A Good Story About Apple Pay
It goes back to 2011
I actually didn’t get an iPhone when it was first released. As an early adopter of technology, I had devices capable of reading email and surfing the web from 1999. The original iPhone didn’t have apps either. I received my Nokia E90 on the same day as the iPhone launch. I thought it was a far superior phone. Blackberries and Nokia already had apps and a lot more capabilities than the iPhone.
Of course that changed and by 2011, I was rocking one.
Back then though, there was something that constantly irked me. So many apps were coming out that required payment information. Want to book movie tickets? Yes you can now do that but you have to put in your credit card info for each card you might want to use.
Buy groceries?
Get an Uber?
Book a flight?
Book an Airbnb?
Etc.. Every app has their own payment info and was endlessly frustrating having to re-enter the same info over and over again, especially if you wanted to have options about what card to use or it got stolen/replaced.
After thinking a while, I had an idea. At AngelHack in 2011, me, a designer, and an iOS developer started from zero lines of code.
By the end, we had setup whereby you could open our app, store your payment details, and then by clicking a button in any other app, switch dynamically back to ours where you could checkout using stored payment credentials.
Quick and smooth purchases on your phone. A revolution in mobile commerce.
We came in 3rd out of like 50 teams, which we considered a success considering it was very clear the teams above us did a lot of prep coding we had not. We even got a few VC meetings out of it.
We lost interest in the idea though and it was a good thing. In 2014, Apple would launch Apple Pay, which includes the ability to pay for items in app.
It’s really kind of fascinating how far Apple Pay has come. I was ordering Starbucks earlier and the typical Apple Pay request to refill my card came up. I use it for every other purchase I can across my phone, iPad, and laptop. I switched from Chrome to Safari just for Apple Pay, and honestly - I don’t regret it one bit (passkeys are awesome too).
Had we built our system, Apple Pay would have crushed it, even though it has taken quite a bit of time for it to take hold. I don’t recall using it at all before Covid but ever since, I have every card in my Wallet. It’s even changed my spending habits in that I can so easily decide which card to use that it’s very easy to get significantly more rewards per purchase. At minimum, I make 2% now, frequently up to 6%. I have to carry four cards to be able to do that (Apple Card, TD Cash, Chase Sapphire, Amazon Prime Card). I rarely bother carrying my wallet anymore unless I have a specific need for my driver’s license, which will eventually become digital too.
Apple Pay continues to grow ferociously. It’s fun to look back and know I saw seamless in-app payments long before they ever became reality.