The most powerful digital wallet yet?
Posted by
I knew about the soft launch of the Apple Store app, but it wasn't until yesterday when I happened to walk in to my local Apple store in search of a new set of earbuds that I realized what's actually happening
Apple just soft-launched one of the most powerful digital wallet services, and few have noticed.
First, let me walk you through the experience:
1) Walk into an Apple store, Find product, Open the store app.
2) Scan the product. Read reviews, yes - this is what you wanted.
3) Tap to pay with your iTunes card, using your own iPhone.
4) Take your purchased product and walk out the door.
Do you notice the self service aspect? As my friendly blue-shirt Apple store clerk said, "how do we know [you've purchased that?].. we don't, but we trust you guys!" Certainly, this ethos will endure a few tweaks as the service rolls out, but the approach shows the confidence in how Apple is embracing the disruptive mobile force it itself has been part of creating.
Why is this so special? In some ways, the move is simply good sense and fitting very nicely into the progression of Apple's dominance in pushing out new features just ahead of other major players (but notably behind the innovators or first movers in the space.) But, the genius of this app/experience is that Apple has more power, in form of more unique users with a trusted credit card already in place, than any other digital platform. Yes, Google Wallet is launched and Android is currently selling more phones than Apple, but those users are notoriously slow to set up or activate a credit card; nor are they using their phones to buy like the users on iOS. (See the excellent Flurry article from Dec. last year.)
So, with more users already in place, and trained to use and trust the embedded credit card, Apple has managed, in one fell swoop, to launch an in-store payment app with more users ready to go than any other 'wallet' out there (caveat: that I know of…).
The Apple rumors have already talked about this near-field version from Apple, aka Google's digital wallet, but this experience sorts of begs the question of why that is needed. Or at least, it puts in question the experience pro's and cons of using one app to get info/reviews and then the same phone to "tap to pay" at the register; the older metaphor vs new thinking of self-service browsing/reviewing and buying in-store.
In my view, this is bigger than it's humble soft launch begs us to consider, but I'd love your take on it as well.
There are no comments yet. Be the first.