The Wall Street Journal recently profiled Apple’s “go-slow” approach to mobile payments, pointing out that the company may be waiting on purpose to release their iteration. Apple announced the inclusion of a feature called Passbook to iOS 6, which allows users to keep loyalty cards, tickets, and coupon in one central app. Passbook doesn’t offer a full payment system which has been a rumored area of research for Apple. According to The Wall Street Journal, this is a very deliberate decision from the Cupertino California company:
Holding back in mobile payments was a deliberate strategy, the result of deep discussion last year. Some Apple engineers argued for a more-aggressive approach that would integrate payments more directly.
But Apple executives chose the go-slow approach for now. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the decision-making process. Apple's head of world-wide marketing, Phil Schiller, in an interview last month, said that digital-wallet mobile-payment services are "all fighting over their piece of the pie, and we aren't doing that."
But Apple executives chose the go-slow approach for now. An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the decision-making process. Apple's head of world-wide marketing, Phil Schiller, in an interview last month, said that digital-wallet mobile-payment services are "all fighting over their piece of the pie, and we aren't doing that."
The other part to the situation was the Apple iPhone team which was known to be exploring NFC communication options in the next iPhone. There were some concerns with the inclusion of NFC in the next-gen iPhone, which included impact on battery life, security, vendor adoption, and customer satisfaction. While the NFC technology usage and implementation is sorted out, Passbook is said to be the current compromise for the technology while Apple waits to see how the mobile market matures before coming to any conclusions.
Source: Wall Street Journal
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