Jack Dorsey’s Square, Incase, Verifone and now Mophie — these companies’ credit card readers are turning the iPhone/iPod touch platform into an e-commerce engine.
Mophie, a Los Angeles-based company that makes accessories for the iPod/iPhone devices will release a credit card reader at CES in January 2010. The device is going to have a reader and a software that would allow small businesses to take credit cards. No more details are available just yet.
I, for one, would like to see Mophie or one of these other startups come up with a way for me to scan my own credit card to enter it into an app or web site. Even better, I’d love it if they married their hardware with the functionality of something like 1Password. In doing so, they could enable e-commerce via the iPhone apps. Think of it as iEconomy.
I know, I know — it’s easier said than done, considering it would need some deep, system-level mucking around, and Apple isn’t going to let that happen. But it should! By opening up, it would make the iPhone into an even more useful platform. While I can understand Apple’s hesitation at opening up the iPhone, it can start with iPod touch, which is not tethered to a wireless phone company’s network.
Parole Fatti Pensieri