ReadWrite:

You can't buy a latte with your iPhone 6. Starbucks is only supporting the in-app version of Apple Pay. It will be "primarily for loading and reloading" your Starbucks Card, says Maggie Jantzen, a Starbucks spokesperson. Starbucks stores don't currently have the NFC technology needed to make use of Apple's tap-to-pay feature. [...]

Apple Pay will save you from having to enter in your credit- or debit-card number if you need to reload your Starbucks Card. But you're far better off just using the Starbucks app and keeping your card on file for automatic reloads. And it changes nothing about how you actually pay for your latte.

This is rather disappointing. Apple Pay needs to become a habit before it can really catch on with consumers. I like how McDonald's, Subway, Petco, Whole Foods, and Chevron are on the list of launch partners, but how many people go to these places on the daily basis? Starbucks customers get coffee EVERY DAY.

I'm still bullish on Apple Pay and (US) mobile payments in general, but early adoption would be much stronger if Starbucks were on board completely.

FastCompany:

But after two years on the market, Google Wallet has made little to no progress in replacing paper cash, plastic cards, and leather wallets. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, the Wallet app has seen a paltry amount of downloads for a company of Google's scale, and Bedier has since left the company. Bloomberg Businessweek recently reported that Google Wallet is "leaking money" and that "it’s reconsidering or has abandoned projects designed to broaden Wallet’s appeal." What went wrong? Jonathan Wall, the founding engineer of Google Wallet, puts it bluntly: "With Google Wallet, we had one point of failure--the carriers." [...]

"Ultimately, the carriers perceived this to be their opportunity and use the necessity of hardware to really block the product." Sprint remains the only major U.S. carrier to support the service; AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon have instead decided to support Isis, a competing mobile payments service, effectively denying their customers access to Google Wallet (or vice versa).

Android did NFC payments first and failed. Let's wait and see how NFC payments pan out with Apple Pay and its partnerships with major credit cards, banks, and merchants.

Google did it first. Apple does it better. These are the important details that you'd never see in a tech spec sheet. These are subtle differences that separate an Android feature from an Apple solution.

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Arstechnica has a great (somewhat technical) rundown of how iOS 8's implementation is much smarter and more secure than Android's.

Rene Ritchie just nails it with this piece.

Just look at the top end of that China bell curve. That's a lot of fucking cheddar.

Tristan Louis, Forbes:

Every step of the way, the company focused on reducing friction and providing increased value for the user when its competitors asked the users to do more work. The net result is that users have voluntarily provided all the components Apple now needs to enable a payment revolution. And we’re about to witness the rise of the iWallet, maybe not this year but pretty soon.

While all the doubters are busy proclaiming "Apple is doomed without Steve Jobs" and "Apple doesn't innovate," Apple's been quietly laying the foundation for a major mobile payments revolution.

This is by far the most insightful look at the mobile/tech industry.

Benedict Evans:

That's a perfectly legitimate question to ask, and Christmas was one big A-B test as to what tablet proposition people actually want. However, what does it tell you if someone says 'I want to save $100 and get the cheap-looking one with no apps'? Are they a good target for any publisher or developer? This is at the root of the staggeringly low engagement on Android tablets that all publishers report - under 5% of what they see on the iPad: self-selection by the users. People who buy cheap tablets are effectively declaring that they value the saving over the apps.

There will always be some piece of the market for consumers that have very little expectations and needs from a device. But for everyone else, there is so much more to consider.

The question should never be limited to "which smartphone/tablet/computer has the best specs and price right now?" The real question is:

Which platform/ecosystem has the best future to invest in?