[tut-urut-utut]

I honestly don't see what's so revolutionary about this. Why would anyone shell out multiple hundreds of € when a device that accepts payments can be purchased for a fraction of the iPhone price?

E.g the most expensive device here [1] is only 120 €, and it can also print the bill. The cheapest that does the job is a mere 20 €.

[stu2b50]

Because a lot of people, going by the sales numbers, have iPhones? It’s more for very small businesses, who just need a quick and easy way to take card payments. Larger outfits will naturally invest in “real” PoS devices.

[laumars]

I can’t speak for America but in the U.K. there have been terminals that do this that small independent businesses have used for years. They connect to your phone too and work with both Android and iOS. You see taxis, street food sellers and all sorts using them. They also cheap and yet still look a hell of a lot more professional than this thing does.

https://merchantmachine.co.uk/contactless/

Note that some of these even have chip and pin readers for those without contactless.

[stu2b50]

It is the same in the states with Square (among others), but the ease of “I have to do nothing” is nonetheless extremely alluring to the most adhoc of businesses.

[cromka]

They're fairly common in the U.S., as far as 2015 that I remember, except they're often flaky, rely on Bluetooth and have their own battery, which many means merchants who don't use them that often would switch them off to save the battery. And with your iPhone, it's likely you have it charged and turned on at all times.

[Cederfjard]

Sorry, by ”this thing”, do you mean an iPhone? That it looks less professional to use a phone than a dedicated card reader? I can see it, I was just genuinely a little thrown by the wording.

[laumars]

Sorry yeah. I don’t know why I shouldn’t trust tapping on someone’s iPhone but it doesn’t scream “professional shop” in the same way that those card readers do. Even though those card readers are very cheap and ostensibly work the same, they just feel more “professional”.

[Macha]

Plenty of sole trader workmen and taxi drivers and the like have the square terminal that, I just checked, costs €20. €20 to take payments from 100% of your customers rather than the 30-40% market share iPhone has here seems like a no brainer to me.

[stu2b50]

I think you misunderstand the product. You can take payments from any contactless credential. That means credit cards, Apple Pay, google pay, Samsung pay, and so forth.

[Macha]

Ah, the key piece is this statement:

> At checkout, the merchant will simply prompt the customer to hold their iPhone or Apple Watch to pay with Apple Pay, their contactless credit or debit card, or other digital wallet near the merchant’s iPhone, and the payment will be securely completed using NFC technology

The language is a bit verbose, but does look like it supports standard NFC based contactless also.

[sithadmin]

American merchants doing low customer volume (e.g. small shop, cafe, restaurant) are usually locked into using something like a terminal from First Data (~$150-200 USD minimum for the most basic device) and something in the ballpark of 2.2% to 2.7% in fees for every transaction. People paying the lower rate are doing over $50k per month in transaction volume.

Compare that to competitors in the space like Square, which costs ~$300 USD and charges ~2.6% plus a flat 10 cents per transaction.

If you're not doing over $50k in volume per month and already have an iPhone...you might as well just use the Square app and take NFC payments on your phone instead of investing in the reader (assuming you're operating in a space where consumers will readily have NFC payments ready).

[lkbm]

I suspect the real benefit is situations where the seller comes to you. A cafe can have an additional piece of equipment sitting on the counter for taking payments, but if you're a handyman or something, going to someone's house, being able to take payment on the spot using the phone already in your phone seems like a valuable convenience.

[alwillis]

And wait until you can accept bitcoin payments without having to install a bitcoin wallet: https://9to5mac.com/2021/12/28/comment-tim-cook-said-apple-i....

[snotrockets]

The basic square hardware is about 1/5 the price you listed, but I don't think it's the price, but the effort – filling a form in the app vs waiting for a package to arrive in the mail, and setting up some extra hardware (What I must wonder is what Apple charges Square for this feature)

[sithadmin]

It has probably been 5 years since I've encountered the most basic Square reader in the wild (the $10 magstripe one), and I can think of a single time in the past two years I've encountered the cheap one you're referencing (which is why I forgot about it in the first place).

[echelon]

I see these $50 ones all the time:

https://squareup.com/shop/hardware/us/en/products/chip-credi...

Plus if your customer drops this, they're not breaking your expensive iPhone screen.

[sithadmin]

Yeah, those. I basically never see them anymore. There was a short time where they seemed pretty common, but I honestly only remember seeing one once in the last two years, at a farmers' market booth. All the vendors I frequent that used to use that have either upgraded to the full-function $300 Square terminal, or moved to using other solutions like Toast or Clover.

[tluyben2]

Well, if you already have an iPhone ? I would assume this is for small vendors? Otherwise indeed I do not see the point.

[lotsofpulp]

Might be big for bigger vendors too. I know Oracle extorts at least some merchants at least a few hundred dollars per year per credit card terminal for the privilege (“interface license fee” or some BS) of being able to use it. The more some of these legacy middlemen get taken out of the picture, the better.

[reaperducer]

Might be big for bigger vendors too

The POS terminals for BlueMercury (a national cosmetics chain) are iPad Airs with a tap-to-pay reader bolted on them. This would remove that bulk, expense, and potential point of failure.

[bladegash]

You haven’t seen businesses using things like Square on an iPad or iPhone as a pseudo POS system? Square even has a contactless reader on the Apple Store. Presumably, now businesses do not have to use those third parties anymore.

[dbbk]

If you already have an iPhone you don't need to buy an extra device, obviously.

[numpad0]

€120 for a CC processing terminal with the fees for setup? Doubt it. That’s the price of that little printer alone. Else they’ll be paying them back in processing fees.

[jbverschoor]

Sumit, and others..

[XCSme]

AFAIK and from my experience in many counteris PoS terminals are pretty expensive + they require you to have a constant cash flow otherwise they take it from you.

[dogma1138]

Because you still usually need a mobile device the modern cashless till today is an iPad with an NFC dongle to take payments now you can skip the dongle..

[amelius]

Not only that, but also the potential for lock-in should be a reason to not use this.

[Nextgrid]

The UX of an iPhone is much better than most legacy card terminals and as others have said, many people already own one and thus wouldn't need anything other than installing an app.

[toomuchtodo]

Think of all the e waste and logistics saved by avoiding third party payment hardware that would’ve previously been needed to support accepting contactless payments.