Apple cash

There’s been a few times in my life that I’ve looked at a product and thought to myself, ‘this is the future’.

I got that feeling when Steve Jobs first pulled out the iPhone (okay, and when I first tasted Wizz Fizz).

And I got the same feeling when Apple released the latest version of its Apple Watch a few weeks ago.

In and of itself, the watch was a minor upgrade to the last Apple watch.

What got me (a father of three, almost four kids) excited was a service Apple launched called ‘Family Set Up’.

Basically, it’s an Apple Watch for your kids, that’s controlled by the parent’s iPhone, and I think it could transform the way families manage money:

Parents can instantly text their kids money via Apple Cash. 

The kids, in turn, spend that money by flashing their watch at a store. 

And when they do, their parents get a notification on their iPhone alerting them to what they just bought. 

Seriously, I could see this becoming how families could do pocket money.

There’s just a few things standing in my way:

First, the idea that I’d give any of my farm-reared kids a $400 watch is absolutely insane.

(What’s the time Mr Wolf? *Shrugs shoulders* WHERE’S YOUR BLOODY WATCH?!). 

Second, Family Set up is only available in America … for now.

Futuristic, huh?

Well, Apple may be vying for your wrist, but Billionaire Jeff Bezos is groping lower.

Yes, right now you can walk into one of Amazon’s Seattle convenience stores and pay for your stuff simply by scanning the palm of your hand as you walk out. 

It’s called the ‘Amazon One device’, and it uses biometrics (the lines, and veins in your hand)  to create a ‘unique palm signature’ that’s matched to a card that Amazon has on file. You’re done and dusted in 300 milliseconds. 

High five!

(At this point you’ve got to feel for those geeks who jumped the gun and had microchips injected into their bodies).

Amazon said it chose to use palm-scanning because people ‘consider it more private’ than say eye-scanning or facial recognition. Still, I’ve got sweaty palms about giving up my privacy.

My view?

You don’t need to be a palm reader to know that COVID has sped up the inevitable death of old-school, analogue cash and coins. Yet in the future, we’re all going to have to balance our privacy against our payments.

Tread Your Own Path!