Whatever comes to mind, and then the interesting directions that thought will take you on the web.

Monday, August 20, 2012

Does Square need the Square Device

Square is a neat way of capturing a credit card transaction on your iPhone. You just plug the device into the audio jack on the iPhone, then swipe the credit card.

Today I signed up for Uber, and in the process, I was able to enter my credit card details by pointing the iPhone camera at the credit card.

Neat!

That got me thinking - is the Square device even needed? Seems a lot more convenient to just use the camera.

Maybe this would cause problems with a subset of the people whose credit cards you are charging. The swipe seems "official", whereas taking a picture of the card seems scary and insecure?