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Report: Apple to bring Apple Pay checkout to mobile websites later this year

Apple Pay Lead

According to a new report from Re/code, Apple is set to expand its Apple Pay mobile payments solution to the web before this coming holiday shopping season. According to the report, Apple has been telling potential partners that with this expansion, users will be able to use Apple Pay instead of entering their card information on the retailer websites.

While specific details are vague, Apple is said to be planning to add this feature to iOS devices that have a Touch ID sensor, although it’s also considering bringing it to the Mac as well. Apple is reportedly skeptical to bring the capability to the Mac, however. This does perhaps give Apple yet another reason to add Touch ID support to at least its laptop lineup, something that has been both suggested and rumored a few times in the past.

Essentially, Apple Pay on websites would work similar to that of PayPal. For instance, many online retailers have a “Pay with PayPal” option on their sites that allows customers to use payment information stored in their PayPal account to checkout, meaning they don’t have to reenter their card information for each individual website.

That’s also how Apple is pitching its service to retailers. Apple is arguing that supporting Apple Pay would lead to a higher rate of checkout competition, as users would be able to simply use their fingerprint to checkout as opposed to taking the time to enter card information and a shipping address.

While Apple is said to be launching this feature before the holiday shopping season later this year, it’s working in the meantime to expand Apple Pay to new banks and countries. Apple is consistently adding new banks to the list of ones that are supported, most notably the longtime holdout Ally Bank. Exxon Mobile also recently added Apple Pay support.

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Comments

  1. chrisl84 - 8 years ago

    About bloody time

  2. taoprophet420 - 8 years ago

    Safari credit card autofill works pretty damn great.I really don’t see the need for Touch ID on Macs. Continuity and Handoff could also be used to do transactions on Macs. For the price they charge for Magic TrackPad 2 they could integrated Touch ID.

    • Terrence Newton - 8 years ago

      Eh, it works well sometimes, and other times not so well. Quite often it doesn’t fill in all the fields. Sometimes it fills in no fields. And on one occasion, it filled everything in, but the website wouldn’t accept it until I types it in manually (here’s looking at you easypaymetrocard.com). The result of all this for me is that I never go to a website checkout confident that I’ll be able to use the auto-fill.

      Furthermore though, one thing that online Apple Pay does that Safari CC auto-fill doesn’t do is enter all of you shipping info, etc. Sure, Safari has address auto-fill, but that is pretty unreliable. With support for Apple Pay at websites, you’d be able to use the service with confidence, because the website will have specifically been set up to work with Apple Pay. I for one think this will be great. And it doesn’t need to use Touch ID — it can be authenticated using a special password or perhaps your AppleID password.

  3. AbsarokaSheriff - 8 years ago

    I had used a few web sites with CheckOut, Taply and other apps that allowed you to do this. Sites such as earhipster.com, jerkyxp.com that were powered by Shopify. Another similar site was deborahlippman.com but I didn’t need nail polish.

    I was informed by Shopify support that these apps were killed.

    This was a great experience but having Apple do this will expand it to a much greater number of sites and hopely it’s ubiquitous by Christmas shopping season. It would be good to have it work with Mac laptops and desktops without touchid similar to Google Authenticator, Lastpass Authenticator and other solutions.

  4. blachblah - 8 years ago

    I suspect this is another sign Apple is about to add Touch ID to the new MacBooks it will in produce in June. Think about it: paying with Apple Pay on websites…adding Secure Notes to not only iOS 9.3 (where you can use Touch ID to unlock them), but also Secure Notes to OS X 10.11.4…where you have to *currently* use a password….

    Touch ID on the new MacBooks could be a major boon to online shopping and the security-conscious Apple.

  5. Wildcat1 (@Wildcat_1) - 8 years ago

    Now we need some of the big stores to join the game with in store Apple Pay like Target, Home Depot (bring it back!), Walmart (highly unlikely), Kroger brands, Safeway etc

    • k0jeg - 8 years ago

      Agree. The only 2 places I can use Apple pay are Whole Foods (when I can afford it) and the local (also inflated, but convenient) supermarket. Really shocked that the local guys have Apple Pay compatible terminals. Not at all surprised that the big volume chain supermarkets don’t support it. When you’re tasked with changing out thousands of terminals every penny counts on price.

  6. valanchan - 8 years ago

    Will this relate to our Apple ID, so that any purchase will be similar to buying an App or device through an Apple online store?

    Then that will be very similar to PayPal rather than the retail Apple Pay since there are still banks and territories that need to join.

    • Terrence Newton - 8 years ago

      It would work just like Apple Pay in apps works right now.

      • valanchan - 8 years ago

        Do you mean Apple Pay within apps or using Apple Pay to buy apps?

        In Hong Kong we still use our AppleID to purchase stuff from online Apple stores.

  7. Paul Butt - 8 years ago

    I think if  Pay is brought to computers , they will still have Autofill because A. the older operating systems won’t get  Pay and B. In the UK where I live the maximum at the moment , you can spend using  Pay is £30.00

  8. I really hope this means that Touch ID is coming to Macs! That would be huge.

  9. Charlypollo - 8 years ago

    I’m wondering if they will someday introduce Apple Pay to countries that don’t speak English. Or with population below 1 billion.

    The second biggest bank in my country (of which I’m a client) alteady activated mobile payments on any Android phone with NFC. Since I’m an Iphone user, this sucks so bad.

    If they made a deal with the 5 biggest banks in my country, they would cover 80% of the total debit/credit cards (which is above 40 million clients). Apple is going the wrong way with this.

  10. valanchan - 8 years ago

    Only accounts from banks and regions that support  Pay could purchase from websites?

    An AppleID account is much more global than  Pay since it is not dependant on the banks or regions support. Anyone who can buy an app could use it.

  11. bowersrob - 8 years ago

    ApplePay on Macs, now that would be a nice enhancement.

    Perhaps by extending handoff capabilities, TouchID on iOS devices could be integrated with the Mac. For instance, touch to unlock, touch to open password protected apps or content, touch to pay.

    Handoff already exists for many recent model Macs, so this approach would not be limited to a yet to be released models, or additional hardware, and would add to the iOS\OSX synergies.

Author

Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com