Mobile payments have been around for awhile now, but they’ve recently been getting quite a bit more attention. Apple launched Apple Pay, and despite the fact Google had its own mobile payment option before that, it revamped it in a big way with Android Pay. Competition is king, especially when it comes to the smartphone industry, so it wasn’t all that surprising when Samsung decided to jump in as well, launching Samsung Pay.
Since then, the Life’s Good crew announced LG Pay, and there’s already confirmation that FitBit, the company that’s been making fitness-specific wearables for a long stretch, has plans to jump into the mobile payments arena as well.
There’s even Walmart Pay now.
We’ve got plenty of options when we’re trying to determine if paying for things with our smartphones is something we want to do, but the options are also limited in some ways. Using Apple Pay, for example, means you need to have Apple products. The same can be said for Samsung Pay.
At least, that’s how it is right now. Word on the street is that Samsung Pay is going to be rolling out a web-based option as soon as next month, which means that the option will be available for people that have Android phones — and iOS devices, too.
It won’t let you use Samsung Pay at a register with an iPhone, but you could use Samsung Pay to buy things from third-party websites on the iOS device, if that’s something you’d want to do. I’ll be honest: I’m not sure why someone would opt to log their credit or debit card with Samsung Pay, from an iOS device, to buy something from a third-party website. The alternative, to use Apple Pay, with the inherent security protocols in place, and a secured iOS app, seems like the better option.
Still, it’s apparently happening, albeit with a limited rollout planned just for South Korea. The reason, based on the reports, Samsung is opting to go this route is because the company hasn’t been all that satisfied with the adoption of Samsung Pay among users out there in the wild.
As a result, the company wants to expand its reach.
It’s an interesting turn of events, but it got me wondering about options. Because even for Samsung Galaxy smartphone owners, the fact that Android Pay exists seems reason enough to, perhaps, not consider Samsung Pay. After all, you might not stick with Samsung-branded smartphones forever, and simply switching devices, and not having to switch mobile platforms, is a pretty big bonus.
I’m also curious to hear from the Samsung Galaxy device owners out there, and see two things: One, if they’ve adopted mobile payments into their routine at all. And two, if they have are they using Samsung Pay or Android Pay. So let me know which option you’re using, and why you went with that one.