I'm not overly excited about any consumer devices at the moment. Perfectly content with my iPhone 4S and 1st gen iPad. I'm interested in if apple tosses in an NFC chip in the new iPhone. That of course, would be interesting to me for obvious reasons ;) Other than that, maybe some better utilization of Siri across the board. I crudely use Siri to control my Mac Mini "media center" but I'd be nice if that could be polished. </rambling>
Justin you mentioned NFC as the only thing that interests you about the new iPhone. With the rumor mill split on the likelihood that chip will be inside the next iPhone, could you enlighten us with your industry insider knowledge of why NFC and mobile payments are not a top priority for device manufactures?
It seems like a no-brainer to me. Banks offer monies to device makers to include the hardware and software needed. Device company is now incentivised to put the mobile payment capability on every device they produce. Now users can adopt it as quickly as they want.
But back in the real world... Only a select few devices have the capability and some that do are then handicapped by carriers. In my opinion consumer demand is there. It is the device manufactures, retailers and carriers who are blocking the growth of mobile payments.
Currently the only thing NFC is good for is transferring items from phone to phone. Hardly any retailers are set up to handle mobile tap to pay. Unless i'm just not going to the right stores.
Only BP gas stations are NFC/Google Wallet enabled now. It's more common in larger cities (shocker), but in Columbia it's not adopted at a wide enough scale to be appealing to me as a consumer. One day, though.
Some retailers - google.com
Shane you are right. More retailers need to accept and be trained on mobile payments. But it is the chicken and the egg complex. Retailers are waiting for consumer adoption. Consumers need a variety of tech and retail options to adopt it as a normal part of life.
Apple is a hardware company. Their sole motivation behind every decision they make is to sell more hardware. I don't think there is compelling reason for them to include it in this version because there is ZERO market penetration with NFC in the US. Retailers on the otherhand have all of the motivation. Anything to help transaction speed translates directly to their profits. Big retailers are going to be making the mobile payments moves if you ask me. Starbucks is great example.
If Square, PassBook and other software products kick off the mobile payment culture change, great. Maybe that is what is needed to show proof-of-concept and proof-of-adoption to force the hand of hardware companies.
Thanks for your feedback! Team Branch
