Let's face it: there's a bit of a thrill in simply pulling out your phone, tapping it against a reader, and walking away with a double cheeseburger. If only signing up for ISIS, the carriers' answer to Google Wallet, was that easy.
Two years ago, I was one of the first to try out Google Wallet. I loved it. Paying with a tap of your phone didn't just seem like a page out of the future, it was a convenient way to avoid the admittedly miniscule hassle of digging out a wallet in taxicabs and at the occasional fast-food joint.
But Google Wallet never really took off. Why? Several reasons.
- First, contactless chip-and-PIN credit schemes were never adopted by American retailers, despite becoming quite common in the U.K. and elsewhere.
- Second, phones equipped with the requisite Near Field Communications (NFC) technology took off slowly.
- And finally, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless—the architects of the ISIS technology—blocked Google Wallet from their phones. Only Google's Nexus phones survived. Meanwhile, ISIS remained "in testing" in Austin and Salt Lake City for years.
ISIS has issues similar to Google Wallet's, though. First, ISIS supports only a small subset of credit cards. And though it's owned by the major carriers, you can't actually charge a purchase to your phone bill. And it doesn't work on iOS. So ISIS, in its current form, is half a solution to a problem many really don't have.
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