Apple Pay now available in more stores than ever

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Apple in talks to bring Apple Pay to Israel
Apple Pay is setting the gold standard for mobile payments. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac

Apple Pay continues its march to becoming the standard mobile payment solution, adding ten new participating retail partners in the United States, to bring its total number of merchants to 68.

Major new Apple Pay adoptees include GameStop, T-Mobile Stores and the Golden State Warriors, Orlando Magic, and Phoenix Suns NBA franchises.

Check out the full list of new participating companies below.

  • Acme
  • Davis Food & Drug
  • FireHouse Subs
  • GameStop
  • Golden State Warriors
  • Luby’s
  • Orlando Magic
  • Phoenix Suns
  • Rubio’s
  • T-Mobile Stores

Launched with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus back at the end of the last year, Apple Pay quickly gained a reputation as being an NFC payments system that actually resonated with customers. Within three weeks after its launch, Apple’s mobile payment system was already representing nearly 1 percent of the total number of transactions at some retailers, such as Whole Foods.

It is also likely to get a further boost from the forthcoming Apple Watch, set to arrive on April 24.

Yesterday’s early reviews for the Apple Watch were something of a mixed back, with more positives than negatives, but still plenty of room for improvement. Apple Pay, however, was one of the most heavily-praised features. In his review for The Verge, Nilay Patel wrote that:

“Apple Pay is my favorite part of the entire Watch, a little blast from the future. Paying for coffee at The Café Grind in Manhattan involved nothing more than double-clicking the communications button on the Watch and holding my wrist over the terminal; it beeped and the payment processed instantly. Paying with the Watch is even faster than paying with an iPhone, since it doesn’t have to read your fingerprint: it’s ready to go anytime after you put it on your wrist and unlock your phone with your fingerprint. I love using Apple Pay with my phone, but it’s even better with the Watch, some mild contortions to line it up with payment terminals aside. Apple Pay remains a shining example of what Apple is able to do when it has complete control over hardware, software, and services.”

Source: Apple

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