This is Technology Bytes, episode 13 for June 4th, 2023.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share my brief insights on an interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy, and here we go.
This week I want to talk about Apple Pay.
In my mind, it’s an amazing technology.
As you know by now, if you’ve listened to any of these microcasts, I’m an Apple guy through and through.
Apple Pay would be something that would be part of almost my every day, if not my every day.
In that, I want to talk about a few different things.
I want to talk about Apple Cash as it relates to Apple Pay.
I want to talk about the Apple Card and their credit card.
And I want to talk about the latest thing that they introduced, which is Apple Savings.
Each of those may deserve a small microcast on its own, so I won’t spend a lot of time on that.
Mostly I’ll talk about Apple Pay, but I think it interacts with those things enough to have them be on the periphery.
The only way that we can use Apple Pay is if we set it up on our phones and then also on our watch if we have that.
The way that that happens is on a phone, you would go into the wallet app.
It really just looks like a series of little cards in a small little wallet.
When you get in there, you would click the plus button on the top right and you can then add a card to your wallet.
Lots of things you can add to your wallet.
Plane tickets, rewards cards, things like that.
Today I’m just talking about adding either a bank card, either of the credit card variety or as a debit card.
Those are the ways that you can really access Apple Pay from either your phone or your wallet.
When you add those cards, it’s going to ask you for the card number, but you can just take a picture with your phone.
You don’t have to do a bunch of typing.
You will have to put in your three digit security code and the expiration date.
What Apple does is they contact the card provider and say this user wants to use this card in our financial system, in our Apple Pay system.
Once your bank card is verified, then the provider will send you either a text or some other method.
At the beginning, my bank actually called us, which was a little bit of a pain, but hey, it worked.
Then they will verify you and verify that you’re their customer and verify your card information.
Then it just gets added to the wallet.
That way you can now start using Apple Pay when you are at places that accept it.
I’ll talk about that a little bit later.
If you have an Apple Watch, you’ll also want to, for ease of use I believe, make the card available on your watch.
The way you do that is also through your phone.
You would open the watch app on your phone, go to wallet and Apple Pay, and then add a card there.
You might even be offered the cards that are already on your phone to add those to the watch and that makes it a little bit easier.
You can go through those same steps to add your card to your watch.
That way when you have your watch on, you can use that for Apple Pay.
Again, I’ll talk about that a little bit later as well.
One other part of Apple Pay that I think is worthwhile setting up is your Apple Cash card.
It is like a debit card that you can use if there’s money in it to pay for things at places that accept Apple Pay.
It also allows you to send money back and forth to friends, family members, maybe you’re splitting a check when you go out to eat.
It makes it very simple.
The way that you set up your Apple Cash card is through the wallet app on the phone.
Once it’s set up on the phone, it should be set up automatically on your watch.
Then you just turn Apple Cash on.
That way when people send you money, it automatically goes to your card and vice versa.
If you want to, you can send money to other people.
It can come either from your debit card that you’ve entered earlier or from the cash card that is there.
Then you can use that money however you wish to use it.
You can also transfer that money to your bank.
What you do in that case is you would have to tie your bank to your Apple Cash card.
You have to have your routing number and the other number that you’ll need to do your Apple Cash.
If you tie it to your bank, then you can transfer the money that is in your Apple Cash directly to your bank.
Then it’s there in your account to use however you wish to use it.
There are times that that becomes useful because in my case, I pay my rent through Apple Pay.
The owner of the place that I’m renting goes straight to their Apple Cash card.
Then they can transfer that money to their bank.
I think it works really well.
It’s fairly seamless.
The amount of time it takes to transfer the money to your bank is usually measured in hours less than a day.
It works very well.
Then your Apple Cash card just really helps in that transition of the money between the Ether, if you want to look at it that way, and the reality of a bank holding it.
That is the beginnings of Apple Pay.
I’m just going to briefly touch on the Apple Card and Apple Savings.
The Apple Card is a credit card that’s offered by Apple through Goldman Sachs.
If you are a credit card user, then that is an option you can use.
You can get a physical card.
It’s tied to your phone.
The way I use it is I really pay for everything with my Apple Card because then I get cash back on that card.
Then I just pay that card balance off at the end of the month.
When I get cash back, it would go straight to my Apple Cash card.
Then there are times after a month or two or three or whatever where I end up having some money in there.
Maybe it buys me a tank of gas or something else that I might be after.
That’s how I use the Apple Card.
The latest offering is the Apple Savings.
Again, I believe that’s through Goldman Sachs.
It’s a pretty high interest rate savings account.
What I’ve done is when I use my Apple Card, instead of that cash going on my Apple Cash card, it now goes straight into my savings account.
It’s just another way for me to save some money without really thinking about it.
It’s there if I absolutely need it, but it’s also not super readily available.
It allows me to just build up some money very slowly in essence.
It allows me to build up some over time that I don’t really have to think about at all on how to use it.
That’s how I use the Apple Card and Apple Savings account.
How does one go about using Apple Pay?
If you are at a place, a store, a gas station, wherever that uses Apple Pay, how do you know if they do?
Generally, there will be a symbol there that says they accept Apple Pay.
If they accept contactless payment, then that is also a good sign that Apple Pay will be able to be used there.
The two ways that I use it, one is on my watch most often and I can just double click the side button, not the crown, the little rectangular side button.
When I double click that, it pulls up all the cards that are in my wallet.
I can choose whatever card I want to use for the activity that I’m going to be spending money at.
Most often, I have my Apple Card set as the default.
You can set that card, whichever one you want to be your default.
All of the cards that are in your wallet are available to be used.
With the digital crown, you can just roll to get to the card you want to use and then use that card.
For instance, for me, at Costco, they don’t accept MasterCard and that’s what the Apple Card is.
I just slide to my bank card, which is a Visa, and my debit card.
I use that at the gas pumps at Costco.
Still very quick, still contactless payment, still very little to have to pull out any wallets or anything like that.
Then you just hold your watch really face down near the reader on whatever device at the store you’re making your payment at.
Then it will make the transaction, you’ll hear a beep, and then it will be done.
So quite easy to use on the Apple Watch.
On the phone, it’s a very similar experience.
You double-click the side button to bring up your cards.
You have to verify it is you with Face ID, and then you can hold your phone down to the reader so it’s in close enough proximity for them to communicate.
So very similar.
Some people complain a little bit about you have to double-click and there’s some speed involved in making sure your face identifies before you get your phone down to the reader.
But that timing is not where you have to do it super fast.
It just has to be done.
And it works very well, and so your phone can be used just as much as your watch, however you’re doing it.
If you don’t have an Apple Watch, Apple Pay still works very well.
You do have to have your phone out, but who are we kidding?
We always have our phones out.
So those are my thoughts on Apple Pay, on Apple Cash, on the Apple Card, and on Apple Savings.
You have been listening to the Technology Bites Microcast.
Until next time, continue enjoying your technology.
