Uhh, hell would freeze over before I'd use it in anything. Paypal is bad enough, but Apple's App Store policies have tarnished their reputation in my book!
While the application approval process has very... odd..., they don't have a track record of simply stealing people's money without recourse like PayPal does (or at least not that I'm aware of). They have a large userbase and can handle the dollar level payments that many payment methods don't do well (too high fees, etc...).
It's a very different business than approvals for the app server.
They also mentioned Facebook. Are payments really big on Facebook? With tons of customers and experience with processing payments for real-world goods, I would think Amazon would have a better shot at it than Facebook.
Also, out of Apple, Facebook, and Amazon, I would guess that Amazon customers are the most likely to be spending money elsewhere as well.
But in all these cases--Pay Pal, Apple, and the rest--they are wrappers on a bank account or a credit card. Why wouldn't the banks and the credit card companies themselves want to get in on all this?
I remember suggesting this to Steve Case when he was CEO of AOL. It was before paypal and it would have made a lot of sense for AOL to become the micropayment processor since they already had access to their subscriber's credit cards. I'm glad they really didn't move on it though, because they could have killed the movement of large content companies going to the web with it. Why publish free on the web when you could have made money for articles on AOL? AOL at the time was the largest ISP.
I would much rather they: 1) fixed the appstore policies 2) create an OS X appstore 3) allow sale of media in an appstore like way so people stop creating apps to sell media and just use something Apple develops / buys
I get the feeling, that at the end of the day, the appstore will have some rating system with one of the ratings being "unsupervised content access".
I wouldn't use it but considering how many people do use iTunes to buy things (both iPhone/Touch apps and music) this makes a ton of sense. I doubt it'll take much extra effort to add the infrastructure, if any. And it creates additional revenue stream.
Sounds like someone overheard a feature, didn't understand it and then misinterpreted the example.
A direct pay-pal knockoff would have nothing to do with Apple's core business (selling hardware). And to be at all plausible, would have to support transactions that have nothing to do with their hardware/software ecosystem.
Microsoft is the sort of company that might have been distracted into building a financial arm during its years of plenty. Apple really isn't. That sort of absolute diversification is antithetical to how Apple operates.
Personally, I don't understand why ISPs haven't become payment processors. They already have a monthly billing relationship with their customers. Wouldn't it be cool if your ISP provided a service whereby you could buy things online and charge them to your ISP bill?
If done right such a service could be more secure than credit cards for online purchases, make micropayments much more feasible, and provide a separate revenue stream for ISPs. Why haven't they jumped on this?
Well, one thing is clear: anybody who has billions of cash on the high side and his mind at the right place, will now, at this tim in history, investigate if he should enter the banking industry in some form or another.
All competitors have just been weakened and many are seeking to preserve market share and/or autonomy (from regulation). furthermore, consumers largely hate banks at the moment. I certainly hate mine. If you have a big New Idea and the cash to implement it, it's a great time to offer an alternative.
Having said that, my experience with Paypal has been very good overall. And I have a jaundiced attitude towards Apple.
I don't know his reasons, but I note that the financial arm of most organizations with both a financial arm and another arm makes a huge fraction of the total income.
Examples include GE Financial and GMAC, GM's finance arm (which was sold off a couple of years ago to keep the auto arm alive).
Every industry has its barrier to entry, it is likely that the one for banking is probably at an historical low. Also Branson of Virgin said in an interview that he is applying for a license(or looking into it), so at least one of them actually does is for sure.
Yeah, in a way Apple doing this is a zoomed fractal version of what is happening with China. They make and sell lots of stuff and they use the money to build out their financial industry. It's also what GE (GE Capital), Sears (Discover Card) and to an extent Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway which started life as a textile company.
