With the release of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus recently, a huge incentive to upgrading to these devices was the ability to pay for your bill at select retailers while using Apple Pay . While this may not seem like a very captivating point, lets elaborate on Apple Pay and why it is going to change the way we pay for things.





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Many people are saying that swiping a card is easy enough, why would I need to upgrade to just scanning my phone? While this may be accurate, it is not simply the time it takes to swipe/scan each time you purchase something. In 2015 swiping your card will be replaced by inserting your card so if scanning your phone doesn't seem like the best way to pay, it will soon.



Security. It comes to everybody's mind when analyzing Apple Pay. With the breaches at retailers like Target and Home Depot in the recent news, people are more concerned than ever about the security of their data. Well Apple took this into deep consideration when developing Apple Pay. Many say that it is in fact the most secure from to make payments. Not only do you have to scan your fingerprint before using, but perhaps more importantly your card numbers are no longer transmitted across the network or stored by merchants. This can be attributed to a concept called Security. It comes to everybody's mind when analyzing Apple Pay. With the breaches at retailers like Target and Home Depot in the recent news, people are more concerned than ever about the security of their data. Well Apple took this into deep consideration when developing Apple Pay. Many say that it is in fact the most secure from to make payments. Not only do you have to scan your fingerprint before using, but perhaps more importantly your card numbers are no longer transmitted across the network or stored by merchants. This can be attributed to a concept called tokenization . Tokenization uses a special number or "token" that is sent from your device instead of your actual card number. This token is basically useless to a hacker or another third-party individual. Not to mention, a hacker or their would not be able to use this token to their advantage without your fingerprint anyway.



What does this mean for the rest of us? Well I believe this is the start of the next generation of payments. While many consumers today believe that swiping a card is already easy and that they don't need a digital wallet like Apple Pay, there is so great of an upside that people need to look at what lies in the future. The great Steve Jobs once said, "People don't know what they want until you show them". I think people will not feel the need to update to a digital wallet until they realize what is possible. To think that in the future you could walk into a store and select what gift card/credit card/debit card you want to use and be able to pay in seconds with state of the art security is an opportunity we have to take advantage of. The sky is the limit with all of the big data analytics emerging today. Digital wallets could even incorporate various spending reports, personal account analyses, predictive spending, (etc.) all at the touch of your fingers.



Whether we as consumers adopt Apple Pay or other similar products is not the question at hand. I believe that eventually this will become the main form of payment amongst all consumers. On a relevant note, people were skeptical with paying on credit cards when they were first introduced into the market. Consumers will (hopefully) soon realize this change is more than just a new way of doing things. It is a new door of possibilities in which we should explore and elaborate this advancement in technology.