Square (phone based payment system) | Hacker News Reader

Square (phone based payment system)

squareup.com

10 pointsjacquesm15 comments

Unfortunately, Square is a bit late to this game (though not out of it yet); while at an Apple store a couple of months ago, I noticed that they were selling credit card readers for the iPhone already, in nice Apple-like packaging. It was probably Verifone's device [1].

I had a client that was interested in this for the various trade events she had, but Square never followed up and seemed to be turning into vaporware. When I saw these other devices on the shelf, I recommended them to her.

Square certainly doesn't have a lot of room for not getting it right the first time at this point, unfortunately; I really dislike Verifone and would like to see someone eat their lunch, but they've had a several-months head-start.

[1]: http://money.cnn.com/2010/02/09/smallbusiness/iphone_credit_...

To me, why not just use IPC Linea Pro? http://www.ipclineapro.com/

It works with iOS, provides a ruggedized housing and extra battery, comes with a barcode scanner, and encrypts your credit card number, and has a toolkit already for use with Xcode. You can sign up with Braintree or TrustCommerce and use their RESTful APIs. No extra charge.

This device looks like it's easy to lose. I don't know. If I were a customer, I'd be sketched out by that thing. The ones at the Apple Retail stores (Linea Pro) look legit.

EDIT: Opportunity for someone to make a product with IPC Linea Pro. Verifone's the only player. Why not add some stress with the Linea Pro device?

This is super old news. Why isn't this modded off the front page?

News to me, I ran in to it today for the first time.

It's a pretty neat concept as far as I can see, apart from the issue mentioned by the other commenter in this thread.

Agreed--these guys have been around for quite some time. I do think they are really just starting to take off though. I just got my reader about 3 weeks ago (It had been on order for almost 3 months).

i don't think they started actually shipping large quantities of readers until recently, though.

In any case, if you're freelancing and want to accept card payments, it's pretty good. I'd been doing a project and had been using an authorize.net processor, but square is cuter and, more importantly, has much lower processor fees than most other places with not even half the overhead (i.e. crazy account setup/maintenance fees/etc).

I noticed problems with their card reader when using with an ipod touch, but on the iphone, it's been pretty good.

For those of us who don't need to do POS payment processing, the hardware can also be used to turn your iPhone into a reel-to-reel tape player.

(Reels not included.)

They need to fix the card reader.. seriously takes at least 5 swipes to work properly, even with the recommended and annoying pinching of the reader.

I've had the same issues--it's not perfect yet but they've done some great things in terms of software and service UI. Card reader is a little janky though...

Weird. I just got mine today and I have no issues with it. New batch, less problems?

sounds like it. the few early ones I played with were undeniably horrible.

looks like a neat tool for drug dealers?

Downvote all you want but I honestly don't see too many other use cases for this besides "peddlers" of things. Would you really ask a client to swipe their card into your phone like this instead of writing a check?

No downvote from me, but I doubt drug dealers will like this much. This thing creates email receipts, tracks date, time, and location of transactions, and holds your money in an online account that is connected to your bank account. I'm pretty sure that people doing illegal stuff will stick with cash.

I guess you've missed all those businesses that are no longer accepting checks.

Trade shows, fairs, street fairs, and other public events are all great places to use something like this, without the risk of taking a bad check.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com