Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s other startup, the payment service Square, today announced an interesting hardware dubbed the Square Stand. The all-white stylish accessory lets merchants run their business from an iPad and requires the Square Register iPad app to process payments. The Stand shouldn’t be confused with the Business in a Box, Square’s $299 (and up) bundle that incorporates an uglier iPad stand, cash drawer and an optional receipt printer… Read More
Square’s Register, the free point of sale app, has been available on the iPhone and iPad since May 2010 and has seen a number of updates since. And with the release of Square’s all-in-one $299 iPad POS bundle in February 2012, the Register app gained prominence as the POS solution was designed from the ground up to work wirelessly with the Register app. Today, Square updated the Register software with kitchen tickets and several new ordering features to better server restaurant owners… Read More
Apple thus far has filed for a number of patents related to mobile payments, all seemingly pointing to a unified mobile payments solution dubbed iWallet. The most recent filing details a new transaction patent which goes to great lengths highlighting methods for conducting and managing financial transactions on smartphones such as the iPhone, giving hope that Apple engineers could in fact be secretly developing an on-the-go financial transactions service aimed at owners of iOS devices.
Titled “A method for conducting a financial transaction,” it focuses on Apple’s previous iWallet patent claims, with one publication suggesting that Apple could now be one step closer to launching a mobile payments solution on iOS devices, uite possibly based on NFC technology, which stands for Near-Field Communications… Read More
eBay-owned PayPal operates in 190 markets and in 25 currencies around the world and has more than 123 million active accounts.
The company has had the PayPal Here iPhone app available on the App Store since March of last year. The free software has now been released on the iPad, marking PayPal’s first tablet app ever.
Essential to merchants who prefer PayPal and want to get paid directly at the point of sale, the program works in conjunction with a free credit card reader to let you scan an item’s barcode for faster checkout, wirelessly connect to a cash drawer and printer, track sales activity and more… Read More
If you’re a heavy PayPal user, good news: the company last Friday at SXSW 2013 announced a software development kit for Apple’s registered iOS developers to integrate PayPal’s mobile payment solutions into their apps for iPhones, iPods and iPads. As a result, those developers who choose to implement the new PayPal SDK will be able to provide a PayPal button for frictionless payments. And if a user wishes to use her or his credit card, they will be able to scan it in-app to make the payment… Read More
Samsung on Wednesday unveiled its own mobile payment solution called Samsung Wallet that looks quite a lot like Apple’s Passbook app which is part of iOS 6. Just like Apple’s Passbook, Samsung’s Wallet too lets you manage your coupons, boarding passes, various tickets and loyalty cards all in a single app and redeem these at a point of sale by showing the digital barcode to a clerk.
Again, just like Passbook, Samsung’s solution supports real-time notifications when, for example, event details change or your flight gets rescheduled. Even the Samsung app’s icon resembles the look and feel of the Passbook icon… Read More
If you run a small business such as a grocery store or otherwise deal with cash and credit card payments, you absolutely must have at least a cash register and one or more credit card terminals to process payments. Lucky for you Square has an interesting all-in-one solution that contains everything you need to make a jump into the 21st century.
A missing link in Square’s mobile payment offering, the Business in a Box comes with an iPad stand, cash drawer and an optional receipt printer. It all works wirelessly with Square Register, is fully customizable and prices start at $299. Almost makes me wanna start a business just so I could pose behind such a sophisticated point of sale. An inspirational promo video is after the break.. Read More
The iPhone may not have near field communications installed, but that’s not stopping companies from trying to integrate the tech. US Bank proves that yet again today by unveiling its new NFC-enabled iPhone case.
The case is a major part of the bank’s new Go Mobile payment service, which will allow US Bank customers to pay for goods and services from their checking, savings or credit accounts using an NFC-compatible device… Read More
Google Wallet, a mobile payment system from the search giant, has gained little traction over the past 18 months since its inception, mostly due to limited merchant and carrier support in the U.S. To solve this, Google is rumored to be on the verge of launching a physical card that will work in conjunction with the Wallet service to replace all plastic in your pocket.
The move should help the Wallet service pick up steam and might even establish the search monster as one of the biggest players in the mobile payment industry. Indeed, one card to rule them all with the elite Google Wallet physical card… Read More
Want a quick and easy way to access recent purchases and account balances made with your American Express card? If you’re running iOS 6, then you can now do so with Passbook.
First of all, just to clear up any misconceptions, you can’t actually purchase goods via Amex using Passbook — that functionality doesn’t yet exist. What you can do, though, is sync your Amex card with Passbook to access the convenient features mentioned above — balances, recent transactions, and the like.
As someone who uses Amex exclusively for almost every purchase, large and small, I’ve been anxious to try out Amex’s Passbook offering ever since it was first announced that they were on board. Here’s what I found…
In another sign that the industry has high expectations for mobile payments, four major carriers in the United States along with Google and a bunch of other players have struck a mobile payments alliance called Mobile Payments Committee.
The initial members include carriers AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and T-Mobile USA, but also Google, Isis, VeriFone and PayPal, in addition to financial institutions Wells Fargo and Capital One plus credit card giants American Express, Discover, MasterCard and Visa.
Apple is conspicuously absent from the list, as is mobile payment startup Square, which last week announced an interesting partnership with Starbucks. The iPhone maker, of course, is believed to be putting NFC circuitry inside the next iPhone and just recently acquired NFC and smart sensors maker AuthenTec for $356 million… Read More
Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey last evening announced an interesting partnership with Starbucks, an international coffeehouse chain, that will allow coffee lovers to pay for their lattes via Square’s iOS and Android app, as well as its merchant software and the iPhone credit card reader dongle.
Micro-payments will be initially accepted at nearly 7,000 Starbucks locations in the United States. Furthermore, Starbucks will invest millions in Square as part of the company’s Series D financing round. Not bad for a little more than two-year-old mobile payment startup… Read More
There have been a few rumors bouncing around the Apple community for the last two years that just won’t die out. Among them is the iPhone-embedded, iTunes-based mobile payment system. Pundits believe that Apple, and its 400 million iTunes accounts, has the ability to kickstart the struggling mobile payment industry.
Apple itself added fuel to the fire last month when it unveiled its new Passbook application. It acts like a digital wallet of sorts, allowing users to store event tickets, gift cards, and even creditcards on their iOS devices. But it’s still not the end-all mobile payment solution we were all expecting. At least not yet anyway… Read More
Looking back at it, there was no shortage of announcements during Apple’s WWDC keynote on Monday. An all-new MacBook model, major updates to its desktop and mobile operating systems, and a new Maps app — not bad for an afternoon.
But amongst all of the oohs and ahhs of the new products and updates, there was one particular announcement that sort of flew under the radar. According to Apple, it now has more than 400 million active credit card-linked iTunes accounts… Read More
Yeah, I know analysts promised us flying cars many times before, but bear with me for a second. In addition to opining that the time is not right for an Apple-branded television set until 2014 due to dire economic conditions, the same credible analyst also advised clients that a mobile payment platform from Apple is to be expected.
He calls it iPay and guesstimates it’ll work with NFC technology believed to be in the cards for an upcoming iPad and iPhone hardware refresh… Read More
NFC (near field communications) technology has been a rumored “upcoming” iPhone feature for quite some time now. It was supposed to turn up in last year’s model (obviously it didn’t). And of course it’s expected in this year’s release.
What’s the big deal? Well NFC is the backbone of many mobile payment systems. And everyone is waiting for Apple to enter that space. But why wait for NFC, when you can pay wirelessly with your iPhone right now using Square? Read More
In the months leading up to Apple’s Fall iPhone announcement last year, we heard dozens of rumors that never materialized. Obviously the big one was that the handset was going to feature a major hardware redesign, but there were others.
NFC (Near Field Communications) compatibility is another rumor that never panned out. The iPhone 4S launched without any sign of NFC chipsets. But that doesn’t mean that the next iPhone won’t feature the technology… Read More
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re big fans of Kickstarter here at iDB. And it seems that Kickstarter project creators like us, too. Apparently, thanks to iDB, a few thousand dollars have been raised for various Kickstarter projects, and we’re pretty proud of that.
Today, we sit down with Keith White and talk to him about Trak, a mobile credit card reader for iPhone and iPad he intends to launch with a little help from Kickstarter. Read More
Mobile payment solution Square has issued a big update for its Card Case iPhone app that takes advantage of the location-awareness features in iOS 5. Users can enable the geofencing feature in iOS 5 to make hands-free payments when 100 meters or closer to a store that supports Square.
This new feature allows you to basically start a tab somewhere, like a local coffee shop, and pay by telling a worker your name. Your Square ID automatically shows up on the merchant’s iPad or iPhone Square app, and your purchase is charged to your account. Read More
Google has finally unveiled its public service for mobile payments called Google Wallet. The NFC-based technology will initially work with select Android devices and participating merchants to give customers the ability to pay with their smartphones.
Short of a South Korean carrier offering an NFC-equipped iPhone case to customers, mobile payment technology has yet to make its name known on the iOS platform. Apple is expected to unveil an iPhone with an embedded NFC chip next year… Read More
