[icanhackit]

I feel that they have missed that train. [...] wishlist item is being able to pay at a restaurant with my phone [...]

I believe the latter part of what you said is why, contrary to the former part of your statement, their offering will never be irrelevant: They control a very large and, compared to the rest of the world, affluent part of the phone hardware and software market. The phone is the gateway...at least until simply using a thumbprint or iris scan on the vendor's own hardware becomes a thing. But that seems more creepy than using your own phone as a proxy/escrow service.

[eiopa]

there is a huge difference in what they can bring to the table in vendor vs p2p plays.

p2p will presumingly work almost exactly like venmo, or more accurately, iMessage. Not only are they not bringing anything new to the table, they are also not leveraging anything from them controlling the hw+sw, other than being preinstalled.

A vendor play is much more interesting, since this is where they can really shine (completing a transaction without ever unlocking your phone or typing anything).