Pay with iPhone
11 Sep 2013With Apple's announcement of the iPhone 5s (and 5c), Apple moved the iPhone into an interesting space. A good bit of this (iOS7, camera improvements) are catchup with some of the competition.
TouchID, the fingerprint reader, is the game changer. It just won't be the game changer for a couple of years. If you watch the video on iPhone 5s, check out how you can use your fingerprint as a replacement for a password when purchasing from the App Store.
It's not hard to imagine the next step is a Passbook-integration, or some Bluetooth communication mechanism, that will talk right to a point of sale terminal. You walk up, they ring you up, see the Pay with iPhone sign, and you touch your iPhone rather than handing over a credit card. Apple's already got your credit card; rather than passing your credit card to hundreds of merchants over the year, you hand it to one. All secured by your fingerprint.
I have to imagine this is the long-term plan. iPhone 5s is just the wedge to get the technology out into the market.