Dive Brief:
- Whole Foods says it will accept the just-announced contactless payment system called Apple Pay.
- Apple announced the system, which will communicate between Apple products and POS systems, on Tuesday.
- Apple Pay will be available in the next generation of iPhones starting in October, and in the Apple Watch next year.
Dive Insight:
Apple Pay will be compatible with existing POS systems, which should make it considerably more likely that Apple users will actually use the technology. But the world is full of mobile payments systems now, and many of them sit unused in people's phones.
Apple Pay will likely also make it slightly easier for customers to pay at stores that adopt the technology. But at least for now, that is a very small list. Whole Foods, which already accepts Square and NFC- payments, is on that list. But none of the other companies (McDonald's, Subway, Staples, Disney, Duane Reade) seem like the sort of tech and youth-friendly places that Apple might need to gain traction with Apple Pay.