Discover in talks to join Apple Pay, Swift goes GM at version 1.0
Apple might soon have all four major U.S. card issuers on board with its new Apple Pay service, as Discover confirmed on Tuesday that the firm is in talks to sign on. Meanwhile, Apple's new Swift programming language has hit version 1.0 as iOS 8 and OS X Yosemite near release.
"We are in discussions with Apple to add Discover cards to Apple Pay in the future," a Discover representative told a customer on Twitter. No timetable was given as part of the 129-character missive.
Discover is the fourth-largest card issuer in the U.S., and is tied with rival American Express as the most customer-friendly issuer in the nation. Like American Express, Discover has relatively few bank partnerships, thanks in large part to exclusionary clauses in contracts that banks signed with dominant players Visa and Master Card. Those policies were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2004.
Apple will roll out Apple Pay, its new NFC-based mobile payment service, to U.S. customers in October. The service was announced alongside the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch and will allow owners of those devices to pay with their stored credit and debit cards at brick-and-mortar retail establishments with a simple tap. Developers are also able to integrate Apple Pay into apps and websites.
Going unnoticed during Tuesday's event was the release of Swift version 1.0, which the Swift team said represents the Golden Master release -- or the version they intend to ship in production --?for iOS. Swift for OS X will hit GM as the release of OS X Yosemite draws closer.
"You'll notice we're using the word 'GM,' not 'final,'" the Swift team wrote on their official development blog. "That's because Swift will continue to advance with new features, improved performance, and refined syntax. In fact, you can expect a few improvements to come in Xcode 6.1 in time for the Yosemite launch."
Swift was announced at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June of this year. The new language can be used to compile apps for iOS 7, iOS 8, OS X Mavericks, and OS X Yosemite and is slated as a long-term replacement for Apple's Objective-C.
"We are in discussions with Apple to add Discover cards to Apple Pay in the future," a Discover representative told a customer on Twitter. No timetable was given as part of the 129-character missive.
Discover is the fourth-largest card issuer in the U.S., and is tied with rival American Express as the most customer-friendly issuer in the nation. Like American Express, Discover has relatively few bank partnerships, thanks in large part to exclusionary clauses in contracts that banks signed with dominant players Visa and Master Card. Those policies were overturned by the Supreme Court in 2004.
Apple will roll out Apple Pay, its new NFC-based mobile payment service, to U.S. customers in October. The service was announced alongside the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, and Apple Watch and will allow owners of those devices to pay with their stored credit and debit cards at brick-and-mortar retail establishments with a simple tap. Developers are also able to integrate Apple Pay into apps and websites.
Going unnoticed during Tuesday's event was the release of Swift version 1.0, which the Swift team said represents the Golden Master release -- or the version they intend to ship in production --?for iOS. Swift for OS X will hit GM as the release of OS X Yosemite draws closer.
"You'll notice we're using the word 'GM,' not 'final,'" the Swift team wrote on their official development blog. "That's because Swift will continue to advance with new features, improved performance, and refined syntax. In fact, you can expect a few improvements to come in Xcode 6.1 in time for the Yosemite launch."
Swift was announced at Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June of this year. The new language can be used to compile apps for iOS 7, iOS 8, OS X Mavericks, and OS X Yosemite and is slated as a long-term replacement for Apple's Objective-C.
Comments
I agree this is an amazing accomplishment. I've been talking about this very thing for years now but even though the path was clear the difficulty is getting those dominos in place to make this a reality. I believe this is truly a paradigm shift in the safety and security of our digital payments.
What's funny is I've been fighting for years trying to get others to see the benefit of NFC but repeatedly failed attempts by other vendors tainted that open technology with many posters here.
Primarily good for Apple because the millions of watch and 6/+ buyers are going to use Apple Pay for everything and Apple will be making a cut from each purchase.
It was genius for Apple to add Pay to the Apple Watch because now buyers of the 5s/5c that can't upgrade to 6/+ can purchase the Watch in order to use Apple Pay.
That'll help boost Watch sales as well as Apple Pay adoption all of which means more $$$ for Apple.
Apple needed to get on-board if mobile payments is to become successful. Apple's iPay will be the impetus for smaller businesses to start including NFC in their card scanners, which will finally allow competing platforms to see success in mobile payments uptake too. A rising tide lifts all boats.
I still find it funny that there were a ton of people saying that Apple would never use NFC as a payment system when it was the only logical choice. This is the biggest excitement for me as it's eventually going to be good for everyone.
Yeap, even if you are not an Apple fan you have to recognize the power of Apple and the good things they are doing. I like how the banks and card issuers are now practically begging Apple to let them use this.
What's "iPay"?
the company said it won’t charge users, merchants or developers
Which doesn't mention banks or visa etc.
So the cost might be, and probably is, to the banks who can pass it onto the merchants in their interchange fee or take the hit and make up for it in volume.
The fraud and theft reductions should make it more than worth their involvement.
Apple needed to get on-board if mobile payments is to become successful. Apple's iPay will be the impetus for smaller businesses to start including NFC in their card scanners, which will finally allow competing platforms to see success in mobile payments uptake too. A rising tide lifts all boats.
Here is the thing with your statement. While I have tried to use both ISIS Wallet (now SoftCard) and Google Wallet, neither was even remotely usable. They where limited to certain carriers, certain banks, and way to limited to really be of any use. Also, the security model was just not there, nor is it now. Apple's Apple Pay system is different. The tokenization of information, the ease of the user interface, the security model, the secure and dedicated chip inside, along with none of the stupid impediments that SoftCard and GW have. Why? Because Apple did the work. The work that no one else wanted to do. SoftCard, GW, and the others that have tried also saw the "e-wallet" as a way to make money, not of transactions, but off the data that is generated in the process. Apple again is different here, they know what they will make off the hardware, so they don't have to rely of metrics and meta data and the sale of that data to make money. This is in stark contrast to say Google. The fact that Apple does not know and does not track what you purchase, where you purchased it, or when you purchased it, is actually pretty unique. And for all of those that say Apple is going to make a lot of money on the transactions, I have not seen anywhere where it was stated that they will make anything on the individual transactions. Again, I think it gets back to Apple already knowing that they will make their money on their devices.
It has been said time and again. You have to consider the whole picture and Apple does that. The hardware, the software, the user experience, and the back end systems to support it. I really think Apple deserves some major credit here. They where not the first, nor did they invent NFC payment systems. But, they did re-invent it in a way. They made it better, more secure, and finally usable for the vast majority of people why are not otherwise technically inclined.
I agree this is an amazing accomplishment. I've been talking about this very thing for years now but even though the path was clear the difficulty is getting those dominos in place to make this a reality. I believe this is truly a paradigm shift in the safety and security of our digital payments.
What's funny is I've been fighting for years trying to get others to see the benefit of NFC but repeatedly failed attempts by other vendors tainted that open technology with many posters here.
I think the biggest issue is the gimmicky way companies like Samsung have tried to use NFC. Like the tap to send stuff on the S series of phones. I have used it, or tried to, and found it easier to send the same data via SMS/MMS then to get the NFC transfer to work between devices. To say nothing of the transfer speeds. Until yesterday, I was nearly convinced that the best we could hope for with NFC was making Bluetooth pairing easier and faster. Now, I have real hope for a true digital wallet. If I could get down to something that only had my ID in it, just imagine the money that could be saved on back related issues for men who carry wallets in their back pockets.
I imagine you could get a slim case that includes a clip for 2 cards. Your ID and insurance card. No more need carry a wallet at all.
It's unfortunate, because this could have been done many years ago with Apple playing catch up. I don't care who did it, I just wanted it done.
The funny thing is now everyone is going to associate NFC with Apple despite NFC having existed for a long time. I'm sure there will be some people that come to this forum that have the need to tell us that Apple didn't invest NFC and that blah blah incorporated it years earlier without even realizing (or at least accepting) why ?Pay was a market success and the others weren't until after Apple got on board.
which leads me to believe that visa/mastercard/amex/discover were largely unaffected by these breaches and did not feel the need to bring about change (perhaps it would cost money they did not want to part with).
1) For decades I've preferred a money clip with a small attached leather case for cards. This fits into my front pocket. I assume this better than in the back pocket, both in terms of back ailments and being pick pocketed.
2) They already have iPhone cases that double as wallets. Now I might finally get on board if I can only carry my driver's license, license to kill, and insurance card with me.
Most of the previous Wallet/iPhone-cases were bulky and thick because they were made to carry 5 or more cards. Now I assume those cases will be much slimmer because most payment cards can now be kept digitally in passbook.
I wonder if Apple Pay will also provide a scannable screen with say barcodes (like StarBucks does) to provide backward compatibility? This does not provide the two way protection for fully secure transaction but may slow down the pivotal reason to upgrade the point of sale equipment.
One more idea, what are the chances iPad will be shipped with NFC and an Application that will allow iPad to replace Point of Sales devices? I think this will be huge.
I still find it funny that there were a ton of people saying that Apple would never use NFC as a payment system when it was the only logical choice. This is the biggest excitement for me as it's eventually going to be good for everyone.
I for one did not see them using NFC because the physical nature of it is ridiculously insecure. What I did not foresee, but should have, is that it could be used in a way that completely negates the security or non security of the wireless protocol itself.