Apple focuses on ease of use in "Just text them the money" Apple Pay ad

AppleInsider

Apple on Tuesday uploaded a new Apple Pay-centric ad to its official YouTube channel, showing a conversation between two people squabbling over who gets to pay for dinner.

The ad starts with one person saying dinner is on them, and sending over $55 through Apple Pay Cash to their friend. The second person replies back that no, they've got it and shoots the $55 right back over. The pair then proceed to continuously send money back and forth as the ad speeds up and fades to a black screen that reads "Just text them the money." The "Apple Pay in Messages" tagline appears.

As with previous commercials in the series, today's spot is predominantly silent, the only noise being the sound of iMessages being sent.

Apple Pay has been gaining steam recently, performing well during Apple's most recent quarterly financial results as part of its "Services" category and winning top marks in Consumer Reports P2P mobile payment rankings.

Later this year, Apple Pay will be expanding to Germany, as well as CVS and 7-11 in the U.S..

iantimmy123

It’s interesting that Apple Pay Cash is still limited to the US. Surely it’s not that big a leap, when Apple Pay is already successful, to launch it in markets such as the U.K. 

douglas bailey

iantimmy123 said:

 such as the U.K. 

... and Australia.

sweetheart777

Meanwhile, the Android user gets to freeload and loves Apple Pay even more because...well, he can't Apple Pay anyone back.

chasm

After reading the related article about the security and privacy of Apple Pay Cash, I'm going to encourage everyone whom I do or might PayPal with to use that instead.

Soli

iantimmy123 said:

It’s interesting that Apple Pay Cash is still limited to the US. Surely it’s not that big a leap, when Apple Pay is already successful, to launch it in markets such as the U.K. 

Apple Pay is inherently more complex to set up than Apple Pay Cash (APC) because Apple needs to have multiple financial instructions in the chain between the user and their bank, and that's not including the retailer accepting NFC-based payments. With APC it's between iPhones and Watches (which is even fewer device types than with Apple Pay), and it's just a regular debit card to pull from your bank (assuming you don't have enough on APC card held by Apple) and your check routing and account numbers to put into your account. That's all pretty standard and what PayPal and many others have been doing for well over a decade.

So even if Apple Pay didn't exist, Apple could've still created a P2P payment system through their their chat service, which is also something that's existed well before APC was ever announced. So what's the hold up if PayPal is in over 200 countries? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

• https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide

It's easier to look at the prohibitive countries:

• https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/bigcommerce/security/prohibited-countries

radarthekat

sweetheart777 said:

Meanwhile, the Android user gets to freeload and loves Apple Pay even more because...well, he can't Apple Pay anyone back.

That’s an unrealistic scenario.  Who would be out to dinner with an Android user?  

palegolas

Cute spot 
In Sweden there's "Swish". In Norway there's "Vipps".
I'm sure most countries has their own solutions for private money transactions over the phone. But it doesn't work across borders. If Apple Pay Cash makes it easy to pay across the borders, it'll definitely be an interesting alternative. Is there a fee involved? To use PayPal like in the ad, the money would slowly drain in fees to PayPal for each transaction, right?

GeorgeBMac

chasm said:

After reading the related article about the security and privacy of Apple Pay Cash, I'm going to encourage everyone whom I do or might PayPal with to use that instead.

Which is why I avoid any vendors who do not support it.

Target is perhaps my main target.  My credit card and personal info were stolen from them in one of the first major retail hacks.   Shortly after ApplePay was released but Target refused to allow it in their stores.  That said to me, how little they valued me (and my personal financial and personal information).  I have not been in a Target since.

sergioz

I have been using Apple Pay for a while now and I like it. One ☝️ point it is Apple money should not have a black background, it should look something like a token or a coin or some other monetary representation!