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One way to boost mobile-wallet usage for functions like payments is to more tightly integrate the apps into users’ daily lives. Apple Inc. followed that script with its preview on Monday of an update for watchOS8, the brains behind its Apple Watch.
This fall, the refresh will allow users to store and use keys for their house as well as for the office or for hotel rooms, Apple said. Users will tap the watch to unlock the doors. Also later on, users will be able access a state ID or driver’s license in Apple Wallet as part of the upcoming iOS 15 for iPhones to get through TSA lines, for example, at the airport. Apple is working with “select” TSA checkpoints and “participating” states about that, the company said.
The move follows Apple’s announcement last year of the coming capability on Apple Watch Series 6 to store car keys, permitting users to unlock the car from a distance and then start it once inside. That feature, too, is expected later in 2021.
The new features represent extensions of the contactless capability of the Watch product that undergirds its usefulness for making payments via Apple Pay or the Wallet app, Apple said. “With watchOS 8, we’re bringing more convenient access to places users live, work, and visit,” said Kevin Lynch, vice president of technology, in a statement.
In related news, Google Pay, Apple Pay’s rival in the digital-wallet business, will this month start working with the parking app ParkMobile to allow drivers in Atlanta to find and pay for parking slots. Users will open Google Pay, tap to park, enter a parking zone and space number as well as parking time to complete payment. ParkMobile’s app is available through Google Pay at all on-street spaces in Atlanta, ParkMobile said.
ParkMobile, which is based in Atlanta, has 26 million users in 450 cities altogether and was acquired June 1 by Stockholm-based EasyPark Group.
