Later today Samsung will unveil a slew of new devices and of course that means other manufacturers needs to make some noise as well lest the news cycle be swallowed entirely by Samsung.
Case in point, Apple has announced that a rumoured feature coming to iPhones, is definitely coming to iPhones.
That feature is Tap to Pay as in the ability to accept contactless payments with an iPhone without additional hardware.
“As more and more consumers are tapping to pay with digital wallets and credit cards, Tap to Pay on iPhone will provide businesses with a secure, private, and easy way to accept contactless payments and unlock new checkout experiences using the power, security, and convenience of iPhone,” says vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet, Jennifer Bailey.
Apple’s announcement confirming the feature appears to be very focused on the application of this tech in the US but there is no mention of the functionality coming to the rest of the world. The firm says that Stripe will be the first payment platform that accepts Tap to Pay on iPhone through the Shopify Point of Sale app. Additional payment platforms and apps will be added later this year.
The decision to launch this functionality in the US makes sense because in the US, Apple has 55.98 percent of the smartphone market share compared to Android’s 43.68 percent per data from GlobalStats. Globally those positions switch with Android holding 69.71 percent of the global smartphone operating system market while Apple holds 29.51 percent of the market share.
What we find interesting is that Apple says this tech will work with the iPhone XS and newer. As such, given the iPhone XS is nearly four years old at this stage, it doesn’t look like this feature demanded specific hardware had to be added to Apple’s handsets.
Apple also addressed privacy concerns given that tapping your card to a strangers iPhone was bound to cause concerns.
“Privacy is fundamental in the design and development across all of Apple’s payment features. With Tap to Pay on iPhone, customers’ payment data is protected by the same technology that makes Apple Pay private and secure. All transactions made using Tap to Pay on iPhone are encrypted and processed using the Secure Element, and as with Apple Pay, Apple doesn’t know what is being purchased or who is buying it,” Apple said in a statement.
This is a good piece of functionality from Apple and we suspect that more manufacturers will follow suit in caking similar solutions into their smartphones.
For now, if you’re a small business in South Africa we highly recommend you check out Yoco especially if you don’t currently support contactless payments.
