Double-tap watch or iPhone button, wave device near register, done. Fast.
That vs Walmart Pay tap iPhone button, [swipe to find icon,] tap icon, wait for app, tap scan button, position camera for QR code, wait for focus & recognize, done. Too long.
I tried Walmart's Scan-and-Go app. Idea was you could scan all your stuff before reaching the register, scan one QR code, pay, and leave. Took an inordinately long time. Walmart dumped it.
Edit: actually there has been a "tap to pay" available at many places. All too often it was turned off, and mildly confusing which cards had it (I had one that did, then its replacement card didn't, so there I was waving a non-tap card at a tap reader). The whole tech fizzled.
So instead of 1% of all mobile purchases going to Apple, it goes to walmart instead. With the scale of business Walmart had that can be upwards of a billion dollars a year.
Argh. I had the same thing happen. Just after getting used to using the tap-to-pay card, my bank replaced it with a "dumb" card and I was back to swiping it.
Having it as part of your cell phone makes it much more secure (Apple Pay requires your fingerprint for it to work).
Contactless cards can get skimmed:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jul/23/contactless-car...
http://www.engadget.com/2013/09/16/why-a-disembodied-finger-...
By the time you defeat TouchID, the device will be useless anyway. It's more than secure enough.
http://arstechnica.com/apple/2013/09/chaos-computer-club-hac...
I've used this regularly for the past few months and had no real issues with it.
So it actually does not do much to defeat merchant tracking, assuming you consistently use Apple Pay where it is available.
In addition to the minor surcharge, there is the (opportunity) cost of Apple's hardware, the costs to vendors of supporting (yet) another platform, the consumer provides value to Apple in the form of consumer information, the consumer now has their fingerprint tied to payments, and then there is everything that goes along with the terms and conditions. Regarding the security, I'm not sure what the details are, but it seems that the attack surface is increased substantially. I'd personally prefer to have Visa, AmEx, etc reviewing and resolving fraud and other claims, seeing as how they've been doing it for decades and their bottom line depends on it, whereas Apple is relatively new to the game and Apple's bottom line does not depend on it.
Apple Pay might be awesome. Idk. But it's not "just a nice frontend for Visa, AmEx, etc., with better security".
I may have made an incorrect assumption regarding claims handling, though I'm not sure how that translates me to being "very misinformed".
I wasn't speaking only from the vendor perspective (idk what it looks like to them) or the Apple Pay customer's perspective (I'm not one of their customers) but I highly doubt it's worth my time to research to confirm that adding Apple Pay into the mix does not somehow increase the attack surface or how it does not somehow increase the amount of my personal information that is with Apple.
I personally think this can rightly be described as "very misinformed."
Yes, there is. NFC enabled terminals may be the norm at major chain stores but they do not have widespread adoption in smaller retail outlets.
The merchant pays for those terminals and they are not inexpensive. Sometimes $1000 or more. That tradeoff (making it slightly easier for you to pay) just isn't worth it to most merchants right now. As EMV adoption grows and merchants have to update their terminals to support that as well, NFC will grow.
Also, it may seem as if ApplePay is more secure for the banks as it prevents issues with data breaches but to date, it has not prevented any, will continue to only lessen the impact and is absolutely wrought with card fraud as there isn't any validation that you own the card you are loading into ApplePay. Once it's loaded it isn't checked by the merchant (if the merchant even pays attention these days) and is implicitly trusted by the network.
I don't understand your security point at all. It hasn't prevented any breaches? How do you know? It doesn't validate cards you enter into Apple Pay? If you possess the card (or can make one from having possession of the card data) then you can already use it fraudulently, loading it into an iPhone is just an extra unnecessary step for the thief. The security advantage is that malicious terminals can't steal card data, and stealing your method of payment doesn't confer the ability to pay. It's not perfect by any means (and again, not something us consumers need to even care about), merely better than a regular plastic card.
It's possible there's pressure/support from Visa and MasterCard for small, local retailers to accept contactless payments. It's part of their advertising that you can buy a newspaper using the system, and most newsagents are local, independent shops.
A basic chip+pin (not contactless) terminal is available for £100 (or £3/month), I can't find a price for a contactless one.
FUD. This is not how Touch ID works. Fingerprint data, which is not a fingerprint image to begin with, more of a hash, is stored on the iPhone's A_ chip itself. It cannot leave the device, ever.
Other posters have addressed the remainder of your incorrect claims.