Apple Pay will be integral to the iOS experience moving forward, and while both of the company’s new iPhone models are equipped with NFC to begin processing mobile payments very soon, Apple Watch will also be joining the party when the wearable line-up launches early on next year. We’ve heard much about Apple Pay already over the past 24 or so hours, and courtesy of a new hands-on video demonstration, we get to see how a typical payment at an Apple Pay-ready retailer will pan out.
The video of Apple Pay in action arrives courtesy of TechCrunch, and from what we can gather, the credit or debit card associated with your Apple ID is automatically considered default for payments. So if you were to set up Apple Pay without adding any further cards, then you’d pay for goods using the same card / account as you would for apps and other iTunes-based content.
Like a true wallet, though, you can add other cards as you see fit, and this process is managed using the device’s camera. Your camera scans cards which, once your bank has given the all-clear, are then stored via Passbook, a native feature that first appeared in the iOS repertoire two years ago. As you will see in the video run-through below, the neat carded interface does a pretty good job at replicating a traditional wallet. If you don’t wish to use your default payment card, you can readily switch through Passbook, and even though Apple Pay is hasn’t even launched yet, it does appear nicely refined and streamlined.
Of course, this may change in real-world use en masse, particularly since big new features often encounter teething issues, but based on this video and the other information teeming in, Apple Pay seems a user-friendly, convenient system for processing transactions.
Authentication runs through Touch ID, and although some considered the fingerprint sensor to be a gimmick when it first appeared with the iPhone 5s last September, it’s now clear that Apple was merely laying the foundations before offering the feature some integral functionality.
Whether Apple Pay will impose limitations on how much is spent via contactless payments is currently unknown. In the UK, where contactless card transactions are a commonplace, there’s often a limit of around £20, but given that Apple Pay is apparently more secure than traditional cards, it seems counter-productive for any kind of limitation to be put in place.
Anyway, check the video below, and we’d love to hear your comments on Apple Pay, so do share them in the comments.
(Source: TechCrunch)
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