I’m sure everybody has heard of Apple Pay here - if not, it is a payment service that allows users to make payments to merchants and to each other. Whilst Apple Pay certainly does have its benefits in pushing payment technology forward, there is still a long list of disadvantages regarding the use of Apple Pay that many users do not even know about!

How Does Apple Pay Work?

Apple Pay enables users to store their debit card and credit card information in their Apple Passbook. The digital wallet then encrypts the information and is stored in the Secure Element chip on the iPhone. Unlike Google payment service, the encrypted data is never uploaded to the cloud and, theoretically, should never leave the device.

Once set up, the user can then simply just their iPhone as a means of payment at any Apple Pay accepted merchant. The user will just need to place their phone near the NFC reader and keep their finger pressed on the fingerprint reader to allow the transaction to happen. Users are also able to make payments at the same terminals using Apple Watches, which rely on skin contact to allow payments to be made.

Furthermore, users can even use the iMessaging system to send funds to other iOS users directly - pretty cool and useful stuff!

However, as you start to dig a little deeper into Apple Pay, some of the disadvantages start to become extremely apparent.

What Are The Disadvantages Of Apple Pay?

The first disadvantage to take notice of is the fact that Apple Pay is not available to everyone. To use the service, you must have an Apple device such as an iPhone, iPad or Apple Watch. Making things a bit trickier is the fact that it is not even available to all iPhone users! To be able to use Apple Pay, the user must have an iPhone model that is greater than the iPhone 6 which was only released in 2014! Any iPhones previous to this are not compatible.

Another solid disadvantage is the fact that Apple Pay terminals are not available everywhere. Although they are widely available throughout the USA and the UK, there are many countries that are (or have been) trying to actively block Apple Pay entering their countries, such as Canada (expected sometime soon) and Australia (resolved also). The backlash is mainly initiated by banks that offer similar products and do not want to compete with a foreign company in the payments industry! Although Apple Pay may have penetrated into Canada and Australia, there are still many counties in the world it is struggling to reach.

There have also been suggestions that Apple Pay is not at all scalable. People believe that once Apple Pay gains traction and users start to use it regularly, the throughput of their systems may not be able to handle the increased number of transactions per second. This will be a major hurdle for Apple Pay to overcome if they would like to grow further.

Although transactions are currently free for debit cards, there is a strong potential for Apple Pay to change their fee structure at any moment in time as they are a centralized service. Apple Pay is already taking 3% on transactions made with credit cards and the feeless structure may change for debit cards if Apple thinks it will help their growth.

The final disadvantage to highlight is the ever-increasing concern regarding privacy and data collection. Although Apple claims that they never store any data regarding purchases or transactions between users and merchants, they have stated that if the location data is switched on at the time of payment, the location of the payment is aggregated to improve Apple Pays wider service. You can already see the loopholes that these major corporations take advantage of.

Well, considering all of these disadvantages, it is no surprise that Apple Pay is not REALLY taking off to the level that many had imagined. People NEED a truly decentralized and private way to conduct purchases and transactions and cryptocurrency is the PERFECT technology to allow this to happen. There is even a project already well into development that will soon be a STRONG rival to Apple Pay and other payment services, this is called HydroPay.

HydroPay - Feeless and Private Transactions Using The Blockchain

HyrdroPay is one of the decentralized applications (dApps) released by Hydro Labs. They have created a range of applications to make completely decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem that is borderless and feeless! This means that it is accessible to EVERYBODY, not just iOS users. It can offer this because it is based on cryptocurrency and blockchain technology.

HydroPay is a dApp built on top of the hydro protocol which communicates with the Ethereum blockchain - allowing for super-fast transactions that are feeless! The fact that there are no fees really helps the entire ecosystem as transaction fees are variable and usually cause problems for other Ethereum based dApp users - think back to CryptoKitties!

Hydro Labs are already widely recognized as a leading team in the Financial Technology industry after receiving the “Fintech Startup of the Year” by KPMG and “World Changing Technology” by Fast Company. You can instantly see why they received these awards when you open their application. They have created an extremely intuitive and user-friendly interface that is on-par (or better) than its competitors such as Apple Pay or PayPal.

HydroPay allows users to pay friends and family in a decentralized and private way - meaning you KNOW that your data is not being monitored and used against you.

It is important to note that HyrdoPay is still in development, but the application has been released in BETA mode and can be used already by anybody who wishes to use it. The team also plans to include FIAT-HYDRO payments in the future which will take this project to the NEXT LEVEL!





