I think everyone here is missing the point. The dongle and the card swipe/read is merely a short term Trojan horse into changing payment. Further more it is a means to the end of cash payments. If you imagine that these apps will become the "Facebook" of commerce and how that can happen you will see the bigger picture. These apps allow everyone to pass currency using a device, sure they need a card right now as that is the "old skool" method we all respect. Once the card is swipped their is no need to do it ever again. Both parties are registered on the app and thus the "mobile wallet" has been created. Next they will role out "self serve" apps and cardless payment.
What we are talking about here is merely a means to an end. Sadly it also means that these apps will Facebook commerce and while they are doing that they will put eCommerce on the back seat. Wait and see what happens.
I disagree. These systems will just take over as by design they are like a Trojan horse. Sure i think that Europeans are less easy going than their us counterparts, none the same I think these apps will take off with or without a pin. Furthermore once you have signed and paid once your card details are securely stored and their is no need to use it ever again. Just like purchasing on-line you can just use a consumer app to make payment with out the need for the card - and as such the pin and even signature is irrelevant!
In Europe the card acceptance system will need to read the chip, but not enter the pin. The best solution is to accept the signature on the panel. This is what izettle have done. Its a u-turn on chip and pin but the only way it can be done as you cant pass the pin through the app for security issues. In larger outlets no doubt a wired card reader will be used and the pin will be entered into that reader as current systems do.
Their is another company that is breaking into this market in US, Brazil and Europe. They are working on making it easy to accept cards in Europe and also getting the governmental approval for coupon fiscal in Brazil.
The company Tillify.com are also rolling native apps and web apps for all devices that work consumer side and vendor side, They are also using the mobile phone number as a digital id to enroll consumers into their platform.
Slick was perhaps the wrong word. I think that it is agreed that the use of ajax (in the right way) makes app more usable slick. I think facebook is a good example of this. Their ajax implementations make for a more usable UI.
I think that on that note the simple mobile implementation again refering to facebook can be done in a simplistic manner but with good usability.After-all it is agreed that simple is good. This it can be done very quickly. It's also a good way to test the "useability" of a concept.
Since we are low on resource and un-funded would it be a bad decision for us to tackle the mobile app in this way, quickly. Start testing the useabilty of our app with a handful of users while we move on to a more advance slick as i put it ajax'd version for more advance browser clients
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Ah. I cant see us building a facebook UI in 10-14 days. Of course as you say. We could start off with the core items - but even then we need min 1 month. In fairness. So is it best to do just this or get the mobile much simpler server running so we can test the service - get some feedback?