I don't think your first thought is relevant for all of this. It has been quite clear for quite some time that mobile payments was not a technology problem but

I don't think your first thought is relevant for all of this. It has been quite clear for quite some time that mobile payments was not a technology problem but a policy problem. The technology was not just ready for it with the release of the Nexus S - it was ready for it for years before that! The problem was getting people to actually use it. Since most vendors were trying to use mobile payments for their own short-term gain, things were going nowhere. Apple has not "caught up" in that sense at all since they weren't behind in any meaningful way. There was no important reason for smartphones to have NFC as there did not exist many use cases for it without payments. Although I had high expectations of NFC when I bought my current Nexus phone two years ago, things simply never got off the ground in that area. The contribution that Apple Pay makes to the market is quite unique if you look beyond technical merit. It provides an intuitive user interface for anyone's payment product for use in mobile phones. It isn't tied to your prepaid Google Wallet card, it isn't tied to your SIM card, and it isn't tied to propietary point of sale hardware. Furthermore, it is being pushed I'd argue that Apple is the only one with the required leverage to push something like this into a market obsessed with conservatism and self interests. They have the power to convince shops and banks to cooperate with it, moreso than Google. Moreover, because they have their own hardware, it is easier for them to integrate a secure element and a user-friendly authorization method (the fingerprint scanner) to have an integrated solution. It's not as if Apple has reinvented the wheel or anything, and I hope nobody is claiming that. But their execution of this idea seems very good. And it is the execution of the idea, your second point, that is the important part here. I hope that Google can fight off its own and carrier interests, and follow suit with a similar application. Many Android phones already possess all required hardware.