Apple Stores to Start Accepting Contactless Payments through ‘Tap to Pay’ Today: Gurman

BY Chandraveer Mathur

Published 25 May 2022

Apple iPhone Tap To Pay NFC

Earlier this month, Apple was spotted testing the new “Tap to Pay on iPhone” feature at the Apple Park Visitor Center. The feature allows iPhones to use the inbuilt NFC to receive contactless payments without additional hardware. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the iPhone maker has started rolling out the feature to Apple Stores across the US today.

When you visit an Apple Store in the US for your next purchase, you probably won’t see the bulky old point-of-sale (POS) devices you used to. With the new Tap to Pay feature, the Apple Store executive should allow you to checkout conveniently utilizing a bank card or Apple Pay on your iPhone or Apple Watch. However, Gurman notes that the feature may roll out in a phased manner, so it won’t be available immediately at all of the company’s retail locations.

When Apple unveiled Tap to Pay for iPhone in February this year, it said compatible iPhones would be able to function as POS devices at retail locations with no additional hardware. It added that small businesses would benefit the most but did not specify a concrete launch timeline. Earlier, iPhones could receive payments contactlessly only through plug-and-play devices such as Square Reader. Such devices connect to the iPhone wirelessly or use the Lightning connector and headphone jack.

Tap to Pay on iPhone requires an iPhone XS or newer model to work.

[Via Bloomberg]