Apple, Square Acquisition Talks Went South Over $3B Offer [Update: Nope]

[jafingi]

I know that Square is mainly for small businesses, but imagine if Apple took the the small payment to the next level to small sales; the ease of paying at garage sales or Craigslist with an Pay to make purchases between individuals.

That would be awesome.

Yep. If Apple goes into the micropayment industry, it'll be huge.

 

[brewno]

I find it funny they didn't go in negotiations with Canadian banks. Most of the business here have the paywave/paypass technology. So technically all Canada is ready. All we need is banks to jump in and close the deal!

 

[gnasher729]

Idiots.


Apple will crush them and they will be worth 10% of that amount.

When Yahoo had a chance to sell, they passed. Stupid.


Stupid
Stupid
Stupid

Where can I invest my money in STUPID?

You have no idea what that company is doing, right?
The effect of Apple Pay on Square's business is exactly zero.

 

[gnasher729]

That information would be clearly covered by NDAs thus would not be allowed to be said. That's if he indeed does have inside information. We all know how tight Apple are with this sort of thing. If you are in the know inside Apple you are not even allowed to utter one word to the wrong person after you've signed that NDA. And Apple would make everyone in the know sign NDAs.

So he is either guessing or breaking NDAs.

Two executives at Apple, one of them Tim Cook, have a conversation.

"Have you seen this nonsense story that we were trying to buy Square".
"Yes, what a nonsense. I don't want people to believe it, but I don't want Apple to make a statement either".
"Easy, I'll just tell my old mate Jim Dalrymple that it's nonsense and he'll tell everyone".
"Great, go ahead".

He is breaking NDA's according to you.
Call me a "regular schmuck" as much as you want. Sticks and stones . . . your insults don't hurt me.
You just said you believe he is breaking NDAs as he has inside information.

If I had the inside information he did I'd respect the NDAs and keep my mouth shut. I'm not jealous of him, I'm slightly disappointed, that Apple does nothing about him and that he keeps breaking NDAs. But in the grand scheme of things if people want to like him, that's their loss.

I won't ever like him because of what he represents and his lack of morals. But that's just me. I don't really care. I just wanted to share the facts to everyone, that's all.

Complete misunderstanding of his role. He doesn't have someone inside Apple who tells him things he shouldn't know. What happens is that when Apple wants to make same information public without saying it themselves, they tell Dairymple about it. Without an NDA, because it is Apple's intention that he tells the world. Apple wanted us to know that a deal with Square was never planned, so they tell Dairymple, who says "nope".

 

[gnasher729]

Conversely, what's to prevent Apple from adding NFC to *all* its devices? The iPad with Square dongle is a very popular combination with small retailers - once the next iPad Air has NFC, I'm sure it will be able to act as a payment receiver. Heck, there is nothing preventing Apple from enhancing existing iPads and iPhones to make payments to each other via Bluetooth LE.

This isn't just a matter of communication. There are some very serious security considerations. Just imagine what would happen if security was breached on this, that would be absolutely desastrous.

For example, Apple Pay will never, ever, run on an iPhone 5s or earlier. That's because the iPhone 6 has one specific chip inside that does all the security related things in Apple Pay, which has been either heavily examined by the banks or was actually developed by the banks (I think it is the latter).

Apple must guarantee that no iPhone 6, even if it is jailbroken, hacked with malware, full of viruses, will make credit card payments without the consent of the owner. They can't do that with pre-iPhone 6 hardware.

----------

It'll be interesting to see how the credit card companies adapt to Apple pay. I've heard the NFC token-based authentication used by Apple pay is much more secure than the chip method. If so, the credit card companies are likely to push for Apple pay, as that'll help decrease fraud (and thereby increase credit card companies' profits).

Here's what makes Apple Pay safer: Nobody, including the merchant, or any employee of the merchant, ever finds out your credit card number.

Fraud is currently quite simple in the USA if a crook has your credit card number. Apple Pay cannot prevent that, because the crook doesn't use Apple Pay! With Chip&PIN or other security measures that will soon be introduced, it's harder to go to a shop with a fake credit card and commit fraud, but knowing your credit card number I can still buy things online fraudulently (and Apple Pay cannot prevent it, because the crook doesn't use Apple Pay).

However, all that fraud requires that some crook gets hold of your credit card number first, most likely through a crook working in some genuine, honest store who takes your credit card. And if you are using Apple Pay, they can't get hold of the number!

 

[the8thark]

As usual, you have no clue what you're talking about. It is unclear why you have such a hard time believing that Apple uses him and others to confirm/deny rumors in this fashion, but they do. Get over it.

Gee harsh.
But I stick by my words. He either has an NDA or should have one. He does not work for Apple and I don't give a **** about his arrogant Yeps and Nopes. I just pretend he does not exist for the most part and just get on with my life. No sleep lost by me. And I'm not mad either I just am saying I don't care what he says and the reasons why I don't care.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Bingo, it's not the same thing. They don't compete at all, how many people at garage s ales are going to be accepting apple pay? None.

What makes you say that?
If I have an NFC enabled iPhone and they have an NFC enabled iPhone why can't I process a payment assuming Apple releases an SDK or provides that functionality?

Seems like Apple would be stupid not to enable that.

 

[vergun]

With Apple Pay, the retailer is probably going to need to be BIGGER so they can buy the hardware that supports NFC. Square will give you the hardware (dongle) so you could take credit cards at a garage sale, a fund raiser, or anywhere else.

Not true. NFC supports peer to peer transactions (NFC enabled device to NFC enabled device). In other words for example, a tax drivers' NFC enabled phone could act as a base station that reads a customers' Apple pay data, just like an NFC base station at a merchant. What that means is no dongle needed any longer.

 

[smoledman]

Not true. NFC supports peer to peer transactions (NFC enabled device to NFC enabled device). In other words for example, a tax drivers' NFC enabled phone could act as a base station that reads a customers' Apple pay data, just like an NFC base station at a merchant. What that means is no dongle needed any longer.

That has f-all to do with retailers needing to buy $500 NFC readers.

 

[Toltepeceno]

What makes you say that?
If I have an NFC enabled iPhone and they have an NFC enabled iPhone why can't I process a payment assuming Apple releases an SDK or provides that functionality?

Seems like Apple would be stupid not to enable that.

Assuming apple releases......I don't assume anything when it comes to apple. If it's released we will see.

Concerning your iphone to iphone statement that still leaves out the other phone platforms, which are the majority of phones, and apple has a history of releasing nothing to other platforms. Square would still be on all top 3 platforms.

That's why I say that.

 

[TwitchOSX]

That's too bad

We use Square register here at work and while it works great, their customer service is dog ****. We tried getting a hold of them over something we had a question about last year and there is no phone number and emails were not answered. it wasn't a huge issue so we just let it go.

 

[orthorim]

"Apple also showed Square a raft of hardware that would compete with Square's point-of-sale tools, said the same source."

That's as far as you had to read to know that this is complete and utter BS.

Why would Apple ever do that? Why would anyone? Some 13 year old made this up, clearly.