Apple could soon announce a service that will allow businesses and small businesses use your iPhone as a dataphone, as reported Bloomberg. This function, which stands out for not requiring hardware In addition, it comes a couple of years after the Cupertino company bought Mobeewave, a startup dedicated to the development of contact payment systems.
The Mobeewave acquisition was confirmed in 2020 and cost Apple $100 million. Since then, the Canadian startup team has been working on the Apple Pay division, focusing, above all, on developing a system that allows iPhones to accept payments via contactless. This function, according to the aforementioned medium, could arrive via a future software update, which will be available “in the coming months. It will not require third-party devices.
In fact, for the iPhone to work as a dataphone, it will only need to include an NFC chip. This component is available on all models starting with iPhone 6s. The clients, therefore, they will be able to pay in a store by touching their card to the back of the seller’s iPhone. It will also be possible to use Apple Pay through your iPhone or Apple Watch.
Goodbye to third-party accessories to use the iPhone as a dataphone
The operation of the service, yes, are not entirely clear. It is unknown if Apple will partner with banks or activate the feature independently.. We also don’t know if merchants will be able to sign up through Apple Pay or the feature will come through an additional service. In any case, and as usual in this type of payment system, it is likely that Apple will request a commission for each sale.
In the meantime, until the feature is officially launched, merchants can use their iPhone as a payment terminal. thanks to third-party devices, As the square card reader, which connects through the iPhone’s Lightning port. This, in particular, is synchronized with its own application that shows the payment information and the most important controls on the terminal screen. It remains to be seen what conditions Apple includes in its contact payment system, but it is likely that Square will have to lower its commission if it wants to compete against the future service of the South Korean company