Apple Pay rolled out in the U.K. this month, and today the service got a bit better, as Apple now supports HSBC and First Direct credit and debit cards in the country.
That brings the total supported U.K. banks and card providers to nine — including Natwest, Santander, Nationwide, RBS, Ulster Bank, HSBC, First Direct, MBNA, and American Express.
We didn’t get Apple Watch numbers, but Tim Cook and Luca Maestri delivered plenty of good news about Apple’s current financials and future prospects during Tuesday’s earnings call. Amid all the canned statements and bewildering biz speak, they dropped some tantalizing tidbits.
Cook and Maestri teased us with plenty of bullishness — and a little debunking — about impressive Apple Watch sales and consumer responses to the new device. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg: Apple hit record numbers again this quarter, with massive sales of both iPhone 6 and Macs across the globe.
Here are the highlights from today’s third-quarter 2015 Apple earnings call.
Apple Pay rolled out in the U.K. this week, letting a bunch more people start paying for snacks, clothes, and commutes with their late-model Apple gear. It’s all very neat and exciting, but our friends should get ready for some unexpected side effects of living in the high-tech future time.
For example:
Apple Pay dropped in the U.K. this week, and iPhone 6 and Apple Watch users can employ the touchless payment method to travel on a variety of public transports, including subway, London Overground, busses, and trams. But public agency Transport for London has issued an advisory to those who wish to pay for their commute with the power of living in the future:
Make sure your devices have enough juice to get you where you’re going, or it’ll cost you.
Apple Pay makes buying items quicker than ever thanks to its tap-to-pay technology that is ridiculously easy to use. But if you want to use Apple Pay to purchase gas, you still have to deal with going inside the store and making a transaction at the register rather than at the pump.
That could soon change, though, as Chevron announced today that it has started a pilot program in Northern California that lets drivers fuel up and pay for their gas with Apple Pay, right at the dispenser.
Here’s where you can find the Apple Pay pumps:
Apple Pay today makes its debut in the United Kingdom, nine months after it launched in the U.S., and it has been greeted by plenty of support from local banks. Those with a supported device can register their credit and debit cards now through the Passbook app on iOS.
If you’re a user of a local or regional credit union like I am, you’ll be excited to hear that Apple continues to add smaller financial institutions to its ever-growing list of places that will let you pay for things using your iPhone or Apple Watch.
With these 23 new additions, Apple now has 255 Apple Pay partners available to those of us who love the future of payments.
In a few years, “Sorry, I don’t have any cash on me” may no longer be a good enough excuse to give that chronically money-strapped friend when they come around asking to borrow a few bucks.
That’s because a newly released Apple patent suggests that the iPhone maker may be getting into the person-to-person payment game in future versions of its hardware.
To succeed in tech, you must be a master of innovation. No two companies understand this better than Apple and Google, which have become kings of the industry thanks to a string of incredible ideas that have shaped the technology we rely on today.
But which company is continuing to innovate in 2015? Is it Apple, with its fitness-focused Apple Watch, Apple Pay, and a new streaming service that hopes to save the music industry? Or is it Google, with Google Glass, self-driving cars, and secret robots?
Join us as we take it to a debate in this week’s Friday Night Fight between Cult of Android and Cult of Mac.
Not everybody has two-and-a-half hours to watch an Apple event. Tim Cook and crew delivered tons of updates at the kickoff for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference, and you can speed through all the news with this WWDC 2015 keynote supercut.
It’s just two-and-a-half minutes long!
Once again, Apple has shown its desire to be your go-to for everything you do in your life.
During its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote this morning, the iPhone maker talked up software updates, services and new functionalities aimed at making several of its competitors’ offerings redundant.
Here are the things Apple’s trying to take out with new stuff at WWDC 2015.
Apple spilled all the details on iOS 9 at its WWDC keynote today. The new operating system will be rolling out to iPhones and iPads this fall — here’s what you have to look forward.
About 95 percent of the coffee shops and stores I frequent in the Phoenix area use a Square reader or terminal to process payments, and virtually none of them support Apple Pay. That could soon change, though, thanks to a new contactless payments terminal from Square that will bring Apple Pay to businesses small and large this fall.
During his January conference call with investors, Tim Cook said that 2015 would be ‘the year of Apple Pay’, and while Apple’s mobile wallet has already leapfrogged rivals like Google Wallet, a new survey of the top 100 retailers in the country found that Apple Pay still faces a long uphill battle.
If a retailer asks for the last four digits of your credit card, but you’ve used Apple Pay, you might be out of luck if you use the actual digits off your plastic rectangle.
Every time you give a retailer or waiter your credit or debit card to pay for goods or services, the actual account number is there for them to steal. When you use Apple Pay, however, those numbers are hidden behind a unique “Device Account Number,” which is assigned, encrypted, and stored on a dedicated chip on your iPhone or Apple Watch. They don’t even get stored on Apple’s servers.
Finding that Device number, though, can be tricky. Here’s how.
If you’re sick of not being able to just swipe your iPhone or Apple Watch in front of a terminal at Target, here’s some welcome news: Target plans on rolling out Apple Pay terminals at the chain of mega stores soon.
In case you hadn’t noticed, Apple is pretty darn keen on making Apple Pay into the de facto mobile payments solution.
With that in mind, the company is reportedly set to announce a new Apple Pay Rewards Program at next month’s Worldwide Developers Conference, offering exclusive perks to customers who use the service, while driving people to return to participating merchants.
If you have more than one credit card, chances are you’ll want to put them all into Apple Pay so you can use any of them when the mood strikes, or your card balance dictates.
If you’ve got an Apple Watch, you’ll need to add them to the Watch via a separate process than the way you added them to the iPhone.
Once you’ve added more than one card, though, you might want to change the default Apple Pay card. Here’s how to do just that.
After confirming that its terminals aren’t currently working with Apple Pay, Home Depot has said it plans to fully support Apple’s mobile payments service after its systems have been upgraded.
An outcry from customers who found that Home Depot no longer accepts Apple Pay resulted from an upgrade to the hardware chain’s in-store payment systems.
Stephen Holmes, Home Depot’s director of corporate communications, told Cult of Mac the problem is not specific to Apple Pay. This means that nobody, including Google Wallet users, can make electronic payments right now because the company is working on its NFC terminals.
“We don’t have the capability to accept [Apple Pay] online, and our NFC is currently inactive as we upgrade our systems,” he said.
Good news, Discover credit and debit users! The company today announced that, from this fall, it will enable Apple Pay support across the United States.
This means that Discover customers with a Apple Pay-enabled iPhone or Apple Watch will have the ability to add their card to the mobile payment service — for use in all Apple Pay-accepting retailers.
Using Apple Pay on Apple Watch is ridiculously easy. Once you get everything set up, all you have to do is double-click the side button and then hold the Watch face up to a terminal. Apple’s also made it super-easy to add new cards to your Apple Watch, or create a custom Apple Pay profile just for your wrist.
Here’s how to get started with Apple Pay on your Apple Watch
Three new videos show how Apple Watch will make fitness and banking easier than ever.
The videos are part of Apple’s Guided Tour series of informational clips, which are a must-watch for anybody anxiously awaiting delivery of their Apple Watch. The latest ones show off the Activity, Workout and Apple Pay apps that will soon take up residence on the wrists of Apple smartwatch owners.
This year will reportedly mark Apple Pay’s expansion outside of the United States. The mobile payments service is on track to arrive in Canada as soon as this fall.
Tim Cook has described making Apple Pay available in China “top of the list” in terms of his priorities. Sadly, it seems he’s going to have to wait a bit longer until that dream becomes a reality.
That’s because, despite beginning conversations with China’s eight major banks last year, Apple’s discussions have apparently not gone well — as Chinese banks have been reticent about letting the Cupertino company eat into their existing profits.