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Comment by coreymgilmore | Hacker News Reader

I have two thoughts on Apple Pay:

1) Android has had cardless payment for 2+ years now via Google Wallet. That being said, Japan has had similar technology for way longer. While the marketing machine that is Apple made sure to let everyone know how magical/revolutionary/awesome/brilliant this form of payment it, Apple is late to the game. Similarly, other products such as Softcard/ISIS exist too from non-smartphone companies. Thanks Apple for finally catching up.

2) Apply Pay will, however, finally give cardless payment the push it needs. Apple has the market power to get retailers to start (read: more than rarely) embrace this technology (for example: Passbook & tickets). That I can fully support Apple for as the iPhone is the single best selling phone and will get NFC into the hands of millions very, very quickly. And with the volume of devices + Apple's marketing of Apple Pay = great news for payment.

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Google's implementation is carrier vetoable, since it's on the SIM.

Additionally, Google's implementation requires the transaction transit their infrastructure, Apple's does not. They don't even know the transaction occurred.

Yes, they're not technically first, but the two systems are not identical.

Personally, the less a large corporation knows about me, the better.

I don't think your first thought is relevant for all of this.

It has been quite clear for quite some time that mobile payments was not a technology problem but a policy problem. The technology was not just ready for it with the release of the Nexus S - it was ready for it for years before that! The problem was getting people to actually use it. Since most vendors were trying to use mobile payments for their own short-term gain, things were going nowhere.

Apple has not "caught up" in that sense at all since they weren't behind in any meaningful way. There was no important reason for smartphones to have NFC as there did not exist many use cases for it without payments. Although I had high expectations of NFC when I bought my current Nexus phone two years ago, things simply never got off the ground in that area.

The contribution that Apple Pay makes to the market is quite unique if you look beyond technical merit. It provides an intuitive user interface for anyone's payment product for use in mobile phones. It isn't tied to your prepaid Google Wallet card, it isn't tied to your SIM card, and it isn't tied to propietary point of sale hardware. Furthermore, it is being pushed

I'd argue that Apple is the only one with the required leverage to push something like this into a market obsessed with conservatism and self interests. They have the power to convince shops and banks to cooperate with it, moreso than Google. Moreover, because they have their own hardware, it is easier for them to integrate a secure element and a user-friendly authorization method (the fingerprint scanner) to have an integrated solution.

It's not as if Apple has reinvented the wheel or anything, and I hope nobody is claiming that. But their execution of this idea seems very good. And it is the execution of the idea, your second point, that is the important part here. I hope that Google can fight off its own and carrier interests, and follow suit with a similar application. Many Android phones already possess all required hardware.

As mentioned in the article, Apple is taking advantage of required changes in POS systems to help make this push.

The latter part of the story notes that retailers are being forced to upgrade anyway by VISA etc (anti-fraud measure). Apple is riding a bigger push.

And because they aren't trying to be a payments company, VISA etc aren't threatened and therefore will cooperate or even favour Apple. Apple is just a POS machine manufacturer.

As I understand it apple pay works with the standard NFC payment tech that visa paywave/etc use, so apple isn't providing pos machines at all?

Regarding the "Google did it first" part - the devil is in the details. ApplePay will provide secure card less transactions while maintaining customer privacy - apple won't know (and don't care based on comments from eddie cue was it) what you are buying or from who.

With google wallet the worlds biggest information gathering ad delivery company gets a complete record of what you buy, when, from who, for how much, how often etc.

I know a lot of the tech industry treats google like some kind of benevolent uncle who can do no wrong and has nothing but good intentions, but for some people privacy still carries value.

Given that google wallet only works in the USA 3 years after it's launch, I don't really think its anywhere near to a competing service in the grand scheme of things.

Considering the dearth of retailers that actually support NFC checkout of any flavor, Google is getting a mere thread of the sweater that is anyone's purchase stream.

I get that it would be different if/when we standardize on it across the board. But I don't see that happening soon, either.

> Considering the dearth of retailers that actually support NFC checkout of any flavor

Google's "solution" to this is Google Wallet Card, which is a physical MasterCard Debit Card. How popular this is I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if people who willingly hand over their transaction history to Google would also think its rational to use a google supplied card instead of their own card sitting right next to it in their wallet.

However, it's also not quite the wild-west of implementations that you imagine.

All the major credit card systems for contactless payments, are an implementation of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_14443 - of which NFC is also a compatible implementation.

Australia (and I suspect Europe) has had Visa PayWave/MC PayPass for a number of years - PayWave/PayPass POS terminals are very common in shops.

That the POS systems are not common in the US right now is no different to GSM not being common in the US when the iPhone was launched. America just seems to be particularly bad at implementing broad community affecting changes - and extremely bad at anything to do with banks it seems - like this, until they're dragged kicking and screaming into it.

I suspect that once Apple starts organising the B2B arrangements (i.e. dealing with banks) the rollout of ApplePay in the rest of the world - particularly "1st world" countries - will be phenomenally quick compared to in the US.

>America just seems to be particularly bad at implementing broad community affecting changes - and extremely bad at anything to do with banks it seems - like this, until they're dragged kicking and screaming into it.

Eh, I think there are a couple of things at work here.

First, I'm still not convinced there's a really compelling advantage to contactless payments from a convenience perspective. I still have to pull a physical token out of my pocket, and given I only use a couple of cards regularly, I don't really care if that token is a card or a phone.

Next, when you start talking anti-fraud, I think there's a reason that the push for that had to come from the payment processors.

From a consumer perspective, there's absolutely no good reason to care. Credit card fraud liability is one area where the US has incredibly strong consumer protection laws. If my credit card information gets stolen ala the Target breach, I'm not legally liable for any charges resulting from it. The most painful thing I have to worry about is disputing the charge and getting a new card issue. That's not a big enough deal to generate consumer demand for more secure payments.

Merchants have a bit more reason to care since they're usually the ones that get stuck with fraudulent charges, but it becomes a matter of whether occasional fraud is more expensive for them than upgrading all their POS equipment. The answer from Wal-Mart and Best Buy appears to be "no," and I know it's a pretty common sentiment among small business owners who often hate any spending associated their merchant accounts.

So that really leaves the processors as the ones who stand the most to gain from this. I don't see why it's surprising that the push had to come from the supply side as a result.

Convenience is a huge driver for consumers, when it's available to them.

That's kind of what I'm saying, though. I don't see the convenience value, personally.

I found paywave a great improvement over the previous "best" which was sig/pin less payments (under $50 or $20 from memory) which in turn was better than pin, which in turn is better than signature. Better in terms of how quickly and easily I can pay for something.

My phone is going to be a lot quicker to grab than my credit card, and this way it has better security.

As much as you say consumers don't care about security I still think some people will use this where they wouldn't use plain paywave because it's more secure.

I'm not sure on the details on Apple Pay, but the Google Wallet app is a US only product.

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