Today, Google's Director of Product Management, Android Pay, Pali Bhat, took to the official Android blog to announce the official roll out of Android Pay across more than a million locations in the United States. The payment solution allows you to use your Android smartphone to make payments at vendors that accept tap and pay solutions.
Coin, the electronic card that aimed at solving all your credit/debit/loyalty card woes, has just received a major hardware update in the form of the second generation of the product, aptly named Coin 2.0. Among a variety of enhancements, Coin 2.0 adds support for NFC-based payments, making it all that better for daily use.
Great news ladies and gentleman of the United Kingdom. Apple Pay is now officially live in the UK. If you happen to be the proud owner of one of Apple's modern devices, namely an iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, or an Apple Watch, there now exists the ability to pay for goods and services in specific places without the need to whip out a debit or credit card or cold hard cash. After waiting patiently for nine months for it to actually enter the UK market, consumers will be able to use Apple Pay in more than 250,000 stores, including supermarkets Waitrose and Lidl, as well as popular food establishments Nando's and Wagamama.
Good news fellow UK dwellers, because after months of waiting to hear when Apple Pay was coming to the island we now know just when it will make its long awaited appearance, with leaked documents pegging July 14th as the big go-live.
It's now less than 24 hours until Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference goes live in San Francisco, and with rumors and guesswork about to be either proven or dis-proven, things are starting to get interesting.
An Apple Pay rewards program may just be around the corner, with a freshly published report suggesting that it could see an announcement next month at WWDC 2015.
Apple Pay is gradually expanding its reach, and many of the big-name retailers are already on board. Best Buy is doing its bit to get with the times by adding in-app support for Apple's new transaction scheme today, and per the words of Tim Cook, the electronics retail giant will begin accepting Apple Pay later on this year.
Apple Pay may have enjoyed a relative amount of success in its first six or so months in the market, but it's still very much up-and-coming. Uptake thus far has been impressive, and with Apple Watch supporting the contactless payment system from the get-go, it seems probable that this trend will continue. In an effort to enhance this early period of growth, Apple has launched a website offering free decals for interested retail outlets.
Even companies that, on paper, seem largely unrelated like to form mutually beneficial partnerships, and given how often you see a MacBook's glowing logo in a coffee shop, it should come as no surprise that Starbucks has just brought Apple Pay capabilities to its official iOS app. There are several other new features besides, the details of which you'll find below.
If Apple Pay is to truly take off then it is going to need support from as many retailers as it can get, so the news that airline JetBlue is to start accepting Apple Pay as an in-flight payment method will be a welcome one for those of is who are tired of carrying around little plastic cards in order to buy things. With other retailers coming on board and an international launch said to be on the horizon, 2015 looks like it could be the year of Apple Pay.















