Apple Announces Tap to Pay Contactless Payments, Providing Clues to iPad Hardware Refreshes
As was recently foretold, Apple has announced Tap to Pay support on iPhone models with NFC chips — Chance Miller, reporting at 9to5Mac:
Apple has officially announced a new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone. This feature, coming later this year, will allow businesses to use their iPhone to “seamlessly and securely” accept Apple Pay payments with a simple tap. The feature will also work for contactless credit cards and debit cards, as well as other digital wallets.
Even better, Apple has promised a full SDK for third-party developers to integrate touchless payment support in their own iPhone apps and has already partnered with Stripe as the first payment processor to support the feature. From the Apple Newsroom release:
Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available to participating payment platforms and their app developer partners to leverage in their software developer kits (SDKs) in an upcoming iOS software beta.
One other interesting wrinkle in this story is the lack of any mention of iPad support for this feature — presumably because no current iPad models include NFC support (despite certain models ostensibly including an NFC chip, disabled or otherwise). Given that so many small shop payment terminals are just iPads on swivel stands, you'd think Apple would prioritize adding this feature to iPad hardware as well. Recent rumors have suggested unexpectedly-imminent refreshes to the base iPad as well as the iPad Air, as well as more-timely iPad Pro updates. Zach Knox connected the dots for us in the Relay FM Members Discord:
The pre-announcement of Tap to Pay support on iPhone is surely setting the stage for the alleged March 8th Apple Event, which is set to include new iPad hardware spanning the entire line. I expect NFC support will be explicitly called out in any new iPads announced at this event, perhaps even with a shout-out to the new Tap to Pay support as well.
The one remaining question: What percentage of Tap to Pay transactions does Apple plan to skim off the top for themselves?