Don't leave home without it. Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
American Express has announced that it is first major credit card company to allow corporate card holders to pay using Apple Pay.
Describing it as a way to help companies to “streamline their payments systems and simplify their processes,” the announcement means that AmEx card users can now add eligible corporate cards to Apply Pay.
Android Pay will arrive to take on Apple Pay this fall. Photo: Google
Google will finally launch Android Pay, its brand new mobile payments service, alongside a refreshed Nexus 5 from LG in October, a new report claims. The Apple Pay competitor will take advantage of Android M’s native support for fingerprint scanners.
Payment industry and retail data analysts at InfoScout and PYMNTS claim that the percentage of iPhone 6 users in the U.S. who have tried Apple Pay declined from 15 percent in March to 13.1 percent in June.
Got a hunkering for “Asian-inspired” food but left your wallet at home? If you live near a Pei Wei, ditching your credit card won’t be a problem, as the fast-casual restaurant chain will begin accepting Apple Pay at all of its 197 stores in the United States.
Approaching half of iPhone 6 users have tried Apple Pay. Photo: Wells Fargo
42 percent of iPhone 6 users in the U.S. have used Apple Pay, according to new research from analysts at the The Auriemma Consulting Group.
The same study suggests that Apple Pay is no one-off novelty either, since 84 percent of these users have used Apple Pay for more than three transactions in store, while 76 percent have used it to pay for items in-app.
Apple Pay is available in the U.K. from the following banks and credit card companies. Photo: Apple
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.
Make sure you check your battery before you use Apple Pay on the Tube. Photo: Apple
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.
Apple wants to brings iPhone payments to India. Photo: Apple
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.
Now even more of us not with major banks can use Apple Pay. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
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.
Touch ID could be a big part of Apple's supposed personal payment plan. Photo: Apple
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?
What was Tim Cook's "one more thing" at WWDC 2015? Find out in less than three minutes with Cult of Mac's keynote supercut. Photo: Apple
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.
Apple's had some bold words for its competitors today. Photo: Evan Killham/Cult of Mac
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 talked up iOS 9 at the WWDC keynote this morning. Photo: Apple
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.
Square is getting Apple Pay support. Photo: Square
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.
Is 2015 really the year of Apple Pay? Photo: Jim Merithew/Cult of Mac
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.
Apple Pay on Apple Watch. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
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.
Apple Pay is about to give you an extra reason to get on board. Photo: Wells Fargo
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.
Set your Apple Pay default credit card for your Apple Watch on your iPhone. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
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.
Reports of Home Depot blocking Apple Pay are greatly exaggerated. Photo: The Home Depot
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.
Apple Pay on Apple Watch. Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac Photo: Rob LeFebvre/Cult of Mac
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.