Apple further improves Apple Pay, adds 10 new retailers to its website
Cupertino’s Apple Pay, the mobile payments solution which harnesses the iOS fingerprint scanner, Touch ID, in order to perform secure, safe payment transactions, has been further bolstered through the addition of 10 brand new retailers.
The improvement means a grand total of 68 merchants now offer Apple Pay as a payment option in the United States. Among the new retailers are Acme, GameStop, Orlando Magic, and T-Mobile’s retail stores, as 9to5mac notes, and each one now allows iPhone 6 or 6 Plus, iPad mini 3, iPad Air 2, and even Apple Watch users to pay for items using their mobile device. Below, we’ve included a full list of the new retailers added to Apple’s Apple Pay site:
- Acme
- Davis Food and Drug
- FireHouse Subs
- GameStop
- Golden State Warriors
- Luby’s
- Orlando Magic
- Phoenix Suns
- Rubio’s
- T-Mobile retail
The news, of course, comes after Cupertino further increased the number of banks and credit unions confirmed to be accepteing Apple Pay. In the United States, the mobile payments solution has actually met with reasonable success: as of March, some 57 percent of iPhone 6 owners noted that they had made at least one Apple Pay purchase using their Touch ID-equipped device. Out of this figure, two-thirds of users had completed Apple Pay purchases by linking either a credit or debit card with the service. However, it’s not all good news for the service.
According to the same report, some 68 percent of Apple Pay users had encountered “some type of problem” when performing payments with their iOS device. “The most common problem – that the merchant terminal took to long to record the transaction – was encountered by 48 percent of users,” our article added. Another issue, which we found unsurprising to hear of, was that users found cashiers fairly unfamiliar with Apple Pay; as such, cashiers weren’t able to help if a problem was encountered in the Apple Pay processes.
Here in the United Kingdom, Apple Pay still hasn’t reached users – though a report back in December did note that the service could launch “in the first half of 2015.” As such, I don’t have any experience with the service, though I am intrigued to use it as soon as possible.
Tomorrow, April 10, Cupertino’s long anticipated Apple Watch becomes available to preorder, and this, too, could help increase Apple Pay’s adoption and ultimate success. Prices for the smartwatch start at $349 and climb all the way up to $17,000.
See also: Twitter’s Periscope live video streaming app updated to enhance discovery and combat spam, Thanks to iOS 8.3, Wi-Fi calling is now enabled for iPhones on Sprint and EE, and Apple reportedly acquired smart keyboard app maker Dryft last year.