Silicon Alley Insider is reporting “Wall Street gossips” saying that Apple are considering extending iTunes so that it can be used on third-party sites as a payment service.
iPhone users can already use iTunes to purchase some virtual and subscription goods in iPhone applications, though that service charges developers 30% of the transaction, so in its current format, it’s not something that retailers of actual goods are going to rush to embrace.
We’ve seen many things touted as “PayPal killers” over the last few years: Google Checkout was going to be the end, so was Amazon Payments. The probable next contender, Facebook payments, is still in alpha testing. But to be a real PayPal killer, any new service would need to offer buyers something that PayPal doesn’t already: the rise and rise of PayPal was, after all, down to eBay buyers demanding to use it. Could Apple bring something new to the table? SAI suggests that
maybe this is Apple’s first step toward becoming a way for people to pay for goods offline. As consumers, we’d love this. No more waiting for the bartender to ring you up!
Paying a bar or restaurant tab by clicking a button on an iphone does sound a lot more attractive than the interminable wait for the bill, I have to admit. Wrong-footing PayPal? – there could be an app for that…
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Apple is very good at getting people to send them money. It just might work.
And doubtless, if Apple did do this, they would probably pull the official PayPal application off the App Store for…hmm…”duplicating an official iTunes Store feature, which is part of the built in iTunes application on the iPhone”.
Still, if Apple want to introduce another method, go for it I say.
But Sue, haven’t you seen the video? PayPal already plans to be integrated into the bar top: https://bit.ly/LldGN
Oh, Neil, how had I missed that?! Can’t wait til they put my fingerprints on file. I for one welcome our new overlords… 😉
I read somewhere that paypal processes $12,000 a second, that might take a bit of killing.
https://uk.biz.yahoo.com/03082009/399/paypal-failure-sparks-concern-web-services.html
According to this URL $2000 a second.
Steve
$2000, $12000 it would still buy a lot of nails.
OH! only $2000/second processed and not $12,000, this makes AuctionChex look not so bad then – I have done $2000/hour though (once), problem is it aint 24/7 LOL
[beep]ing apple cant beat PayPal
Ebay will be sure to block such payment methods, as they did with google checkout, which is a very good system….is ebay acting as a monopoly – is their laws against this??
I shall approach this the same way that I do anything where Apple are concerned.
Research, research, research, and then buy the cool looking one.