Apple Pay: How does it work?

What is Apple Pay?

Apple Pay is Apple's foray into the contact-less transaction environment. It uses a special hardware chip most often referred to as an NFC chip, or Near Field Communication chip to effect the transaction.  The main draw of Apple Pay, is that you do not need to give your Bank details, credit card numbers, or any personal info to anyone to make a payment.

Stores that support Apple pay must have an NFC terminal at their checkouts to receive Apple Pay payments.

Setting Up Apple Pay

When you set Apple Pay up, Apple sends, in an encrypted transaction, your Credit Card information to your Bank or Card Issuer and a unique device code it generates from your Device and credit card info for your Bank or Credit card issuer to use.  The Bank or Issuer network then creates a device account number and other payment data, encrypts it so only they can de-crypt it later,  and sends it back to Apple and then your device. Apple cannot decrypt this package, it merely stores it on your device, but nowhere else.

Apple Pay does not store your Credit Card information on your device either, only a portion of your Number is kept so you can identify your card on screen.

You do not need to give your Credit Card information to anyone after this step.   Once your credit card has been set up in Apple Pay and all required information entered into it, it is no longer necessary to give out credit card details or make bank transactions to make purchases through Apple Pay.

Paying with Apple Pay

When you initiate a payment with Apple pay in a store or within an App, Apple Pay will transfer the encrypted package it stored, which does not contain your credit card information, and is encrypted by your Bank or Issuer network, in a transaction with the terminals in stores to confirm payment.   Your Credit Card info is never given out; and best of all cannot be read by any NFC terminal or reader because its not there.

You can also use Apple Pay to pay within Mobile Apps that support it.  These Apps are only running on your device, and again will only send this encrypted package to the merchant and then to your Bank or Issuer network, they do not transfer your credit card or banking details.

After the package has been sent to the terminal or App, the process moves forward like a normal credit card operation would. The bank or issuer is contacted and a request for payment authorization is made. The issuer or Bank de-crypts the data it receives, matches data with their records to find the card being used and okays or denies the purchase.

Your Card details remain with you and your Bank or Credit card issuer.

Payment transactions at stores and within Apps must be authorized by you when requested using your Touch ID, or passcode before the payment package is sent for confirmation. So unless you o.k the operation with your thumb print or passcode nothing is sent from your device.

Availability of Apple Pay

Apple Pay is currently available in the U.S, U.K, and Australia .
UPDATE: It is also available in Canada, but only with direct American Express Cards. Bank issued Amex based cards are not supported yet.
This will be updated when other countries make this process available.

Another thing to keep in mind, is that there is no Website or Transaction Portal for Apple Pay.  All operations happen on your device. That is you cannot go to a Website to use Apple Pay. You need to own a supported device (iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus or iPhones 5, 5s, 5c with an Apple Watch) .

Nobody can request you enter Credit Card details in a website to confirm a payment, and no one can sell you anything through Apple Pay if its not done through your Apple Device.

Stores may request you verify your purchase by signature or other means at time of Purchase.

More information on Apple Pay

You can view stores, and Apps that support Apple Pay, as well as compatible devices on Apple's own Apple Pay page:
https://www.apple.com/apple-pay/

More specifics about Apple Pay security and Privacy of data and personal informaton.
Apple Pay security and privacy overview - Apple Support

Top 5 additions in the recently released iOS 9.2 Update for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

At the time of writing this, Apple has released the iOS 9.2 Update for all iOS devices that support it. And it comes with a slew of fixes, improvements, and new additions to iOS 9. Here's the Top Five most interesting ones.

1. New Top Stories section in News

   Available to English speaking countries, the News App features the most relevant stories for your neck of the woods. Now in iOS 9.2 you get a section entirely devoted to the Top News items, whatever those may be. 10 to 1, Donald Trump is there in some form or another.

2. 3D Touch for iBooks.

   For iBooks users on iPhones 6s and 6s Plus, you can now peek and pop the book's table of contents for a quick preview of the relevant section. As well as your Notes, Bookmarks, and search results. This sounds useful in principle, but lets see how useful it really is in practice to get quick glances at these things.

3. Apple Music Improvements

   Apple Music has received a ton of criticism over its lacking set of features. Specially when it came to playlists. With iOS 9.2 You can now more easily manage your playlists. Apple has added the ability to create a Playlist directly on your iOS device from a single song via the Add Song to Playlist option. Previously you were limited to existing Playlists, and would have to go out to the Playlist section of the music App to create one before adding songs to it. Apple also added the ability to download an entire playlist for offline listening with single tap, instead having to download each song individually.

   Apple has also added a new indicator for downloaded songs in My Music and Playlists so you know which ones are on your device and which ones are not.

   Apple added a few other less relevant features to the Music App, but by far Apple Music got the most attention this time around.

4. Mail Drop in Mail

   Previously limited to Mac and PC, Mail Drop has now been made available on iOS devices. Basically it lets you upload larger attachments, that would otherwise go over normal E-Mail server attachment limits, to iCloud, and share them with your email recipients instead. This is specially handy when trying to send things like videos taken directly on the iPhone.

5. Camera USB Adapter support for iPhones

   Probably the most requested feature ever, since it was only available for iPad. With iOS 9.2 Apple has now made it possible to connect your camera to your iPhone using the USB camera adapter, and transfer photos onto the iPhone directly.

   This is probably the most useful new feature since many people now rely solely on their iPhones and being able to transfer photos to the iPhone from a digital camera has always been a necessity for many.

Useful Links

Lightning to USB Camera Adapter

About Mail Drop

About 3D Touch on iPhone 6s and 6s Plus

Apple Music vs iTunes Match

Let's get ready to ruuuumble!!!!.

With Apple's new music service now available on all promised platforms, including Andriod Devices, lets take a quick look at what it does and compare it to iTunes Match.

iTunes Match

iTunes Match is a $24.99 per year service that will upload your music library to Apple's servers, and make it available to all your devices directly. It will take a max of 25,000 songs, that's twenty five thousand songs. Its been recently updated to take up to 100,000 songs.

The service will attempt to match any song in your computer's iTunes library to a song in the iTunes Store catalog. It if finds a match that song can then be played on any device you own that is using the same Apple ID. Your matched songs will be replaced with the high quality versions of the songs in the iTunes Store catalog. Any song it cannot match will be uploaded to Apple's servers as is, and will be offered to your devices for streaming and download as they were originally in your library.

The Central storage option in Apple's servers allows instant access to stream and download form any Apple device using the same Apple ID for iCloud, and the iTunes Store. This can come in handy, if you have several devices, and do not want to spend a lot of time syncing your library to each of them.

Matched songs are DRM free. Which means you can download the higher quality versions and burn them to CD, or copy them to another computer / device without any problems.

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Apple Music

On the surface the service may seem very much the same as iTunes Match, but there are some key differences to be aware of.

Apple Music costs $9.99 a month for single user. or $14.99 a month for Family Membership. This means any member of a Family Sharing group can have access to it, unlike iTunes Match which is a single user service, and cannot be shared.

Like iTunes Match Apple Music will match any song in your library to a song in the iTunes Store Catalog, and will upload as is whatever it cannot match. It will make all your songs available to all your devices using the same Apple ID for streaming and download in as high quality as it can just like iTunes Match would. Up to here, Apple Music appears to be just a more expensive option to iTunes Match.

But Apple Music does a bit more than that. With the $9.99 monthly fee comes access to the entirety of the iTunes Store music Catalog for streaming and offline play back. That is you can play anything in the store for free in its entirety while you remain subscribed to the service. That is literally access to millions of songs and albums.

You also get specially curated lists of songs tailored to your tastes, as well as access to artists and albums features not available otherwise.

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Differences

While iTunes Match lacks access to the entire iTunes Store Catalog, its also noticeably cheaper. $7.91 cheaper to be precise, per month. But as said you don't get access to the iTunes store catalog. This may or may not be important to you. But it needs to pointed out.

The other major difference is iTunes Match offers DRM free versions of your matched tracks. Which means you can use these anywhere you want to. Burn to a CD, copy to a USB drive sync to non Wi-Fi iPods etc.. Apple Music on the other hand will offer DRM protected tracks, which means they will only work with authorized devices, and ones that can support the Apple ID authentication. So no copying to USB device or burning to a CD, and no syncing directly form a computer to anything. All music syncing must be done over the internet to validate the subscription to the service. This Applies to all your tracks: matched and uploaded. They all become DRM protected.

This makes Apple Music simultaneously more restricted, but with much more content to offer than iTunes Match.

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Cancellation

So what happens when you cancel either of these?

When you cancel iTunes Match, any downloaded songs, to your devices remain functional and playable on the device they are on. You simply loose the central cloud access on Apple's servers. So anything not on a device would need to be synced from your computer normally.

When your Apple Music subscription expires however, any song whether it was matched from your library, or made available offline from the iTunes Store catalog will stop working. You will not be able to play it, or move it, or do really anything with it. Since Apple Music songs are DRM protected, they require the subscription be active for the DRM to validate and let you play them.

Judges' Ruling

At the end of the day, if you can do without access to the iTunes Music catalog, iTunes Match is the better service in most respects. If you do need or just really really want the access to the iTunes catalog then choose Apple Music, but be aware of the DRM limitations.

Useful Links

Apple's Apple Music Website

Apple's iTunes Match Website

How does Apple's IPhone Upgrade Program Work?

In their now customary September Keynote, Apple announced that this year (2015), would see a new way to get iPhones. No more being locked for 24 months to a carrier. No more waiting to upgrade to the newest iPhone until your plan is up. Now you take control, by being locked into a 12/24 month payment plan with Apple, oh.. wait..
But I'm kidding of course. Its actually a decent deal. Its very close to what Car Dealerships do with their Leasing options. You get a new vehicle every few years when you turn in yours, or keep paying until you've paid off the car you currently have.
Same deal with Apple's iPhones.

The way it works is simple really, its a low payment plan for an iPhone, that lets you get a brand new model every year, or keep the one you have by making a total of 24 payments.

So how does it work:

1. You start the plan this year, and you can choose between an iPhone 6s or a 6sPlus. Lets go all out and pick a fully decked, 128GB Rose Gold 6sPlus. According to Apple's website, that phone, will cost you a flat $44.91 a month.
2. After 12 months of paying $44.91, you get an option. Trade up to the new model, or keep your current one. If you Choose to trade up to the new model, you simply return your current one, and you get a new one. No extra payments, or anything. Just like that. Except, your plan, resets, to month 0, so you start again making payments on whatever new iPhone you got for 12 months, and the cycle repeats again.
3. If you chose to keep your current model, no trade up, then you can keep making payments for another 12 months on it, and at that point, the iPhone is yours. No more payments need to be made after 24 months.

Now, lets do some math:

A 128GB Rose Gold iPhone 6sPlus would cost you outright (in the U.S.A): $949.00 dollars.

If you go for the Plan, and choose the upgrade at the 12 month mark: You will pay $44.91 * 12 = $538.92. That's a little over 56% of the iPhone's full retail price. At that point you can get a new one.

But say you choose to not upgrade, then you keep paying the $44.91 for another 12 months. In that case the total cost of the iPhone comes to: $1077.84. So about $128.00 more than retail. Not such a good deal then right?.

No, the Upgrade Plan includes Apple Care +. A $129.00 value. Which ends up making the 24 month deal $1 dollar less, then if you buy it outright.

All in all, the 12 month upgrade option is a pretty good one, if you don't mind paying for your iPhone every month for as long as you keep upgrading.

To get out, you need to complete a 24 month cycle without upgrading. Which overall is not too bad

The added benefit, of Apple's payment plan, is that you can change carriers whenever you want.

If you take this plan, instead of your carriers upgrade option, then, you are no longer tied to your carrier. You should be able to cancel your service with them at any time, and port your number to a different carrier.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Do I need to turn in my current iPhone to start the Upgrade Program?

   No, you can start an upgrade program even if you do not own a cell phone at all. You just sign up for the plan, and you get an iPhone.
   

2. Does my Cell Service contract have to be up, or do I have to be eligible for an upgrade with my carrier to start the upgrade program with Apple?

   No. The upgrade program is completely independent of you carrier. Whether your still in contract with them or not, you can start the program with Apple.

3. Do I need to make a down payment to start the Upgrade Plan?

   No, not at all. There are no down payments, or signup fees.

4. Do I need to own an iPhone to start the Upgrade Plan

   No. You don't even need to own a cell phone at all to start the Upgrade plan.

5. Are the iPhone's you get on the upgrade plan unlocked?

   Yes. Apple will give you an unlocked iPhone of your choice, when you start a plan, so you can use it with any carrier.

Apple's Upgrade Program Website

http://www.apple.com/shop/iphone/iphone-upgrade-program