You'd better sell when APPLE competes with bitcoin..

[600watt]

i was a bit worried about apple doing some kind of itunes stunt after they learned what napster was capable of. was afraid they planned the same with some imoney crypto.

now they are teaming up with the dinosaurs. their crypto research compartment lost the internal battle. good for us.

i am not worried anymore.

[esse83]

I guess Bitcoin may do quite a drop down as soon as Apple unveils those plans officially. It is effectively one of the use cases of Bitcoin, but a lot better when it comes to ease of use and safety for the consumer. Maybe Bitcoin can learn from it, though. The core technology behind Bitcoin remains unbeaten!

It's pretty much the nail in the coffin for adoption at the average joe level. We will always have each other though!  

[raid_n]

I guess Bitcoin may do quite a drop down as soon as Apple unveils those plans officially. It is effectively one of the use cases of Bitcoin, but a lot better when it comes to ease of use and safety for the consumer. Maybe Bitcoin can learn from it, though. The core technology behind Bitcoin remains unbeaten!

People always compare bitcoin to corporations and their payment systems.
There is no real incentive for one corporation to adopt the system of another.
Likewise why should any corporation create a system where they do not profit at all?

It makes no difference if Apple or Google has their own "awesome" payment network. Bitcoin offers an opportunity to bridge different ecosystems, it is more or less agnostic to who or what uses it.
That's why it is often compared to http or tcp/ip. You can build stuff on top of it for your own use case.

[btcxyzzz]

...not worth a shit...

[zimmah]

Apple, Visa, Mastercard,

it will be expensive and only bring profit to large corporations.

it will probably catch on, because the world has plenty of retards to fuel these kind of things, but it will be no match to bitcoin, as bitcoin has a completely different target audience.

[boraf]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is essentially the same thing as google wallet (which has been around for a couple years)? Last year, using my old nexus, I was able to pay via NFC at retailers that had POS systems that enabled it. Google wallet received little attention. But now since APPLE is implementing it, the system will be "revolutionary", "groundbreaking", and "change the way the world shops"! The power of their brand, and the stupidity of isheep, can't be underestimated. Meanwhile, apple will make a KILLING advertising inside the wallet to users who are out and about in retail stores. Not to mention the data they will be hoarding on each transaction, and selling to 3rd parties (disclosed or not). Like other people mentioned, apple has a big advantage in this segment because they already have the credit card data of hundreds of millions of their users from itunes and will probably offer promos in apple stores to attract attention and get users comfortable with using it. Seeings as they have millions of users who are willing to wait in line for an iphone release (lol), I'm sure they will have no problem adopting this system and using it religiously. But imo, this won't have a large impact on bitcoin, in-store retail transactions are only one small aspect of what bitcoin is capable of and useful for. 

Google checkout failed to get market share because google store is a failure. And ebay is doing all it can to ban google checkout to be used on ebay.

Apple iphone store on the other hand is a success. They can force users to use it and not their competition.

[JimboToronto]

Hope nobody's going to fall for Apple shit.

Oh, many will.

It constantly amazes me that anyone could be so stupid and gullible as to actually give money to Apple Corporation.

[montreal]

Google checkout failed to get market share because google store is a failure. And ebay is doing all it can to ban google checkout to be used on ebay.

Apple iphone store on the other hand is a success. They can force users to use it and not their competition.

That situation was from 2006. Google checkout was a project more focused on e-commerce, and was ultimately discontinued. Google wallet is a newer project, that has a feature that allows users to checkout in retail stores via NFC. It seems very similar to this new apple payment system.

[Peter R]

The future of brick-and-mortar payments is away from secure payment terminals and towards a mobile solution.  The consumer should see the merchant's payment request on a device he trusts (e.g., his phone), and authorize this payment if correct (e.g., using biometrics).  Credit card details could be transferred encrypted (for example using a Diffie-Hellman shared secret) or, better yet, the mobile device could sign a bitcoin transaction (without revealing its private keys).  Secret keys (or card details) could be stored in a secure computing environment on new processors, safe from malware.  If the merchant's payment request is signed (using some sort of certificate system) so that the user can verify that the payment is indeed going to the right entity, then we've almost got an almost ideal solution.  

Apple's touch-ID combined with NFC is a great platform to begin this much-needed transition away from the archaic payment terminal.  The NFC component links the mobile device with the merchant's register, and the touch ID links the individual with the mobile device.  Displaying the price on the user's phone reduces the risk of fraudulent overcharges.  Logistically, merchant's who already have NFC payment terminals may not require new hardware as NFC devices (including sigsafe) are based on the ISO/IEC 14443-4 standard to ensure interoperability.  Speaking with a former Versapay executive, I learned that the software running on the terminals can be update remotely (subject to extensive certification and testing).  Given Apple's immense power, I'd expect that all these details are taken care of and at t=0 numerous merchant terminals across the country will just start to work with iWallet.  But this also means that in a more distant future, another software upgrade could seamlessly enable NFC bitcoin payments across the country.  

I am on the fence whether this will be short/medium-term helpful or hurtful to bitcoin adoption.  The payment system will attract media attention, and I'm sure Apple will do a good job of making it simple to use.  But it won't address any of the problems outlined in Satoshi's white paper:

Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non- reversible services. With the possibility of reversal, the need for trust spreads. Merchants must be wary of their customers, hassling them for more information than they would otherwise need. A certain percentage of fraud is accepted as unavoidable. These costs and payment uncertainties can be avoided in person by using physical currency, but no mechanism exists to make payments over a communications channel without a trusted party.

What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party.

Furthermore, the Apple hardware (touchID + NFC + secure computing) is more suited to bitcoin than the legacy payment networks, so we should be thankful that we'll have new hardware to write bitcoin apps for.  Long term we are evolving to an open global payment system, and for this electronic cash is critical.  This is the age of disintermediation.  


I should also add that I really hope the iPhone has 2-way NFC like the Samsung phones (so the phone can act as a NFC passive target or as a NFC initiator), but I'm doubtful.  It would be better for bitcoin if it's two-way NFC.

[elebit]

Isn't this exactly like Google Wallet, only a year or two later?

(It falls perfectly in line with everything else that Apple does just because Google did it first, from notifications and multitasking/intents in Android to all the cloud stuff. But it makes sense, since Google is probably the only credible competitor to Apple right now.)

Anyway, we all know how Google Wallet killed Bitcoin .. right?

(I think it's going to bring more people into mobile payments, and that can only be good for Bitcoin.)

[BCEmporium]

You mean the same Apple that leave a brute-force system open and got its cloud hacked? 

[sickpig]

Apple is going to release a mobile payment system, secured with touch ID, and with VISA and American Express.
In other words, it will make the transaction much faster and much more secure.
And that my friends, is a threat to bitcoin

edit: source: http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-amex-teaming-on-iphone-6-payments-system-report-says/

Better SELL when apple competes?

Sure, in the meantime try to ask Jennifer Lawrence what she thinks....

[bonipper]

Apple is going to release a mobile payment system, secured with touch ID, and with VISA and American Express.
In other words, it will make the transaction much faster and much more secure.
And that my friends, is a threat to bitcoin

edit: source: http://www.cnet.com/news/apple-amex-teaming-on-iphone-6-payments-system-report-says/

Better SELL when apple competes?

Sure, in the meantime try to ask Jennifer Lawrence what she thinks....

Only a small percentage of really well off people can afford apple products. It's not that much of a threat if most people are using android, or a shit "feature" phone.

[NotLambchop]

You mean the same Apple that leave a brute-force system open and got its cloud hacked?  

I don't think that's how it works.  If my bank gets robbed/some ATM gets hacked, I don't lose any money.  I don't even lose money if someone cards me.  Or even if my PayPal gets compromised.  I don't need to worry about the nuts & bolts.
Unlike Bitcoin, there are entities backing those payment services.

[Hyena]

You mean the same Apple that leave a brute-force system open and got its cloud hacked?  

I don't think that's how it works.  If my bank gets robbed/some ATM gets hacked, I don't lose any money.  I don't even lose money if someone cards me.  Or even if my PayPal gets compromised.  I don't need to worry about the nuts & bolts.
Unlike Bitcoin, there are entities backing those payment services.

Shit, there are entities? I have bad experiences with entities.

[Bitcopia]

You mean the same Apple that leave a brute-force system open and got its cloud hacked?  

I don't think that's how it works.  If my bank gets robbed/some ATM gets hacked, I don't lose any money.  I don't even lose money if someone cards me.  Or even if my PayPal gets compromised.  I don't need to worry about the nuts & bolts.
Unlike Bitcoin, there are entities backing those payment services.

And those entities are profitable. Even after paying for all of the theft and fraud, they are still making a killing. Guess where that money comes from....

[BCEmporium]

I don't think that's how it works.  If my bank gets robbed/some ATM gets hacked, I don't lose any money.  I don't even lose money if someone cards me.  Or even if my PayPal gets compromised.  I don't need to worry about the nuts & bolts.
Unlike Bitcoin, there are entities backing those payment services.

Those "entities" are great for chargeback scams, aren't they?...

[alani123]

Gr8 B8 M8

No seriously, do you believe that a company that can't even secure their cloud storage services (I'm looking at you iCloud) that are by default used by all of their devices is going to compete with bitcoin?

[NotLambchop]

...
Shit, there are entities? I have bad experiences with entities.

The point is crappy AAPL security is not an argument against using AAPL e-cash.  If they get hax0rd, I lose nothing.
Your bad experience with those institutions is no more of an argument against them than some hipster's bad experience with guns is a reason to ban guns.

@Bitcopia:  Of course banks make money, learn to Capitalism.  Banks provide a service, they're not free, they're not charities.  Children know this.
Unless you think AAPL is going to charge more than other payment methods, I'm cool with them not giving me a special discount "because banks make money, and AAPL is Communism."  

*The point is not to simply make *any* complaints against AAPL, but ones that stick, that makes sense.  Otherwise we just look stupid.

[NotLambchop]

Gr8 B8 M8

No seriously, do you believe that a company that can't even secure their cloud storage services (I'm looking at you iCloud) that are by default used by all of their devices is going to compete with bitcoin?

Please read what you're responding to.  It makes no difference to me if AAPL has shit security and a bunch of btards got to fap to shitty celeb pr0nz because of it.  I don't care, just like I don't care if my bank gets robbed--my money is safe.  If AmEx, who is partnering with AAPL, thinks their security is ass, that's their problem--they will be covering the potential losses.
Not an argument against people using AAPL coin.