Apple retail stores to upgrade from Windows-based EasyPay to iPod touch - Page 2

Yet, you have Apple products, and bought an iPod Touch, and was that an iPhone recently/

If this stuff is so bad, why are you using it, and tormenting the rest of us?

I kind of agree. It might be wiser to wait until February. The Apple Store nearest me is busy all the time. Black Friday would be the worst time to have teething issues.

OTOH, everything could go very smoothly and Apple will be very pleased with themselves.


While the idea is amusing, I don't see Microsoft switching to their own, used, POS products. They will be too busy trying to find out what new color shirts to buy their employees.

Out of curiosity, what is that software? And in an honest reply, was the purchase of XP worth it to you for that software in hindsight? (I've not run into any one who buys windows for that PC-only program, so I'm curious. Most I see get it so they can use MS Office, which they can get for the Mac.)

Hes not speculating. It's a JOKE.

You get jokes sometimes, don't you?

But do they have un-named red shirt guys?

Or perhaps they've tested enough to know that the throughput using a better device will actually allow them to serve more customers, faster?
This has been in development since at least April when it was first announced. I think they've had plenty of QA and load testing time.

I was in the jammed packed 5th Avenue store last summer the day Snow Leopard launched. At lunchtime! The lines were huge. I got someone to express check me out (many people don't realize Apple even has that feature) in 3 minutes with Snow Kitty in a bag and I was back in the human pneumatic tube and out the door in 5 minutes.

Everyone can come in with their bullshit over-exaggerated stories of how they waited in line for hours because of the failure rates of these devices, but honest to God, when I bought my little brother's ipod touch, me and the salesgirl had a good laugh because she had to start over a few times and she noted that her device was made by Microsoft.

It seems stupid to begin with, honestly. Just get a normal POS if they are that much trouble. In an effort to look cool and hip, they carry around these portable POS machines, but in the end they just waste people's time.

So while I think it's cool they are finally gonna take the matter into their own hands and make checkout smoother, I think it's just telling of the lengths Apple will go to try and look cutting edge to your average customer.

Honestly, if they were as bad as this article makes it sound, why on earth would Apple use them in the first place? The irony is hilarious. Bitch about Windows and MS and their crap software, but use their products in all the stores.

No, you didn't say it's late. You were just taking a shot at Apple employees.

And your right, it might not be better, but I suspect, based on past performance, that when Apple rolls something out, it usually is better. Time will tell on that one.

Not sure what blow your nose means, does not really make sense.

As I said, a simple transaction.

I'm sure you're right, it's just in my job I've been bitten by things like that so many times that I'm probably over cautious!

It's retail jargon. But sometimes I get a chuckle when I hear it, especially when the POS is a POS.


I hope that the slow roll-out is to get all the kinks worked out, demo-ed in a low traffic store, etc.


Sorry, but what? I don't think MS designed the EasyPay system. They make the OS that the hardware runs, I've not seen anything that says that they also design the physical hardware, or the user layer software. MS might not have even done the drivers.


The red shirted guy is supposed to have an unfortunate fatal event. Getting fired is getting it too easily.


I've taken credit cards on my iPhone too, but not through a special app. I log into my merchant account in Safari.


I buy the OEM version from Newegg. I'm a savvy user, malware isn't a problem for me, just some things are more irritating to do in Windows. I usually don't have computer problems, but if it's on the OS X, the solution is generally a lot quicker and less painful.

really...apple? mms problem? try that was AT&T....talk about short attention span and selective memory....DID YOU JUST FORGET THAT MMS has nothing do with APPLE? It was AT&T that screwed the pooch there. There is no blame to be shared by Apple other than AT&T knew they did not have the infrastructure in place to handle the Iphone....they still dont really....

come on, I thought you were smarter than that..Trying to rewrite history to support your lame attempts at snark are immature and intellectually dishonest....like most of your posts...

Of course, you're only one voice fortunately, Apple had the entire Apple retail workforce to listen to ... probably had slightly more influence, even if it was more quiet than you!

Lost in the techstud spam/vitriol is a simple fact.
My understanding is that this uses hardware using the dock connector, controlled by a custom app. I have no idea whether or not Apple made/wrote either of them.
What's significant is that its a reminder that we not even begun to see what's coming with dock-connected expansions.
The reason this is so important (other than deep-sixing the MS crap) is the dock-connected hardware.

It's not that they don't work. I've been checked out with one of those things a dozen times. Most of the time they work well, but often enough they don't. with complex transactions such as buying iPhones and setting the carrier side of the transaction, they often have problems. They sales associate who sold us ours said that they were causing a lot of problems, and were one reason why it took so long.

Otherwise, this is a great idea. It shortens the lines, and allows people with simple purchases to get out sooner and allow those with more complex purchases to reach the registers faster.

In London restaurants, waiters have devices for that purpose. They work well, but are very slow printing out a receipt. I didn't look to see who made them.

I've got a dock connector based audio test and measurement set. This is new, and was only possible with OS 3.

Cool. I predicted they would land before this holiday season. I was running out of time. Anyone know…

… The company who makes the CC scanner connected to the device and is it available for sale?
… If it IR or a camera for the barcode (or chosen manually)?
… Who makes the software and if it’s available on the App Store yet?

I never understood the humour of Apple using a Motorola PoS device that happens to use WinCE for the OS. Apple didn’t have a mobile OS or mobile device until well after these were in play. Apple also doesn’t make PoS devices. If this is funny then why is not funny that Apple make software for Windows and MS makes software for OS X? I just don’t get it.

Also, are the issue with the SYmbol devices from the OS, the app or the HW.

PS: Ireland might disagree that Apple’s devices will stay connected to WiFI better than the Symbol devices



Look who you are referring to. He claims their mission statement every week. You can’t expect anything close to a balanced, adult answer. How old is there mission statement from last revision? More than 20 years?

I’ve had good results and I’ve had bad results. Mostly good. Putting the OS used aside, the devices do stand out among the rest of the store.



Those devices seem troublesome enough that if the Touches work out okay in testing it will easy for Apple to have plenty of these devices to use for the rush. If they are faster that means increased sales during busy periods. They can always fall back to the Symbol devices if need be.

I agree that it's a joke. I don't think it's a very good one though, and I think it's out of place in a relatively serious article.

Got a link for info on that?

Dear all:

teckstud has been given an infraction for insulting another poster early in the thread. This took his points total to 5, resulting in an automatic ban for 3 days.

I have also deleted some later posts that attacked teckstud. Please don't bully people, even if you don't agree with the comments they make. If you don't like a comment, argue with the content of the post in a mature, robust manner; show the original poster with well-reasoned argument why they are wrong. Do not attack the poster on a personal level, even if you feel provoked.

Thanks for reading, carry on!

Ah, nice to see that crappy OS being tossed to the curb. I wish more would follow, because I fixed a BBQ’s restaurant’s pos POS server. The software on it is so lame – it requires WinXP since it can’t run on anything but IE6 in the system, yet it is a brand new server. So lame, that the sticker on the PC says Vista Business, so it was downgraded to run XP legally.

Then they have the nerve to tie the pos POS software to the PC via the name of the PC, making it impossible to reinstall the app on a clean install of Windows when it got infected. Sad too, is the fact that it can’t have any updates, nor can it run any a/v software or any firewall.

DIE MICROSOFT DIE!!!

Good for Apple! I'm glad to see them eat their own dog food in a sort of way. In other words, use iPod Touches in the workplace. That will allow them to experience what other POS clients have to face performance and ergonomically wise.

Rarely, evidence around here would suggest.

It says they're replacing the terminals with iPod based EasyPay terminals. It's still EasyPay.

If so, it allows them to use both terminals in parallel, with the same back end system. This is much more likely to work seamlessly, and gives them a choice of either terminal if there is an issue. In fact, it'll double their available terminals for a few months which might be quite useful.

That's how I understood it from reading the article. Is the implication in the article correct though, or is it just sources being lazy and calling it an EasyPay system even if it isn't any more?


But as someone suggested earlier, how do we know which part of the system tends to go wrong when one of these POS units plays up? Is it the CC reader, the bar-code scanner, the software (on the device), the OS (on the device), the device hardware (the PocketPC) or something in the backend system? If this solution is still provided by EasyPay, will it be more reliable just because it's running on an iPod Touch?

I wonder if the form factor of the touch will be an issue. I find the touch to be a bit hard to hold, and would probably really dislike holding it for hours at a time. Are there any pictures of this new device? Thinking a cradle with the scanner might add to the bulk nicely.

Indeed. I don't like Prince McLean's articles very much at all. If he'd just stick to the facts and leave his bias behind, he'd be a better writer. There's no reason he can't join in the thread discussion after presenting an unbiased article, right? Then he could joke and be sarcastic and tout Apple all he'd like, *outside* of his news articles. It's like teckstud is his editor.

You guys spend too much time hating on teckstud, too. You actually criticize him more than a poorly written article, which is unfortunate. Prince may have more errors, bias and omissions in his articles than teckstud does in his opinions.

I've used Mac's since day one and only recently using Windows Vista, XP and Ubuntu under Fusion.

Windows is safe as long as you:

1: Keep it off the net, except for updates.

2: Don't first virus scan files in OS X before sending them to Windows.

XP has to be fully updated (via OS X downloaded files) before allowing it on the net or it will be pawned in seconds.


Fusion allows you to keep "snapshots" of various OS builds (they are simply files) so you can go back to a earlier version and then update from there.

So even if something manages to get into Windows, by periodically reverting back to a early version and then updating from there keeps it clean.

Fusion also gives a free one year McAffee, which I used to run all the time but it never picks up anything. I spend more time updating it.

I use Ubuntu to surf the dark areas of the net as it's "security through obscurity" gives it a extra level of protection. Still I often revert back to the first install and auto-update from there just in case.

On top of all that, I also clone my whole boot drive at least monthly and before any major installs, on several external drives and dated.

Needless to say I've never gotten any virus, hacked or anything. My boot drive died on me one day, which I simply option booted from the clone and restored files from a backup DVD. I called Apple and they had a new drive at my door by 4pm the next day.

I simply reversed cloned and went on using my computer, no down time what so ever.


I love shocking PC users by having all four operating systems running at once, they get this sick look on their faces.

The times I've had problems with Windows, the fix was usually quite simple. The times I've had problems with Mac OS X, the fix usually included command line stuff (not as simple). Mind you, Windows has more minor problems than the number of Major problems on the mac, making it so it was really just a wash of which one was easier to maintain. The mac would perform without problems longer, but when they happen, it was usually catastrophic.

I got Win7 through student discount. I am fine spending 30 bucks on a MS product. Same for Apple. Wouldn't spend more than that though on either of their OSs.

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I guess this is why you don't see any red shirt Apple employees (at least I haven't)? Knowing how SJ likes to keep things close to Star Trek...

This is a great start for the iPhone/touch revolution. However, when are going to see a game pad that I cal drop my iPhone into that has a D Pad and a few buttons. You can only take touch and tilt so far in the game arena. This is really the next step.

I never put my XP installs on the net right off the bat. I download the updates I need, drivers and such on a more secure machine, and install the the AV and such before even hitting the net. After that I'll stay connected. Mind you, I don't go to the deeper dark places on the net (and Ubuntu, or any other "obscure" OS can't save you in some instances depending on where you go or what you are doing) so that eliminates that whole bit. My web usage is really pathetic if you look at what I do online.

On the same token, I never get the newest OS X release until 10.x.4 or better. I need to give them time to work out all the kinks. Usually there are plenty of them to work out, but by 10.x.6 and better, its running really smooth and stable.

Actually, this sounds like really poorly written POS software. Blame them first.

Beta testing new OS X builds is a real pain in the ass, we should be paid for it.

this is music to my ear lobes and I dont even work at apple anymore.

I worked at apple in the retail store (and actually knew what the hell I was talking about 100% of the time) ever since we had the very first store meeting where the managers told us we would be using these things called easy pays.

Then.. you couldn't do a thing on them. They sucked from the start. The more function they added to them, the more they sucked. Then there was easy pay upgrades with the new software when iPhone 3G was about to launch. This sucked royally. We all remember, as AI pointed out... the fiasco that was the 3G launch. It was partially due to AT&T activation overload and partially to the EasyPay crap-gate 2008. I remember being one of the employees scheduled to open the store, being there at 7am, and getting 45 minutes into the process of ringing customers only to have my easypay lock up for the 4th time. Then i looked around at all the other employees on the floor and their faces were the same. 20 minutes later after the next time zone kicked in it was dead. Nothing. Just perplexed looks on everyones faces.

This continued well over 3 weeks as customers would come in to buy phones and we had to wait hours. And don't be a customer trying to switch carriers from a single line, then add on 3 additional family plan lines. Oh no.. you'd inevitably crash the entire regions system. It was WHACK to say the very least. I remember asking my manager if I could send a "courtesy" email to Ron Johnson saying what horrendous experiences both customers and employees were having with EasyPays and she politely told me i'd probably not want to do that if I still wanted a job. (she wouldn't be the one firing me) .

This ... though I no longer call Apple Inc. my employer... is such good news to hear.

like this?
http://www.icontrolpad.com/

Vista was turning out so bad, the POS software makers decided to wait for Win7 instead.

This is the most ridiculous comment I've read in a while.

You either don't know teckstud or you don't read the forum much. I'm tempted to assume that "technohermit" is just "teckstud" and you got out a dictionary and used a grammar checker on this post so as to make it look like your a normal intelligent writer instead of the usual drivel we get from the "teckstud" personna.

It's especially unbelievable that you confabulate the bias that Prince shows with "errors," when actually, that's the real difference between the two. Both are biased, but if you actually take the time to do the fact checking you will find that Prince is technically right the majority of the time even when he's playing fast and loose with the language. "teckstud" can hardly write a legible sentence, is dead wrong on the facts 80 to 90 percent of the time, and hardly ever even presents "facts" but rather engages in character assassination, bad childish jokes etc.

I'm not going to try to defend the bias that Prince McClean shows, but he does huge amounts of research and has a very good understanding of the industry and the history of it. teckstud is just some yahoo shouting from the sidelines and saying "oh yeah?!" half the time. He has shown absolutely no knowledge at all of any of the topics on which he pronounces daily.

To be fair, it was Apples fault as they didn't add support for it until a later firmware.

Really? Then why did the rest of the world have it from the release while AT&T customer's waited months? To be fair, you're completely mistaken.