Apple Pay, partnerships and software as disruption — Benedict Evans

Final paragraph of an insightful Apple Pay reality check

"Finally, I suspect that for Apple the most important part of Apple Pay may be its use in apps, not at physical retail. If you can acquire a credit card and address with just one tap then a major cause of drop-off and cart abandonment goes away, and that in turn alters the calculus around whether you make an app or a website: you have to get people to install the app (which is a cause of drop-off), but after that everything is seamless, whereas on a mobile website you don't need to drive an install but do need to get people to type in their card (though with keychain Apple has a solution here as well). The immediate effect of this is to reinforce the position of iOS as the platform where most merchants see the majority of their value, and hence of course drive them to continue to make iOS apps and make them first, which in turn drives iOS device sales, especially to people who buy things, a virtuous circle that Apple is already benefiting from at the expense of Android. The interesting question here, of course, is what Apple's next step is. Does it try to enable Apple Pay for website accessed on iOS devices (which would be very challenging)? Add it to Macs (though this is a much smaller market)? And, of course, what if it gives third party apps access to payment data in the same way (controlled, permission-based) it does for health?"

Apple Pay, partnerships and software as disruption — Benedict Evans