In the US, there are any number of situations where you hand someone your credit card and it disappears from view. A drive through at McDonald’s is a perfect example. You drive up to the pay window, hand the cashier your card, it disappears from view, then comes back to you with a receipt. If you go to a higher end restaurant, you’ll get the check, lay your credit card on top, and watch your card disappear to be processed.
Apple Pay is changing that game. Now, when you roll up to the drive through, the cashier will hand you the portable NFC reader, you’ll tap your phone or Apple Watch, hear the confirmation beep, then hand it back. No credit card, no signing, no pin code.
Get ready for the next Apple headlines as people start dropping their iPhones out the car window to pay for Big Macs. (No the 17 inch isn’t coming back). The first serious injury as somebody opens the door to pick up their dropped phone at a drive-thru when the car isn’t in park and it’s all we’ll hear about.
About F_cking Time.
Just for the record, I live in Montreal, and we do this all the time. It’s called Visa PayPass or MasterCard PayWave. No pin, just tap your card. Nothing leaves your view. You drive up to the take-out booth, tap your card to the reader you are handed, take your food and drive off.
“Apple is changing the game.” my ass. I even saw this in Greece this summer, at a gas station on the main Athens highway.
“Now, when you roll up to the drive through, the cashier will hand you the portable NFC reader, you’ll tap your phone or Apple Watch, hear the confirmation beep, then hand it back. “
I think the idea is the NFC reader comes to you, not the other way around.
It does but I believe the two devices will meet in nuetral territory. The Sweden of NFC will be between windows and over tar.
Servers bringing a wireless terminal to the table is standard in EMV countries.
And can you do this all with your phone? What happens if you lose your credit cards?
Apple is changing the game by making sure that the actual credit card numbers remain between you and the bank. Neither Apple nor the merchant keep the credit card numbers on their servers. I can envision a time once this form of payment is more ubiquitous when the bank wont even send you a physical credit card in the mail. Just a letter with the numbers. Or may be a text to iMessage with the credit card number, which you approve and it gets added to Passbook/ApplePay.
There is a lot more going on in the back ground than what you see on the surface.
The few times I go to McD’s I usually use Interac. That is most likely the same terminal that Pay will use (as it has tap and go along the top) and that reaches comfortably into my vehicle, well past my window.
That being said, people WILL screw it up because they are idiots pull up too far from the window and then blame apple because they don’t know how to park.
Yes, I know all that… just responding to overly simplified statements in these articles. Why should all the Apple haters have all the fun?
Same here in Australia, its been a long time since I’ve seen my credit card ‘disappear to be processed’!
As lots of people have pointed out, Apple Pay isn’t solving a big problem, at least in the civilized world. However it’s what happens next that’s interesting.
The iPod didn’t solve a many problems at first and took a while to take off (almost 3 years before they sold 1 million in a quarter). But over time they replaced CD’s (little pieces of plastic) and how we bought music. This will be the same thing. You’ll apply for credit cards and loyalty programs directly from your phone. Banks will send you speciality credit/payment cards and programs directly to your phone. Because you have your phone in a store you’ll get deals automatically on items instead of coupons. And things I can’t even imagine. Eventually you won’t have little pieces of plastic and paper.
You can tap to pay with credit or even debit cards at a growing number of places in Canada. No need to own an expensive device of a particular brand. I know there are added security features to Apple Pay but as a consumer I’ve never felt that my transactions were insecure. It seems to be solving a problem very few people in most modern countries actually have.
You damn right I love my Southwest Salad and two McDoubles.