Business

The true origins of MCX and CurrentC

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This article appeared back in January 2013, long before CVS and Rite Aid pulled the plug on Apple Pay, and long before Apple Pay was even announced. There’s a lot of detail here that answers many of the current questions about CurrentC and MCX.

Apple has a huge TV opportunity thanks to proposed FCC rule change

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Earlier this week, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler proposed a far reaching rule change (detailed in this blog post) that would level the playing field and give non-traditional video suppliers access to programming that is currently only available to cable and satellite providers. This would open up a huge opportunity for Apple.

A tale of three companies

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The quarterly mobile sales numbers from IDC are out and here’s what they say about the top three mobile phone companies.

On the brewing battle between Apple Pay and CurrentC

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There’s a major battle brewing in the payments industry. On one side, Apple Pay sits on top of the existing credit card model, adding a layer of anonymizing security and ease of use.

On the other side is CurrentC, the brainchild of a consortium called the Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX. CurrentC seeks to eliminate the credit card companies, and their fees, from the system. CurrentC is an alternative to credit cards, not an add-on. Here are the big issues.

Re/code team takes Apple Pay on a test drive

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[VIDEO] Re/code put together a review team of four people, two on the east coast, two on the west coast, to put Apple Pay through its paces.

Our overall conclusion: Apple Pay worked smoothly and quickly in all but a very few instances. But the number of physical and online stores that accept it at launch is still very small. Plus, some common things slow it down, like the need for signatures and debit-card PINs in some stores, its lack of support for loyalty cards, and cashier confusion. So it’s far from a complete replacement for your wallet and credit card, at least not yet.

This simplistic conclusion is only skin deep. The real value of the review is watching Apple Pay at work, with a separate video for each team member. To get you started, here’s Katie Boehret from Washington, D.C.

Baseball, hot dogs, and Apple Pay

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Major League Baseball has announced that both Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City and AT&T Park in San Francisco will be accepting Apple Pay, starting with tonight’s game one in Kansas City. And that means less time waiting in line for everyone.

The real value of Apple’s new iPads

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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.

On today’s release of Apple Pay

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At last week’s event, Apple announced that iOS 8.1 would be released today. The iOS 8.1 feature with the biggest potential impact is, no doubt, Apple Pay.

Ireland to phase out ‘Double Irish’ tax break

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This will impact a lot of companies, Google being a bit of a poster child here. note that the elimination of the “double Irish” provision will not, by itself, change the tax rates negotiated by companies like Apple. That’s a separate issue.

Why Samsung fell

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John Kirk for Tech.pinions:

Samsung has reported a 60% fall in quarterly profits. Just three years ago, Samsung rose from seemingly nowhere to dominate the global smartphone market. Today, Samsung is being pressured from above and below as Apple steals away its premium customers and Xiomi and others steal away customers from the low-end.

Why did Samsung fail? In a word, commoditization. Read the whole thing. Well worth it.

This is how McDonald’s will take Apple Pay at the drive through

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Apple Pay is changing the drive-through payment game. Now, when you roll up to the drive through, the cashier will hand you the portable NFC reader, you’ll tap your phone or Apple Watch, hear the confirmation beep, then hand it back. No credit card, no signing, no pin code.

BBEdit leaving the Mac App Store

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Rich Siegel, founder of Bare Bones Software, gave a talk at the Cingleton conference about not selling future versions of BBEdit via the Mac App Store. This could be a canary in the coal mine.

Getting banned by the NFL is actually great for Beats

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The competition between Bose and Beats cost Colin Kaepernick $10,000 this week, when he violated an NFL ban on wearing Beats by Dr. Dre headphones on television after games.

Is this a PR win for Beats? Will Apple remove all Bose products from the Apple Store?