Is Apple Pay Finally Coming to Apple?
Apple Pay is finally coming to Apple computers and to online shopping. That’s right folks, users will finally be able to use Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) digital wallet on many Apple devices.
Apple Pay will finally be added to the Safari operating system this fall, two years after it first appeared, Quartz reported. It is hard to believe but nobody at Apple apparently thought to add offer the payment app through the company’s desktop, laptop or tabloid devices.
That means it will finally be possible to use Apple Pay for online shopping, although apparently not at the largest retail website of all: Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). Nor will Apple Pay work with a wide variety of other major retailers including Walmart.com and eBay.com. This still leaves Apple at a disadvantage to PayPal (NASDAQ: PYPL) which works with eBay and can be used on Amazon and Walmart via debit card.
Whether or not this will speed up the adoption of Apple Pay and get more major retailers to offer it is anybody’s guess. Apple has been struggling to get both retailers and consumers to use the solution.
Several publications have recently noted that the digital wallet has been a very tough sell. Apple itself has not helped that process by not integrating the app with all of its devices, and by ignoring the online marketplace.
Apple Pay Now on Parking Panda
That is beginning to change as Apple has been offering pay through more major apps including Parking Panda, MacRumors reported. Apple Pay is available through several major Apps including Airbnb, Uber, Lyft and Group On. It also works with a number of major retail apps including Instacart, Fandango, B&H, Etsy, Target and Starbucks.
At least one other hotel booking app, Hotel Tonight has joined Apple. A MacRumors report indicates that it is now possible to book hotel rooms through Hotel Tonight using Apple Pay and no Hotel Tonight membership. Hotels have been one business that has been conspicuously absent from Apple Pay.
Apple Pay type Solution for Bitcoin Unveiled
Apple Pay might have a major new competitor with some intriguing capabilities. A British startup called Plutus has unveiled plans for Plutus Tap & Pay, a payment app that allows a customer to instantly pay with Bitcoin or another cryptocurrency called Ethereum.
Plutus will accomplish that by using its exchange to convert the cryptocurrency into a currency such as the US Dollar or the British pound. It will then send a payment to a merchant via Visa’s payment system. That will allow for bitcoin payment over any NFC-enabled cash register.
Plutus is not available yet the company behind it Plutus.it plans to bring it out in the United Kingdom in Winter 2016. Plutus’s exchange will launch in that company in Fall 2016, if it gets regulatory approval.
Plutus.it – Tap and Pay Anywhere with Bitcoin and Ethereum from Plutus on Vimeo.
Even though it’s not available yet, Plutus’s technology apparently works. A video obtained by Crypto Coin News shows customers using Plutus to pay at Britain’s largest grocer: Tesco (OTC: TSCDF) and a coffee shop.
It looks as payment applications are advancing and could soon leave Apple Pay in the dust. Plutus could be a very popular app because if it works it would conceivably allow people to transfer money anywhere in the world and pay through any cash register. That might make currency exchanges a thing of the past.
Apple will now be under pressure to add bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies to Apple Pay. If that does not, companies like Plutus will steal a large percentage of its business.
