Will this affect how I pay using the "Express" service? I think all my payments go through the online Google Wallet for that now. I suppose it'll just store the credit card directly? Huh.

I'm curious about the behavior of the pixels shutting off to produce black. I totally understand the concept, but does this actually ever *happen* when the television is on? I'm thinking of everything I watch, and while there are many black-ish areas, it seems like true black is a pretty rare item. Does reducing the…

I know that all of us tech nerds want to complain about how the parallax and perspective issues will make it bad .. but honestly, I feel like this is one where I'd have to see it in person to really judge. Also, notice how tiny the rooms are left-to-right (since they're packed in on a cruise ship) — that actually…

Okay, you totally got me. :) I have to admit, I sat there for ten seconds thinking, "do I need to enable Flash? What's up?" before I got it. Nicely done.

Additionally, Apple Pay lets me switch between cards. For me, I most often use a standard CitiBank MasterCard. But at some places, either due to the nature of the purchase, or the nature of the store (like CostCo), I use an American Express card. Apple Pay makes it easy for me to select cards, just like I would if…

I'll totally agree with both of those comments — for all its problems, it certainly is a sturdy little thing! But yeah — I need to slap on a Bluetooth location-finder thingy to keep track of it. :)

Those remotes... I'm usually a fan of Apple stuff (I develop for them, so we have at least one of everything around the house), but even though you praised the Apple TV remote over this one ... it seems like that's a choice between "terrible" and "awful."

"... we will never send you emails asking for your financial information, unless we are asking you to provide your financial information to link your account to our system. But don't worry; if we do that, we'll write THIS IS NOT SPAM!!!!111 at the top of the note."

For the record, I've run a small business for over a dozen years. Yes, there's a fee to accept credit cards — I can tell you that it is still *absolutely* worth it for the added business received. But looking at CurrentC — in addition to all the reports showing just how terrible the system is for consumers, the…

That's an interesting article — thanks for pointing it out. Actually, though, it pretty much reinforces my faith in a system like Apple Pay (or other similar). There are a number of reasons for that.

I still remember the day my friend got a "SLiP" (account? Setting? I forget) for his Netcom account. Even though I was a computer science geek, I was really doubtful that he could take our text-based Netcom account and turn it into something graphical (not that there was much in the way of graphics those days).

Hmm, you have a good point about the Amazon app: Apple allows the purchase of physical goods unrelated to your phone (so I can purchase a light bulb directly from the app), but does not allow anything purchased *to* your phone (so I am not allowed to purchase an e-book for my iPhone, or in-game currency, or things…

Yeah, I think Windows Phone is getting an NFC option "soon," but who knows what what actually means. :) I think (not sure) that all the recent Windows Phone hardware has NFC ready, although I'm not sure if they have the equivalent of the "secure storage chip" that Apple and Google are into. (They might; I don't keep…

I'd be interested to know how that interfaces with things like the fact that Amazon can't let you purchase items or audiobooks through an App, and nobody but Apple is allowed to create any sort of App Store, or to accept payments from any method other than their own In-App Purchase system. Really not trying to argue…

Actually, it's much faster for me in a grocery line than a card swipe. For a subway line? Not sure. I guess it'd depend on how fast the "phone out of the pocket, wait for authorization, put it away" compares to the quick swipe I do with my subway card. I'm honestly not sure which one would be faster for me,…

In the case of Apple Pay (not sure how Google Wallet works; I haven't used it myself), you don't have to do most of those steps. No waking up or unlocking your phone, or running an app. Just hold the sleeping phone near the device, with your thumb/finger on the sensor, and that's it — it'll wake up, scan you, and…

I wasn't sure how the implementation of Apple Pay would be, but I have to say, I really liked how it worked in practice — much easier for me than using even an old (no pin) credit card. It turned into:

I can understand why you might think that — there's a bunch of confusion about Apple Pay out there right now. But as others have said, it's not a proprietary system; any standard NFC-accepting terminal can take Apple Pay, along with Google Wallet, and Microsoft Magic (or whatever they'll call it). In point of fact,…

While I do see that behavior in a number of areas, I'm not actually worried about it in this case. As people have said, the NFC payment system has existed in Google Wallet for a couple years now, and there's nothing to stop Google (or Microsoft, etc.) from taking some queues from Apple and streamlining the systems. …

That's not actually true. I'm an app developer (iOS and Android, but mainly iOS), and there is nothing that says either company *must* allow you to create an app for their system; it's not a protected right. Now, they may relent if public opinion makes them look stupid/greedy/whatever, but they can refuse any app…