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Food truck owners rejoice! PayPal has introduced their own mobile card reader and payment service. Dubbed PayPal Here, the service is as straight forward as it can be. Merchants attach a credit card reader dongle (PayPal’s is shaped like a triangle and is blue) to their phones and buyers swipe their card through to pay for goods or services. Beyond that, merchants can take checks and cash, and the app will allow them to log sales as they are made in order to keep the book
s up-to-date. PayPal challenges Square by offering a 2.7% transaction compared to 2.75%. It may not seem like much but every cent counts. Unfortunately, the app is only available on iOS but PayPal urges Android users to order the card reader anyway as an Android app will soon follow. Head to PayPal.com/here to get started.
yes, order the dongle that is made to fit an iPhone! ORDER IT AND LOOK HOW Awkward it looks on your droid
There is no way to prevent that. There is 1 iphone design, there are hundreds of android-based phone designs.
really? square’s doesn’t seem to only fit one phone and has worked great
http://cdn.ubergizmo.com/photos/2010/10/square-evolution.jpg
Those weren’t all released at the same time…
Sure, it was designed to look best on iOS devices but that doesn’t make it incompatible. Look at Square’s: their dongle may have looked best on iOS devices, but Android owners use them just fine. The food trucks I’ve visited have all had different Android phones and the dongle may look odd, but who cares? It’s about convenience, not aesthetics. And do you think Square and PayPal will make dongles for hundreds of different phones? Definitely not.
not but squares is more “unniversal”, they seemed to have an open device state of mind when creating theirs. PayPal looks like they were only focusing on the iPhone with theres… i wonder if a Square card reader will work with the PayPal app ????????
I would expect paypal was focusing on looking as different from square as possible while still making the thing functional on all devices. Just a guess, but with as many patent infringement cases as we have going on around the smartphone industry, it would make sense to play it safe.
I just don’t see the point of your argument. It is about convenience not aesthetics. I am sure the business owner of whatever it is he or she run will care less than you are now. Covert this is not a argument worthy topic. People just want the option of mobile card payments. and thats it
Well they have to chose a phone to buid the unit to even if it will be a universal device.
Why not go for the iPhone and it’s 1 design that millions of people already have over having to base the appearance on just 1 of the hundreds of available Android phones on the market?
How does this interface with the phone? Bluetooth? If so I question the security of that. It clearly doesn’t work through the audio jack. I wonder why they didn’t make it plug into the multipin connector on the bottom. My guess is to make it cross platform.
I think it does actually interface through the audio jack like squares does.
How is that possible? Data can’t travel through an audio jack. Not to mention that signals through an audio jack are unidirectional. Out but not in. I would be interested to see how this works.
The jack is bi-directional. How else do you think you can use a wired headphone to make on a call on your phone? Duh.
ooh, good point. Didn’t think of that lol. I have been officially served! I guess that also explains how it can transmit more than just audio because it responds to the answer button on the inline headphones.
Yeah, it’s easy to forget, especially if you only use the jack to listen to music.
The form factor is excellent!
my thoughts exactly hahaha ohh man you read my mind
Paypal Here to challenge all competitors for Mobile Identity Theft.
The card reader doesn’t use the audio output. It uses the microphone input that is within the headphone jack. Just like a fax machine to transmit data. I use my square reader everyday. It doesn’t look weird connected to my bionic. Who really cares what it looks like? You just put it in the headphone jack for a minute and swipe the card. Then pull it out when you are done.
I have been hoping that paypal would bring one out. I buy supplies on paypal it would be nice if my sales revenue were already in my paypal account so I can make purchased with it.
This actually looks safer than Square. Whenever I see the Square, it looks like it could snap if you just drop it the wrong way.
I’m gonna make a credit card reader and call it the circle. That way, we’ll have the circle, square, and triangle.
Square just lost.
The real issue at stake here is this:
When did ordering food from a trailer become so popular that it’s a social trend and a business substantial enough to warrant the need for Credit Cards?
Maybe I’m over-blowing it, but this scenario is always described in the context of food carts….like a Plumber or a House cleaner could never leverage this?
And, just for a laugh, some analysis of “PayPal: The New Way To Pay In-Store”, PayPal Digital Wallet, PayPal Debit MasterCard, PayPal Here, PayPal Local and Watch With eBay …
http://forums.auctionbytes.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=24611
eBay / PayPal / Donahoe: Dead Men Walking
“PayPal challenges Square by offering a 2.7% transaction compared to 2.75%” An up-and-comer from Europe will both be challenging PayPal and Square with a rate of .25% (!!) per card transaction. If you want to see for yourself if what I’m saying is true, feel free to look up mPowa (www.mpowa.com) which I chanced upon just a few days ago. I’m looking forward to their launch.