Apple Will Moves In on Your Wallet.

With the iPod, iTunes, iPhone, iPad, and iMac, Apple is the most powerful technology company in the world. It’s also the No. 1 music retailer in the U.S. and among the top sellers of online movies, too.
And Now, It might become an iBank.

After the great acheivement, Thanks to a technology that lets you use your mobile phone to pay for your stuffs, not just online. This tech, called near-field communication, involves a microchip that can send and receive data across very short distances, about four(4) inches. That instead of swiping a credit card, you hold your phone near a reader and let the data zip between the two devices, thats all.


Research director(Richard Doherty) at Envisioneering Group, a research firm in Seaford, New York., said he believes Apple intends to put NFC chips into the next versions of the iPhone and iPad (like after 2010) as the first step toward a business that Doherty calls “iCash.” This could transform the market for mobile commerce, not to mention the company itself: “It’s the bank of Apple.” As usual, Apple says it does not comment about speculations. But Doherty says his firm has sources on standards bodies and at contract manufacturers that lead him to believe a mobile-payment system is in the works.
There’s nothing new about this technology. Nokia and other manufacturers have been shipping phones with NFC chips in them for several years. Doherty says he's used an NFC phone to pay for a tram ride in Barcelona. But so far the chips’ use has been limited.

Where things get interesting is in the system for processing payments. Apple’s iTunes Store already has above 150 million credit-card numbers on file. People use iTunes to buy music, movies, books, and appllications. Why not extend that to other purchases as well—like groceries, movie tickets, general other things, etc? “When NFC meshes with iTunes, the world suddenly changes,

Right now, when you use iTunes, Apple bills your credit-card company—and pays onerous processing fees. But with this new system, iTunes could draw money directly from your bank account to you. Apple would be showing credit cards in the form of smart phones and other devices and operating its own payment-processing system, something akin to PayPal.