Technology
Apple is said to have acquired a company that could transform iPhones into payment terminals
Apple also bought a technology startup that could turn iPhones into mobile payment terminals, Bloomberg said. Montreal-based Mobeewave has a system that allows only an NFC chip to operate, enabling users to move their smartphone or credit card to another handset for payment processing. Since ios 6, NFC chips have been used in iPhones 6. And although Apple Pay lets customers press their iPhones to pay in a retail store, adding Mobeewave could require any iPhone to accept payments without external hardware like a card reader.
According to Bloomberg, Apple has invested over $100 million to Mobeewave and has maintained its employees. Neither firm will make some statements about the deal. Rival handset maker Samsung worked with Mobeewave on a pilot point-of - sale initiative in Canada last year. And as Bloomberg says, Samsung's fund is an participant in Mobeewave.
Apple has purchased a variety of other startups so far this year, including the popular Dark Sky weather app in March. It looks like merging Dark Sky functionality into the original iOS 14 weather app and shutting down the Android version of the Dark Sky app as of August 1st. Apple also announced in May that it had acquired the VR transmission service NextVR.
