enabled iOS app. Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available for payment platforms and app developers to integrate into their iOS apps and offer as a payment option to their customers. Stripe will be the first payment platform to offer Tap to Pay on iPhone to customers. Apple says additional payment platforms and apps will follow later this year. Once Tap to Pay on iPhone launches, merchants will be able to unlock contactless payment acceptance through a supporting iOS app. At checkout, the merchant will ask the customer to hold their iPhone or Apple Watch near the merchant's iPhone and the payment will then be securely completed using NFC technology. No additional hardware is required to accept contactless payments. Apple also says that with Tap to Pay on iPhone, customers' payment data is protected and that all transactions that are made through the feature are encrypted.
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Apple Announces 'Tap to Pay' Feature That Will Allow iPhones To Accept Contactless Payments More

Apple Announces 'Tap to Pay' Feature That Will Allow iPhones To Accept Contactless Payments

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  • 30% fee (Score:4, Funny)

    by DarkRookie2 ( 5551422 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2022 @11:02AM (#62249581)
    How long before Apple tag a 30% fee to these transactions as well.

    • Re:30% fee (Score:4)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2022 @11:16AM (#62249631)

      How long before Apple tag a 30% fee

      You mean like they never have in the entire history of Apple Pay?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        They're not the big dog in that system. They can't handle it at all without the cooperation of the credit card companies, who simply won't give up their own profits. Some concessions have been made, but so much not on fees.

    • Re:30% fee (Score:5, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2022 @11:27AM (#62249689)
      I suspect shortly thereafter all vendors will drop it. Many independent businesses I know loathe the 3-4% + other fees that regular credit cards charge them. This is how companies like Square became popular with small businesses. Square would charge them way less.

      • Okay Steve "Nobody will pay $500 dollars for a phone" Balmer. You don't even know what the fees are yet.

        • You mean other than the fact that you can Google that [fool.com]? Currently credit card companies charge 1-4% + other fees. So please tell me why any vendor would accept a 30% fee from Apple?

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by taustin ( 171655 )

          Most brick and mortal retailers (and that's who we're talking about, when we're talking about "tap to pay" stuff) have a net profit margin of less than 5%. They literally can't pay 30% fees and stay in business even if they were willing.

    • Give it a few months I guess.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dohzer ( 867770 )

      As with all Apple products, you can receive things like money, photos, music, etc, but they sure as hell aren't going to make it easy to transfer them off of the device.

  • All I ever see are signs by annoyed merchants saying they don't accept it some angry, some apologetic. I guess at least people are asking? Good luck, Apple. This is a tough nut to crack.

    • Re:Signs say: "No, we do not take Apple Pay" all o (Score:4)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2022 @11:30AM (#62249707)

      All I ever see are signs by annoyed merchants saying they don't accept it

      You do realize the entire point of the article is about iPhones accepting, not submitting, payments, right?

      So this would make it even easier to accept Apple Pay than it was before, I guess you will being "seeing" a lot fewer of those signs than you had been before.

      Unless the "signs" were all in your head of course, then I guess the frequency might increase.

      • it makes payment to merchants easier. Consider gun shows, craft markets, and other places where the merchant is an individual vendor. It's basically pushing for China's easy of payment while also being a lock in. It will push vendors at these kind of things to buy iPhones. It's meh at best... bust restaurants or other establishments will feel no increased desire to use this...

      • though I'm so rarely in those shops that it kind of stands out when I see it.

        The trouble with a lot of these services is that they require really new hardware to work properly. Not the phones, but the terminal at the business.

        But that doesn't stop businesses from trying to get it working on their 10+ year old terminals. At that point it's like trying to load Windows 11 on a Pentium 4 with 4 gigs of ram. Yes, with enough hacking it'll install, but it's going to break and it's going to be *slow*.

        T

        • Aldi, Dollar Tree, Five Below, Target, Walgreens, and Publix (it's a grocery chain in the south) all accept Apple Pay. That's not "high end" by any stretch of the imagination. Walmart doesn't, but that's mostly because they're pushing their own form of contactless payment through their app.

        • A 10+ year old terminal is not even going to have a chip reader. They're at huge risk just taking mag stripe payments - the cost of the terminal is nothing compared to the liability shift deadline.

        • This makes no sense.

          For small businesses, the payment processors GIVE you the hardware for free for agreeing to use their service. Give, as in I OWN the hardware, not lease. I do not have to give it back when I switch to a new provider. I do not pay a monthly fee for rental. They eat the cost as a new customer acquisition cost.

          Back in the day, I purchased a terminal with built-in cellular for use at pop-up events. That was not free, I had to buy it outright -for several hundred dollars. But simple car

    • I’ve seen plenty of issues with Square’s readers, especially outside in the sun but every merchant I have talked to loves the contactless payments (even if their gear is a bit more of a challenge).

      For me, being able to pay from my watch is a huge advantage, especially if I am out on a bike ride or walking home from a swim. I try to not bring anything with me that I don’t absolutely need much of the time, and the wallet is one more thing.

    • Re:Signs say: "No, we do not take Apple Pay" all o (Score:5, Informative)

      by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Tuesday February 08, 2022 @11:58AM (#62249803) Homepage

      All I ever see are signs by annoyed merchants saying they don't accept it some angry, some apologetic.

      "Apple Pay" is just the phone pretending to be a NFC credit card. I've discovered quite a few merchants who thought they didn't have "Apple Pay" because they didn't understand that their new chip card reader's NFC feature is compatible. Most merchants that can't accept Apple Pay are still using older credit card readers, which are going to have to be replaced anyway, as magnetic stripes are finally starting to be phased out (Mastercard is starting in 2024).

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by taustin ( 171655 )

        And many merchants don't realize that Apple Pay is already included in their merchant account (and it nearly always is), even if they realize the hardware can handle it.

        • is already included in their merchant account (and it nearly always is)

          Their merchant account doesn't even need to know. It's literally just presented as a contactless chip card.

      • Yeah there are several merchants around here where I happened to see the NFC "tap now" image show up on their POS device - I pointed this out and they said "Oh! I didn't know we could do that".

        Of the local businesses I frequent, I can only think of two that don't accept NFC payments - one of which is Winco, and they don't even accept credit cards. I have mentioned to them that NFC payments are compatible with debit cards... maybe someday, if they ever update their POS systems, they'll enable NFC.

    • Really? With the adoption of chip cards, most of the new terminals seem to have tap to pay. It doesn't matter if it's a physical card, Samsung Pay, Google Pay, or Apple Pay - it all works the same. I find very few places that don't have wireless-enabled terminals. Some of these stores probably just don't know where the NFC tap zone is. The rest are probably still using mag stripe readers at their own risk.

    • Really? I doubt that.

      I am a merchant. I own a small retail business in a tourist area. My credit card processor sent us stickers that say "Tap to pay Preferred" and have an Apple logo and a Visa logo on them. We put one on the front door, and one by the credit card terminal at the register.

      It is good business to take payment from customers in whatever manner lubricates the transaction the most. It doesn't cost me any more to have the customer use Apple pay than to use their Visa. I just want them to g

  • This seems like the kind of thing Android would have gotten around to first, but I can't find any info on Android phones hosting tap to pay apps... It seems like either iPhones or Android devices should be able to support cross device purchase as well.

    The article does't mention it but anyone using an app that accepts "tap to pay" should also work with Android devices, as it would with any other payment terminal - right?

    • Obviously you will need a phone with NFC support.

      google search: "android tap to pay"

      -Its the first result. Don't say you tried when you obviously did in fact, not.
      • Oh hosting a payment, haha sorry, I didn't read.

        I never think of these things from the seller's perspective, I am just a lame consumer.

        • Oh hosting a payment, haha sorry, I didn't read.

          In fairness to your post I was asking both ways though, like you said it seems like any NFC enabled Android phone should be able to pay an iPhone with Tap To Pay set to accept payments, it's just the article made it sound like an iPhone only thing. But if both have NFC is should be technically possible.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tx ( 96709 )

        We're talking about *receiving* payments with your phone. Google Pay app is for making payments.

    • On Android it's pretty simple as Google Pay just makes a virtual Mastercard (or possibly some other card from the popular suspects, like Visa, depending on the region or luck, I don't know how exclusive is the deal) so there's no issue with accepting it for any PoS that takes Mastercard (wirelessly). Conversely if you want to accept regular credit card payments there are enough apps to do it, like for example https://www.mypos.eu/en/glass [mypos.eu] .

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LubosD ( 909058 )

      Actually, there are such apps for Android already here in Europe. There's one from Global Payments and then there's REVO SoftPos. Maybe there's more.

    • Look at China. Tap to pay using NFC is small fry. China has been using payment via Android and IPhone both for multiple years. This can be a QR code where price is entered or one with cost affixed, Assumably like this. The attempt here is vendor lock in... meh capitalism.

    • This seems like the kind of thing Android would have gotten around to first, but I can't find any info on Android phones hosting tap to pay apps.

      Android and iOS already support tap-to-pay by means of a Bluetooth reader accessory. PayPal had (or might still have) a promo where you could get one for free when opening a business account.

      I guess the news here is that you wouldn't need the accessory to process an NFC transaction, but for businesses it makes little difference. You still need the ability to process chip cards that don't have NFC, and that requires a reader accessory.

    • This seems like the kind of thing Android would have gotten around to first, but I can't find any info on Android phones hosting tap to pay apps...

      Compliance is the issue. Typically devices which handle contactless payments need to be certified PCI-DSS compliant. That's easy if you control hardware and software, and not so easy if you only control one of the two.

      Android already has such apps, and they are usually linked with some small hardware that handles the actual contactless part of it and the combination of known software + known hardware then meets the PCI-DSS compliance requirements. The most common I see here in Europe is Sumup and for $19 al

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by LubosD ( 909058 )

        Android already has such apps, and they are usually linked with some small hardware

        Not any more, there's GP Tom or REVO SoftPos. Both are software only.

      • An OS-level API that protects communication directly between the secure enclave chip and the web site is going to minimize the amount of compliance needed. Otherwise they'll have to audit every app installed on the phone. PCI compliance would then hopefully be as simple as keeping iOS up to date and if you have an EOL phone, you can't take payments on it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Android already has such apps, and they are usually linked with some small hardware that handles the actual contactless part of it and the combination of known software + known hardware then meets the PCI-DSS compliance requirements. The most common I see here in Europe is Sumup and for $19 all up for the hardware it's clear why.

        iOS has this as well, Square has supported NFC payments for a few years now. It started as a simple sound-based magstripe reader, but they went to tap support and chip support a sho

    • This was launched by Samsung in 2019 in Canada:

      https://news.samsung.com/ca/ca... [samsung.com]

      Mobeewave, the company that created the system with Samsung, was subsequently acquired by Apple and the result is what was announced today.

      • Mobeewave, the company that created the system with Samsung, was subsequently acquired by Apple and the result is what was announced today.

        Thanks, that's just the kind of deep background I was looking for! So hopefully Samsung would keep being able to use this tech also, or has something similar now?

    • Android has that. It is probabaly even build into google pay. It is a big thing in Thailand where the government is handing out about 3000TBH per month to poor citizens. And they can use that to pay with NFC from mobile to mobile, and half the bill is payed from that government grand.
      It works basically with everyone who has a Google Pay account, it is very big for small market shops.
      Works only for food though.

  • It's a great idea... but when I used to have my on-site PC service and consulting business, I had to pay $45-50 for a Square reader that did contact-less and chip card reading. I suppose it was worth the money to read the cards with chips .... but probably could have gotten by ok on contactless only, using my iPhone I always had with me already anyway.

    The Square reader is a little annoying too because you have to be sure its battery is charged up all the time to use it. And it doesn't have any kind of batte

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • And it doesn't have any kind of battery life remaining indicator on it.

      It does. You just push the power button on it. It doesn't give a lot of detail. Paired to a phone, the app will give the charge level in percentage.

      The real problem is that it's unclear how to force it to shut down without just waiting for it to go to sleep after inactivity.

  • Way to go Apple. You finally support a feature (tapping a logo to pay) on a $1000 mobile phone, that banks give offer for free, built in their debit cards. wooo-hooo..
  • Aren't there risks to giving all iphone users an easy means of taking money from cards? Surely that's easily open to abuse.

  • Unlike ARM or x86, each RISC V cpu can choose to support or not-support whatever instructions they want. This means every manufacturers RISC V cpu will be different and code written for one will not work on the other. Intel must be tired of competing with AMD and not having its own incompatible CPU.

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