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Apple Wins Patent For "iWallet"
redletterdave writes "Apple won a major patent for its 'iWallet' technology, which is a digital system that uses near-field communication (NFC) technology to complete credit card transactions and manage subsidiary financial accounts directly on your iPhone. On the home screen for iWallet, users can see their entire credit card profiles, statements, messages from their banks, and even adjust preferences or add additional cards. Within preferences, users can schedule credit card payments and set parental controls on their children, which allows kids to use their iPhones as wallets but limits the extent to which they can use it. Users can track their payments and statements within the iTunes billing system, which keeps the credit card information safe and secure."
Once again, another lame patent blocking innovation
Now I can lose my phone, camera, AND my wallet in one fell swoop?!?!?!?!?!
Whats next... iPhone car keys?
Google has had an electronic NFC based wallet in the market for almost a year now.
I assume now that Apple has patented a technology that Google developed, they will extort Google to pay them for them for writing software hadn't even developed yet.
At least now that Steve Jobs is dead, Apple is willing to license patents to Google instead of just trying to sue them into extinction.
Somebody should congratulate Apple on becoming more evil than Microsoft.
Great. Here's another technology that nobody will be allowed to use for the next 20 years.
And if you've ever wondered why Japan and Europe have had things like this for ages but we're just now seeing a glimmer of it here, it's because of stuff like this. No one ever gets ahead without someone tossing a landmine in your path and asking for their pound of flesh.
I see that the site actually useful for linking, Patently Apple, is getting their monopoly fetish on. From the sounds of things, they've managed to patent the entire concept out from under everyone else. They've managed to claim ownership over the concept of configuring accounts and placing various transaction rules on them.
So no one else can do that without Apple attacking them. I can't wait to have the entirety of NFC payments reserved exclusively to Apple devices, or Apple demanding exorbitant per-device fees for the ability to do so.
iDisgust
A severe form of dyspepsia triggered by any mention of the tech company Apple, particularly in regard to their wanton abuse of the patent and legal systems.
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2012/03/apple-wins-patent-for-iwallet-the-one-that-will-rule-the-world.html
"Apple has received a major Granted Patent that generally relates to establishing financial transaction rules for controlling a subsidiary financial account and, more particularly, to various systems, methods, and electronic devices configured to provide for the establishment of such rules."
The rules basically come down to setting one account as a subsidiary of another, and the parent account then setting a system of spending rules and limits that apply to the subsidiary account. Optionally that these rules are transmitted to the bank as well, and applied generally outside of using the NFC as well.
The iWallet has been around for some time, long before NFE was even thought of.
I have an iWallet, and I have had it for 20 years - I hold it out, and the wife, kid, and merchants take what they need/want.
*loses wallet*
"Hello [$Bank]? Yes, I lost my wallet, can you cancel my card and send me a new one? A few days and it will arrive in the mail? Excellent!"
*loses phone*
*logs into Apple ID from any computer*
*cancels card link to lost/stolen phone*
*connects card to new phone*
*continues life as normal, with minimum disruption to card access*
This doesn't even need to be about Apple - NFC payments and "electronic wallets" are the future
"Users can track their payments and statements within the iTunes billing system, which keeps the credit card information safe and secure."
Are you stupid enough to believe that statement about it being 'safe and secure"? If so, I have a bridge that I'd like to sell you.
The only sure fire way to keep such information safe and secure is to not have a credit card to begin with.
Why is it that most of the people that I encounter seem to have been shat from the Sphincter of Mediocrity?
Spending a week proving you exist is often a whole lot easier than coming up with an additional two-hundred or more dollars that it will cost you to buy a new iPhone while you are still trying to accomplish said feat.
If you lose your CC, you call up the CC company and they cancel the card and mail you a new one. If your phone *IS* your CC, then this becomes something of a catch 22... not to mention it's unlikely that your CC company will send you a new iPhone at no cost, unlike how cheaply they will send you a replacement CC in the mail.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
OK, there is an issue that has to be overcome, I'll get to that in a moment.
Rather than load a real credit card number into an "iWallet" use a temporary generated by your bank's online banking service. These temporaries, alias for the real card number, often have a user defined limit and expiration date so you can limit the risk as you deem appropriate.
The issue to overcome: these temporary numbers were designed to be used for online purchases. They tend to lock to the first vendor to use the number. Obviously this locking to the first vendor would have to become a user defined option at number generation time.
A more practical short term solution may be to use the debit card number for your checking account. Just be sure to only use iWallet for things you would normally pay for in cash and not for things you want the buyer protection, warranty and dispute options you would normally get with a credit card.
Second time today I've seen a story on /. about a patent that's just an obvious/existing concept basically with just "on a mobile device" or "across a network" added to it.
Using a radio transceiver to communicate with another radio transceiver? Not novel in the slightest.
Using NFC for payments? Not novel in the slightest, see the decade or so of prior art all across the world.
Consolidating the physical content of cards? Also not novel. For years people have been photocopying the barcodes of loyalty cards and taping them together to make single cards with all the barcodes on them. And believe you me: if the technology to do the same with NFC and magnetic strips were as accessible as copy machines they would do that too, because it's obvious as hell.
Parental controls on payments? You've gotta be kidding me if you think that's novel.
But take those four non-novel, extremely obvious ideas and slap "on a mobile phone" in there somewhere and suddenly you're Leonardo da fucking Vinci.
Porquoi?
Did you actually read the article so you you'd, you know, have an idea what Apple has actually patented?
(Hint: not something Nokia has been doing for a decade)
Look at this way.
iPhone = Luxury item. Expensive.
Wallet = Necessary item. Cheap to replace.
If you combine them into one thing, you end up with a necessary item that costs a lot to replace. This is not a good thing.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'