Apple Pay to feature website integration later this year, report says

AppleInsider · March 23, 2016 9:13PM

Apple is taking steps to position Apple Pay as a comprehensive digital payments platform, and will later this year move beyond touchless transactions and in-app purchases with support for mobile websites, a report said Wednesday.

According to people familiar with the matter, Apple has informed potential e-commerce partners that Apple Pay will soon support purchases place through the Web, providing a new path to payment for iPhone and iPad users, reports Re/code.

When Apple Pay debuts for Web purchases it will supposedly be limited to transactions conducted through Safari for iOS on Touch ID-equipped iPhones and iPads, a restriction likely put in place to maintain control over the flow of sensitive financial information. Apple is also mulling support for Mac users, though it is not clear if such capability will be available at launch.

As for a release date, sources said Apple is aiming to enable the feature before the lucrative holiday shopping season. Re/code believes an official announcement could come as soon as Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this summer, though an exact timeline has not been set.

Apple Pay is Cupertino's play at the digital payments sector. Available on iOS devices with Touch ID fingerprint sensing modules, the system currently supports mobile transactions via NFC, as well as APIs for in-app purchases. Retailers in the U.S. have been slow to adopt Apple Pay, but the number is steadily growing. Following initial availability in America, Apple extended support to the UK last July, followed by Canada and Australia in November.

In February, the payments platform made its long-awaited debut in China with support for 80 percent of the country's issued credit and debit cards.

dachar · March 23, 2016 9:25PM

This should really boost Apple pays use. If organisations like Amazon support Apple Pay would be great. There again, Amazon is the sort of organisation that might just come up with its own system.

Soli · March 23, 2016 9:37PM

I've been waiting for this. I also assume that iOS X will, at least, include person-to-person payments using Apple Pay, and hopefully will also include APIs for 3rd-party devs to access the NFC HW.

sockrolid · March 23, 2016 9:48PM

dachar said:

This should really boost Apple pays use. If organisations like Amazon support Apple Pay would be great. There again, Amazon is the sort of organisation that might just come up with its own system.

"Fire Pay."

Lulz.

supadav03 · March 23, 2016 9:52PM

Read about this possibility a couple months back on AfterPad.com. This is welcome news. More ways/places you can use Apple Pay the better.

apple ][ · March 23, 2016 9:54PM

I wonder if future Mac desktops and laptops will come with Touch ID and the ability to use it for Apple Pay transactions.

adhir · March 23, 2016 10:01PM

Good. I've been waiting for this.

Soli · March 23, 2016 10:04PM

apple ][ said:

I wonder if future Mac desktops and laptops will come with Touch ID and the ability to use it for Apple Pay transactions.

I've been wanting that since Touch ID was first announced, and since then Apple has moved their Power button from the aluminium casing, which I thought would be a perfect place for Touch ID, to the old Eject button on the keyboard. I wonder if the issue involves desktop Macs not easily being able to get this feature, especially the Mac mini and Mac Pro, which may not even be within arm's reach; and I have doubts it would be cost effective in BT keyboard due to the other HW involved, which I assume would mean it would basically mean a keyboard with a very intelligent brain… for a keyboard. If they only put it in notebooks, which is what they sell the most of, I don't think anyone but the constant whiners would take issue with it not being on, say, the side of the 5K iMac.

pmz · March 23, 2016 10:23PM

apple ][ said:

I wonder if future Mac desktops and laptops will come with Touch ID and the ability to use it for Apple Pay transactions.

I'm firm supporter of Macs not being equipped with Touch ID, but rather using Continuity/Handoff/NFC communication to receive Touch ID authentication on your iPhone. Touch ID is a pain in the ass to setup and maintain across multiple devices. It best that you set it up once, in one place on your iPhone, and that data is stored in 1 secure enclave.
When your Mac requires Touch ID input, your iPhone screen wakes up and you place your finger on the sensor. Done. No need to blemish Mac design with Touch ID sensors, no need to build into insecure/vulnerable accessories like the bluetooth keyboard/trackpad/mouse, no need for any of it. Just simple and secure near field connection to iPhone.

And before you even bring it up...I don't care about the Mac user who doesn't own and iPhone not being able to use Touch ID. Not even a little.

Soli · March 23, 2016 10:27PM

pmz said:

apple ][ said:

I wonder if future Mac desktops and laptops will come with Touch ID and the ability to use it for Apple Pay transactions.

I'm firm supporter of Macs not being equipped with Touch ID, but rather using Continuity/Handoff/NFC communication to receive Touch ID authentication on your iPhone. Touch ID is a pain in the ass to setup and maintain across multiple devices. It best that you set it up once, in one place on your iPhone, and that data is stored in 1 secure enclave.
When your Mac requires Touch ID input, your iPhone screen wakes up and you place your finger on the sensor. Done. No need to blemish Mac design with Touch ID sensors, no need to build into insecure/vulnerable accessories like the bluetooth keyboard/trackpad/mouse, no need for any of it. Just simple and secure near field connection to iPhone.

And before you even bring it up...I don't care about the Mac user who doesn't own and iPhone not being able to use Touch ID. Not even a little.

I guess I can see Touch ID working as a two-factor authentication between devices on a local network or tethered via BT, but if that's the direction they will be going, I'd much rather have Apple Watch be that access point so when I'm within x-feet of my Mac based on BT strength it un/locks, and is authenticated after putting on my wrist and having used Touch ID on my iPhone, at least once since putting it on.

ericthehalfbee · March 23, 2016 10:31PM

Screw all those retailers who are slow to adopt NFC payments. They can watch as their sales continue to plummet as people move to online stores as the number of reasons they might want to shop in their stores is getting smaller and smaller every day.

apple ][ · March 23, 2016 10:40PM

pmz said:

And before you even bring it up...I don't care about the Mac user who doesn't own and iPhone not being able to use Touch ID. Not even a little.

What makes you think that I care about Mac users who do not own a single IOS device that has Touch ID on it? I don't care about those people either, at all.

dangaioh · March 23, 2016 10:59PM

Soli said:

I've been waiting for this. I also assume that iOS X will, at least, include person-to-person payments using Apple Pay, and hopefully will also include APIs for 3rd-party devs to access the NFC HW.

As long as you remember to use an iPhone or iPad and only the Safari browser with a merchant that accepts Apple Pay. Yeah, we've all been waiting for this

battiato1981 · March 23, 2016 11:10PM

I was pleasantly surprised to be able to use Apple Pay to reserve an AirBnB apartment in California 2 months ago. In fact I loved it, very handy when doing this all from the iPhone. I'm curious if that was rolled out across the whole AirBnB network domestically or if it was a narrower test market. Location was Santa Barbara specifically.

volcan · March 23, 2016 11:20PM

It will be interesting to see how it works. What servers and scripting platforms it will support. The one thing that seems problematic is web developers having to support both Apple Pay and a traditional CC payment system on the same website. Sounds pretty complicated.

Soli · March 23, 2016 11:27PM

volcan said:

It will be interesting to see how it works. What servers and scripting platforms it will support. The one thing that seems problematic is web developers having to support both Apple Pay and a traditional CC payment system on the same website. Sounds pretty complicated.

I'm guessing it will use a similar system as PayPal, Amazon, Google, et al. offer via websites. That means it will will connect with an Apple payment server in order to securely be the go-between for the website and your device, but instead of having a card on file with those companies, it will conduct the payment and authentication service a little differently since your card data is on your device's secure enclave, and ideally should only connect to your financial institution to make the payment, which it then forwards to the Apple payment server which informs the website that the payment has successfully been made for a given amount.

volcan · March 24, 2016 12:35AM

Soli said:

I'm guessing it will use a similar system as PayPal, Amazon, Google, et al. offer via websites.

I hope it is a lot better than those check out systems. I hate those because they take you away from the website then you have to return. They are generally used by small retailers that don't have their own secure certificate. The one thing that Apple Pay is known for is ease of use and simplicity. Those other payment systems are horrible, confusing and inconvenient for the shopper.

anantksundaram · March 24, 2016 1:56AM

About time, if true (and hopefully it is).

To be blunt, ApplePay has so far been a half-baked effort from Apple, with poor marketing backup. Just as CarPlay has been.

(And a hearty 'f** you' to the dislikers).

jfc1138 · March 24, 2016 1:58AM

Tokenized payments for online? No more handing over credit card numbers and security codes to the net?

Wonderful.

volcan · March 24, 2016 2:33AM

anantksundaram said:

About time, if true (and hopefully it is).

To be blunt, ApplePay has so far been a half-baked effort from Apple, with poor marketing backup.

I sort of agree. Sometimes Apple is remarkably cheap. I love Apple Pay but them knowing that of last October's card processing deadline I would have thought they should have done a full court press and helped retailers get set up with terminals and back end processing.

supadav03 · March 24, 2016 3:16AM

volcan said:

anantksundaram said:

About time, if true (and hopefully it is).

To be blunt, ApplePay has so far been a half-baked effort from Apple, with poor marketing backup.

I sort of agree. Sometimes Apple is remarkably cheap. I love Apple Pay but them knowing that of last October's card processing deadline I would have thought they should have done a full court press and helped retailers get set up with terminals and back end processing.

Lol...Apples being "cheap" because they didn't want to foot the bill for merchants to get EMV complaint terminals?

Apple Pay to feature website integration later this year, report says

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