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Apple Pay Runs Afoul of MCX, a Group with a Rival Product

10 points by mountaineer 12y ago

veidr 12y ago
This is a really interesting battle, because MCX's CurrenC looks like an utterly horrible piece of shit that was almost certainly doomed to fail even if Apple had never come up with anything in this space. http://www.imore.com/depth-look-currentc-and-personal-data-they-want-collect http://www.imore.com/depth-look-currentc-and-personal-data-t...
- soylentcola 12y ago
  What it is is annoying and disheartening. When Google Wallet came out I wasn't able to use it for anything but loyalty cards since carrier versions of phones that normally supported it were gimped in order to stall Wallet's adoption while the carriers tried to develop their own system. About a year ago I got a Nexus 5 and have been using Wallet's tap-to-pay ever since. It's pretty convenient to pull out my phone, flash the loyalty card, and wave it over the POS terminal. I get a little receipt scrolling up the screen and a copy is emailed to me. Now Apple has joined the party and with the two biggest smartphone OSes supporting tap-to-pay (and with implementations that both work on standard POS terminals with NFC) it looked like there would finally be some push to get support from retailers that hadn't updated their terminals yet. Seemed like a win-win. Both iOS and Android fans would have a convenient and more secure way to pay for things without any of the lock-in or incompatibility that normally comes along when Apple and Google are competing in the same space. ...but no. These guys are taking a page from the carrier playbook and deliberately disabling something that has been working for years just as it's gaining popularity outside the early-adopter/techie space. It's the sort of thing that bums me out and I wish it didn't affect so many retailers so I could participate in my own ineffective (but satisfying) boycott. As it stands, I guess I'll just go back to the plastic because there's no way I'm installing this CurrenC nonsense. It would have been nicer if they competed by building their own NFC implementation that also worked on common hardware (a-la Wallet and Pay) so users could choose to use it if they wanted. Maybe they could offer coupons or some other reason people might decide to opt in. At least that would be competing in a way that didn't hurt overall adoption. Instead they went the route of scumbags like cell carriers.
drivingmenuts 12y ago
What's really going to be interesting is to see what CurrentC's plans are for getting onto the iPhone. Apple has a history of not allowing certain products, if they conflict with Apple's plans for monetization. So, CurrentC might work on Android, but ... it's Android, not the iPhone, which is the one that generates the buzz in the US. Plus, there's the whole not-actually-having-a-product thing when Apple has a product in use, I suspect that CurrentC will wind up being a negotiating tool, more than an actual product. Which is kind of funny, because Apple doesn't actually have to negotiate here.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  CurrentC is the holding the shotgun to their feet yelling at Apple, "Don't make me do it!"

10 points by mountaineer 12y ago

veidr 12y ago

This is a really interesting battle, because MCX's CurrenC looks like an utterly horrible piece of shit that was almost certainly doomed to fail even if Apple had never come up with anything in this space. http://www.imore.com/depth-look-currentc-and-personal-data-they-want-collect http://www.imore.com/depth-look-currentc-and-personal-data-t...

soylentcola 12y ago
What it is is annoying and disheartening. When Google Wallet came out I wasn't able to use it for anything but loyalty cards since carrier versions of phones that normally supported it were gimped in order to stall Wallet's adoption while the carriers tried to develop their own system. About a year ago I got a Nexus 5 and have been using Wallet's tap-to-pay ever since. It's pretty convenient to pull out my phone, flash the loyalty card, and wave it over the POS terminal. I get a little receipt scrolling up the screen and a copy is emailed to me. Now Apple has joined the party and with the two biggest smartphone OSes supporting tap-to-pay (and with implementations that both work on standard POS terminals with NFC) it looked like there would finally be some push to get support from retailers that hadn't updated their terminals yet. Seemed like a win-win. Both iOS and Android fans would have a convenient and more secure way to pay for things without any of the lock-in or incompatibility that normally comes along when Apple and Google are competing in the same space. ...but no. These guys are taking a page from the carrier playbook and deliberately disabling something that has been working for years just as it's gaining popularity outside the early-adopter/techie space. It's the sort of thing that bums me out and I wish it didn't affect so many retailers so I could participate in my own ineffective (but satisfying) boycott. As it stands, I guess I'll just go back to the plastic because there's no way I'm installing this CurrenC nonsense. It would have been nicer if they competed by building their own NFC implementation that also worked on common hardware (a-la Wallet and Pay) so users could choose to use it if they wanted. Maybe they could offer coupons or some other reason people might decide to opt in. At least that would be competing in a way that didn't hurt overall adoption. Instead they went the route of scumbags like cell carriers.

drivingmenuts 12y ago

What's really going to be interesting is to see what CurrentC's plans are for getting onto the iPhone. Apple has a history of not allowing certain products, if they conflict with Apple's plans for monetization. So, CurrentC might work on Android, but ... it's Android, not the iPhone, which is the one that generates the buzz in the US. Plus, there's the whole not-actually-having-a-product thing when Apple has a product in use, I suspect that CurrentC will wind up being a negotiating tool, more than an actual product. Which is kind of funny, because Apple doesn't actually have to negotiate here.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
CurrentC is the holding the shotgun to their feet yelling at Apple, "Don't make me do it!"