The real value of Apple’s new iPads

Charles Arthur, writing for The Guardian, makes the case that Apple’s new iPad release is much more than a speed bump release. Rather, the addition of Touch ID to the iPad line is a huge milestone marker and a critical element in Apple’s Apple Pay rollout and pursuit of acceptance/adoption in the business sector.

The TouchID addition is important for people who use iPads in businesses, especially the giant “enterprises” where thousands of devices might be deployed. When I mentioned on Twitter that TouchID looked useful on the new iPads, the responses came thick and fast from people who don’t want to have to type their long IT department-mandated passwords into a screen, but would rather unlock them with the touch of a finger.

“TouchID [is] very important in enterprise for mobile workforces, particularly in customer-service scenarios,” responded Tim Edwards of Dootrix, an enterprise software development consultancy. Long passphrases are the enemy of quick interaction with a customer, he explained: “Fumbling around with a strong passcode doesn’t cut it for a quick customer interaction, especially in travel.”

As to Apple Pay:

Having already signed up a number of banks and merchants for its announcement on 9 September, Tim Cook said on Thursday that another 500 banks have come forward to get involved in Apple Pay, as well as a number of merchants (including Starbucks, which has had its own payment system going for some time).

“We believe ApplePay is going to change things profoundly,” Tim Cook said. The advantage that Apple has is that ApplePay will have a really big merchant ready to use it straight away: all of Apple’s stores, which number more than 250 in the US. Given that Apple has surely already sold at least 2m new iPhones in the US (and perhaps more like 5m), it’s highly likely that the value and volume of NFC transactions through Apple’s Stores in the US in the next two months will exceed that across the US in the previous ten months of this year.

And:

One can argue that there aren’t many NFC-capable tills in the US, which is largely still stuck in the card-swiping dark ages; chip-and-pin, as used in the UK and the rest of Europe, isn’t yet mandatory.

But a series of terrible hacks which have given millions of credit card details to hackers because companies stored them following transactions means that the US banks have finally had enough. They are making chip-and-pin (also known as EMV) mandatory: by October 2015 any business that doesn’t have EMV implemented will have to bear the brunt of fraud, rather than being able to pass it to the banks, as they can now.

That means tills are being updated, and NFC payment capability is an inexpensive “nice to have”. Apple executives have indicated to me that they think that their timing on this is just right – and in business, it’s often timing that matter more than just technology.

Great read.