Knowing Apple's UX, it'll be rather easy-to-use if it's available – so I'm not sure that the overhead of 'figuring out if the other person uses an iPhone' would be any higher than figuring out if they use Venmo or PayPal or Square or whatever the other options are.

How can we assume this?

This exact thing has been tried many, many times - and sometimes to great success. What inherently makes you believe Apple's spin will be so much better than the other services and their unique problems?

The challenge Apple will face has nothing to do with UX - it will have to do with userbase.

It's likely (although not absolute) that using this service will require an iOS device. Given Android devices far outnumber iOS devices, this may pose a problem. Other services like PayPal and Square are universal services (device agnostic), and accounts are free (compared to Apple's barrier to entry which will likely cost you an iOS device).

Obviously we can't know for sure – but it does seem like a pretty safe assumption. Apple Pay is a good experience at the moment; it's easy to see how that experience could be extended to inter-device transfers (bring them close together, enter the amount to transfer, Touch ID and done – or something similar).

The challenge Apple will face has nothing to do with UX - it will have to do with user base.

The service will likely be available instantly to literally tens of millions of people with no additional effort on their part, as soon as Apple roll out a software update. That's a big benefit for Apple.

It's likely (although not absolute) that using this service will require an iOS device. Given Android devices far outnumber iOS devices, this may pose a problem.

I think I responded to this elsewhere, but that's only true globally. Bear in mind that even Apple Pay is only available in the US and the UK at the moment; iOS share in those countries is around 40%.

Other services like PayPal and Square are universal services (device agnostic), and accounts are free (compared to Apple's barrier to entry which will likely cost you an iOS device).

They do have the additional barrier of not being available to all users by default, though.

In the US, where this payment service would likely be available first, the iPhone has a marketshare of around 44% and growing. So the difference in marketshare is in the single digits: http://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/03/iphone-us-market-share-c...

Apple sold 74.5 million iPhones this quarter a year ago; they could sell even more this year, given the start the iPhone 6s had this year (13 million) vs. last year (10 million) during the first weekend of availability. If this keeps up, iPhone marketshare could surpass Android in a couple of years or less.

Second, just like with iMessage, Apple could differentiate between iOS users (blue bubbles) and non-iOS users with their green bubbles. Yes, this is a real thing: "It’s Kind of Cheesy Being Green" https://medium.com/message/its-kind-of-cheesy-being-green-2c...

The easiest thing for users would be to include payment in iMessage, similar to what Facebook and others are doing with their messaging apps.

Blue bubbles only. ;-)

Well, they managed just that for payments with Apple Pay -- and with the iPod, iPhone, iPad etc for their respective markets, so...

I would imagine that a consumer-to-consumer Apple Pay would work similarly. Hell, it might be integrated directly in the messages app.

Speaking as a Canadian, I can already use email to transfer money to almost any other Canadian, because our cartel of banks use a common system.

Venmo is a holding service, requiring an extra step to actually get your money.

Square Cash, while easy and directly person-to-person, is slow.

Fix either of these issues and I'll convert.

They MAY release the payment stuff for Android (so users can receive payments) but I doubt they want to be a general payment provider for Android users.

That's obviously true globally, but not for some of their more important markets. iOS and Android are roughly equivalent in the US for example, with the latter having maybe 10% more of the market – I think?

While there's no doubt that instant money transfers are particularly useful in less developed markets, it's not like it wouldn't still be a useful service in the US.

"I want to send you money. Do you have an iPhone?" "Yes" "Okay, here's the money."

versus

"Do you have an iPhone?" "No" "Okay, download SquareVenmoPal and I'll send it to you".

There's a built-in audience for Apple Pay that might prove to be beneficial.

[0] - http://www.businessinsider.com/android-is-for-poor-people-ma...

[1] here's a deconstruction of the data in the article: http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/158143/twitter-heat-map-sho...

[2] here's one explanation why: http://readwrite.com/2013/01/29/why-do-americans-hate-androi...

iPhones are extremely secure thanks to TouchID and Apple's software.

Apple already has payment info for me and a good relationship with banks.

They're normally pretty great at UI and can integrate it into the OS in ways no 3rd party ever could.

It will be built into the phone and come preinstalled so I don't have to convince people to install it.

Apple shows a lot more respect for my privacy than other companies that I could see doing this (such as Facebook/Google) and isn't a company I already despise (PayPal, YMMV when it comes to despising Apple).

Let's look at this a different way: no one has cracked this potential market yet (at least in the US, just nibbling at the edges)... what makes you think Apple can't make a good play?

I think Apple could build a tremendous P2P service based on your comments. But it's never going to be the platform lock in they desire because if we really do have meaningful broad adoption of P2P only cross platform offerings will work.

Of course it could; for a growing number of people, the combination of Apple Pay, Touch ID and the iOS eco-system is already creating lock-in. If Apple were to create a P2P payment service that was secure and dead simple to use--kinda like Apple Pay--it would become the leading way to pay on the iPhone in a week or two.

Looking at the latest 10K, Apple sold over 400 million iPhones the past 2 fiscal years. Yes, that's a relatively small percentage of the global cell phone market, but that puts them at around 44% (and growing) in the US, so they could easily create an iPhone-only payment service if they wanted to. Even something that leveraged the fact that all Apple Pay users have at least one debit card in their Wallet app that could be used to send and receive payments.

Apple of course has the huge advantage of being the platform vendor and being able to make their payment app available to hundreds of millions of potential users literally overnight with a software update. None of these other guys--Venmo, PayPal, Square Cash--can do anything like that. And among these companies, Apple is likely to be way more trusted, especially among the 40 and 50 year-olds who not only have never heard of Venmo but wouldn't trust it with their payment information. Apple doesn't have that problem.

Edit: I wrote about other Apple advantages in an earlier post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10550853

Venmo may have great market share among people using apps to pay friends. I'm suggesting the total pool of people is MUCH bigger and Apple could take a good chunk of those people, not unlike when the smartphone, tablet, MP3 player, or digital music store markets got MUCH bigger. Will they take it all? No. Probably not even 'most'. But there is still a large opportunity there.

I've never used Venmo, but I wonder if they'll survive or end up a player that was there too soon or at the start but is overtaken by the 2nd wave.

There are plenty of companies/brands that fit that model. Diamond Rio, Palm, ICQ, Blackberry...

Or maybe the banks will come in and crush this market somehow. I know many are trying (BoA, Chase, USAA), but they may not get the UX to work well or be willing to cooperate between banks.