Listening to the same old songs and commercials being played on the radio stations we often listen to in our cars just won’t cut it anymore. Many of us love technology and wish there was more offered for our vehicles, but without the hassle of connecting wires and using tools. We enjoy uploading songs to our iPhones and other Apple devices, but usually can only play them with an mp3 connecting while driving in our cars.
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Mobile:
Mobile Payments: What Does the Future Hold?
Mobile payments are tipped by many analysts to cause major disruption in how we pay for goods. In fact, we’re already seeing a steadily growing increase in the volumes of mobile ecommerce with eBay disclosing that the gross merchandise volume from mobile hit $4 billion in 2011, doubling 2010’s total. That’s a very healthy growth rate, especially for an incumbent like eBay. And it’s not just eBay who are printing money. Square, Jack Dorsey’s latest start up, is growing like a weed.
Even with strong growth, the mobile payments industry is still in its infancy. It points the way to the future of payments, but what will actually be the future or not it still up for debate. Who Are the Players? Go to any of the app stores and you’ll find that there’s a choice of mobile payment providers, but Square is undoubtedly killing it right now. It requires a very quick and easy setup that should pose few problems, even for the least technologically initiated – install their app on your phone (iOS, Android) and plug in the reader. It’s this simplicity that attracted 800,000 merchants, equivalent to 10% of Visa and MasterCard’s clientele in the USA, and sees Square processing $2 billion of transactions per year. All this, and not even three years have passed since the company was founded. Clearly Dorsey was on to something. It is worth noting that as of now, Square’s availability is limited to the United States only. A cursory inspection of their support website hints at international expansion, but reveals that “there is no specific timeline for international availability.”
Of course, in any discussion on the future of mobile payments it would be remiss of us not to mention Google Wallet. Unlike Square, Google’s play is aimed at consumers and relies on merchants (shops, restaurants, etc.) to install an updated NFC-enabled terminal capable of reading the NFC signal from your mobile phone. A lot has been made of NFC. There has been a somewhat limited international adoption of NFC technology among banks to bring the credit card into the 21st Century, but there is no consensus on the technology as yet. In the UK, Barclaycard pioneered NFC and others are following suit. Meanwhile, contactless credit cards have also been in use throughout Australia, the United States and various European countries. But I have digressed enough – back to Google Wallet. Consumers can set up a virtual version of their credit card, currently limited to Citi MasterCards, on the app and then choose a card to pay with at checkout. Data is stored securely on the phone, requiring the user to enter a PIN to gain access to the app. It’s early days for Google Wallet, having just launched a matter of months ago, and it’s success seems inextricably linked to the successful rollout of NFC-enabled payment terminals. Consumers will obviously be wary of relying exclusively on a service that’s only available at a small clique of stores on the cutting edge. It’s not all about Square and Google though. Mobile payments, like so many infantile markets, is dynamic to say the least and there is, after all, money to be made in money. PayPal, the venerable payment provider of choice for so many of the web’s small businesses, is also getting in on the game. Clearly, like much of the technology industry, PayPal sees its future tied to mobile. Unlike Square, PayPal’s mobile payment solution differs in that merchants can’t physically swipe a customer’s card to take payment. Even so, they were reportedly processing $10 million per day in total via mobile apps by mid 2011, a marked increase from the $6 million per day they were doing in March 2011. Again, this indicates growing consumer and business adoption of the concept of paying with their mobile phone.
The elephant in the room is, of course, Apple. Many analysts had predicted that the latest iteration of the iPhone, the iPhone 4S, would signal their entrance into the payments business. It didn’t. But that doesn’t mean Apple aren’t interested in a slice of this huge market. In fact Apple tend to disrupt and define new consumer expectations with innovative products only after it’s clear that there is demand. The iPhone wasn’t the first ever smart phone, just as the iPad wasn’t the first tablet. It would be typical of Apple to wait until the market has matured before making their entrance. In the latest iPhone they elected not to go with 4G. Why? Because the mobile networks did not have the infrastructure in place to facilitate a satisfactorily high quality user experience, and the current generation of 4G chips were so energy hungry that battery life would be compromised. If you apply the same logic to payments, and assume that Apple’s approach would be similar to that of Google Wallet, then they won’t launch until there is adequate infrastructure in place. At WWDC 12 Apple announced Passbook. Right now it’s just an easy way to store your rewards program memberships, boarding passes and coupons, but it’s not hard to imagine where they’re going with this in the future. You can bet that when Apple make their play, it will have been worth the wait – for their users and shareholders.
The payments industry is being disrupted from multiple angles. Fundamental change is on the way, but how it will be delivered is anybody’s guess. Square’s app-and-reader model is great for small businesses, particularly mobile service businesses who don’t have the luxury of a fixed line and credit card terminal. I can’t see it going away any time soon. There is massive growth on the horizon for Square, simply because it means so many small businesses can now take a form of payment that was previously out of reach. It seems to me that PayPal’s mobile strategy is two pronged: mobile apps and their PayPal Here reader (which is basically a clone of Square’s hardware. PayPal are trying to break into retail stores and get better integration, but it’s slow going. This looks more likely to secure that company’s place in the future, but will it radically change how consumers and businesses buy and sell? No, I don’t think it will. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking here. That doesn’t mean it won’t be a success – it will be. It already is to an extent. As smart phones become more prevalent, more of PayPal’s users will naturally gravitate towards accessing PayPal’s services using an app. I just can’t see it altering the landscape beyond that. Square, on the other hand, seems much more focussed. At least for US-based micro-sized and small businesses, Square could prove hard to beat with their almost ‘Jobsian’ model. But what of consumer payments?
When it comes to consumer payments, I’d bet that contactless solutions will come up trumps, be that integrated into a phone or card. It gives the consumer choice. And consumers love choice. Its Achilles heel, however, is in the adoption of that technology by merchants. If consumers can’t actually use it, then it’ll never reach a tipping point. There is another impediment. The value of goods purchased using an NFC solution is typically limited, often in the region of $100 maximum. If this technology is ever to take off, then this needs to be addressed. Of course, there are benefits to such a limit. The problem is that so many transactions are over the limit, forcing users to pay with some other means. In Conclusion Mobile payments have shown strong growth over the last year. Take a look at how much growth there is to come in the smart phone market and it’s clear to see that many records remain to be set – whoever can claim the mobile payment throne stands to make a fortune.
Thanks to Andy Boyd with his help contributing to the article. Andy is the co-founder of CreditCardCompare, one of the top independent credit card comparison websites in Australia.
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Apps:
iPhone: NY Times 2012 Election App
It is in full swing, the great debate and the race is on for the presidential election of 2012 and voting time is just around the corner! Thanks to our friends at the New York Times because they have just made your voting life a little more tolerable. With all the different media outlets we tend to get bombarded with so much presidential information. Get excited iPhones owners; you will be able to keep up with every aspect of the race in a more simple way.
Electronics:
From ROKR to iPhone 5: The Apple Path to Smartphone Domination
Most believe that Apple’s road to taking over mobile was a smooth one. They may not recall the first attempt to combine an iPod and a phone: the Motorola ROKR. The reason you may not recall the ROKR is that it failed miserably when it was released in 2005.
General:
Latest iPhone Apps for Scientists
There are millions of applications for your favorite iPhone gadget related to every field of your interest. It will not go in exaggeration that this company, Apple has really brought some great features, programs and applications that have been designed, especially for the scientists and inventors.
Devices:
The True Cost of an iPhone
The ever-popular mobile device (we don’t call them “phones” anymore as that only represents a minor portion of how they’re used) has always been associated with the type of lifestyle that many people crave without having the type of outrageous expense that normally comes with such luxuries. What are the real costs?
This amazing interactive graphic is in a frame for a reason. As you scroll down, you’ll understand why.
+JD Rucker is Founder of Hasai, Inc, a Social Media Firm, Director of New Media for KPA, an Automotive SEO firm that purchased Hasai, and Editor at Soshable, a Social Media Marketing Blog. Find him on Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.
Apps:
Facebook’s iPhone App Is Getting Abused. Now Where’s My iPad App?
Facebook’s release 3-weeks ago of the latest version of their iPhone app has been met with something that can only be described as a “less than enthusiastic” response. Despite being hugely popular over the years and claiming nearly 90 million downloads (about half of the total number of devices that are capable of downloading Apple apps), this version was a lemon.
The social networking giant has responded with emergency fixes that they are planning on releasing today, but as of this article the new version is still not available. That’s fine. My only question: will we see a Facebook iPad app before or after we see the iPad 3?
Apps:
iPhone Apps For Thanksgiving
Whether you are cooking the whole meal yourself or traveling to the dinner table “there is an app for that”. Thanksgiving can be extremely fun or extremely stressful, so to make sure you have more fun than stress, check out these 5 iPhone Apps that should make this holiday season much easier for you.
1. CHOW – This app literally takes you step by step through the entire Thanksgiving week. From recipes of Thanksgiving favorites, to a grocery list of everything to need, to a time line of your cooking schedule on the big day. It might even eat the meal for you, we are still waiting to hear back about that.
2. iFeast – Similar to CHOW in that it has recipes and suggestions and also a very detailed minute by minute plan for your turkey day. What separates this app from the other is it also has plans for Christmas dinner as well as just fancy dinners in general, so this is an app that will come in handy for all of your holiday parties.














