Apple Pay Is The Biggest Thing Since The App Store

I've been watching apple events since I was in high school - back before mac's were cool. I was fascinated with things like the PowerBook, OS X, and most of all the G4 Cube. Over the years, watching WWDC and other events like the annual iPhone launch have become sort of a tradition for me, and along the way it seems like the entire world.

This year I was, as always, impressed at Apple's hardware offerings. The new iPhone and Apple will surely sell like wildfire and add billions more to Apple's massive coffers. But what struck me the most was Apple Pay. Paying for things on my iPhone is a horrible experience. Every time I want to buy something I have to pinch and zoom in on non-responsive websites, then get my credit card out and spend a few minutes filling out all sorts of fields. If I buy something 'in-app' the developer has to give Apple a 30% cut, which is insane and has prevented many useful commerce applications from being available on the iPhone.

Until now.

With Apple Pay everything just works. With just a simple thumb authorization, you've bought something - and all for a normal credit card fee from the developer's perspective! In fact Apple even managed to get a 15 basis point cut off of these transactions - which could add up to a considerable revenue stream the more people use their phone to buy things. It's also seemingly safer than today's magnetic strip credit cards - which is an added bonus.

Finally, Apple's solution is the first one I see as paving the way to eliminating my actual wallet. It's rolling out to hundreds of thousands of stores, where you can just tap your phone to buy something. Although Google and others have been leading the way here, Apple's move cements the use of NFC to conduct in person commerce. With billions of new NFC enabled smartphones being manufactured, merchants being forced to upgrade their in store equipment, and Apple's ultra easy user experience - paying with your phone is set to become the norm.

This means that my phone just replaced my wallet. Nothing since the App Store came out in 2008 has made my iPhone so much more useful.

Goodbye Costanza wallet…

…and hello Old Man Biff Tannen!