»Jack Dorsey, creator of Twitter, talks about his new venture, Square, and demos it in a coffee shop in San Francisco.
A few weeks ago I was in an Apple store buying a replacement set of headphones and as I checked out I handed my debit card to the employee who promptly swiped it in a similar device as square is using only it’s a shell case for the iPhone with a card reader built in. I stood in awe for a second that Apple had developed a device like that. It makes so much sense, I guess credit card readers are just one of those things that we never really think about.
We’re in an age where physical money is becoming obsolete. That does present its own problems, especially in the areas of money management and compulsive spending. Square’s simple little device will not only free up counter space in stores that choose to use their card readers, it’ll add an element of security while reducing paper.
Square’s website emphasizes the emailing of receipts as Apple stores already do. Their website also talks about an emphasis on security, showing an iPhone with a picture that pops up, a picture of you or me or whoever the credit card belongs to. Not only will that crack down on potential identity theft, it will eliminate the pesky need to pull out your driver’s license to verify your credit card.
Five or ten years down the road a lot of the technology we currently use may change. Twitter may be gone, Facebook could go the way of MySpace but I think Square has some real staying power. It’s going to change the way we do business in an age of smart phones and credit cards.
Jack Dorsey may have just done it again.
(via shutupinternet)
This is a great step forward. The more apps that are developed and the more functionality added to the iPhone, the more I see how extremely valuable consolidating tools can be. I’m excited to see where this type of thing will go. Will it stay exclusive to the iPhone/iPod touch or will we have a new device to set the standard in 2010?
Side note: how weird is it that we can’t say “Oh nine” or anything like that in 2010? We HAVE to say “two thousand ten”. Otherwise we’ll be stuck saying “a few years back, in ten…” and that’s just silly, right?
