Apple Pay - The Way Forward for Secure and Easy Payments

Apple Pay Review: Easy to Use, but Still Hard to Find

Excerpt:

To set up Apple Pay on an iPhone 6, tap the plus sign in the included Passbook app. You only have to do this once: The app will prompt you to add one of your existing credit cards by typing in its digits or snapping a photo. Apple Pay works with most existing major credit and debit cards, which you can add to your phone in a matter of minutes. The exceptions are cards from some smaller banks, store-branded cards and corporate cards. At the store, look for an Apple Pay logo, or more likely the universal contactless payment logo—a sideways Wi-Fi symbol with a hand approaching it. Once you’re rung up, hold your iPhone near the credit-card terminal. You don’t have to tap or swipe—the connection happens over a wireless system called near-field communication, or NFC. When your iPhone gets close enough, an image of your credit cards appears on its screen, even if the phone is asleep or you’re playing “ Candy Crush Saga . ” If you’re ready to pay, lightly put your finger on the Touch ID sensor to approve it. If you want to pick a card other than your designated default card, just tap one, then do the finger scan. Nobody else’s finger will work unless you’ve registered that person’s print on your phone. (I tried.) At most stores, that’s it—you’re done. A few might ask you to sign a receipt or punch in your debit card’s PIN. In my tests, only one sales clerk got confused, and we figured it out together. Contrast that with an experience I had earlier this year with the competing PayPal app while heading to lunch with colleagues. PayPal had hired people to stand in front of the restaurant, telling people they’d get $5 off if they paid with its app. But doing that required downloading the app, remembering your PayPal password, finding the restaurant in the app then tapping to pay there. Most of my friends decided they’d rather forgo $5 than pay by phone. Google Wallet and Softcard, a joint effort of AT&T , T-Mobile and Verizon that work on some NFC-equipped Android phones, aren’t much better. Both require you to unlock your phone and type a code into an app. That¹s too many steps to be convenient.

How to Try Apple Pay Today—and Where to Use It 

Comments: I don't shop enough to need it. I'm sure that my next IPhone will be an Apple Pay enabled devices - but that is several years away.