I didn’t see the mount in the Apple Store MagSafe section
Apple joined the FIDO alliance in 2020 and are on the board so I would think they are contributing to the program. But Apple isn’t a security company. They encourage users to store their passwords in Keychain but don’t require them to use long complex passwords to log into their computers.
It looks like FIDO has just about everyone I can think of working on this. And there’s two or three that might be smarter than me. 
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I’ll grant that most people working on FIDO are probably smarter than me re: encryption and such. 
But one thing I’ve learned over the years - people that are super-smart at the tech are frequently clueless as to the UX and the human factors. And for many of them, if it’s between making the tech side better or making the customer experience non-horrible, the tech side wins. Sometimes you’re lucky if they even care about the UX.
Ever been in a discussion about lack of user upgrades to a software product, and had a chorus of programmers proclaim that users shouldn’t even be given the choice? I mean…the upgrade is available. Users should just be made to install it. And if the forced upgrade breaks their integration, that’s the users’ fault, because our software couldn’t possibly be to blame…right?
Again, noting that Google has some of the best engineers in the world, but their technical documentation and customer service is utter garbage much of the time.
Making things work for actual people seems to be Apple’s niche. So I’m hoping they get it right in their implementation.
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Belkin is making it later this year. It was later in the keynote.
But I want it now! 
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Time will tell, but for those that want to learn a bit more about passkeys:
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Okay I’m answering my own question now.
What happens to the monitor when you exit stage manager?
The external monitor does not care. It’s always in stage manager mode regardless of the control centre setting.
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What’s everyone think of Apple Pay Later? (Sorry if this has been asked already)
I think it’s kinda interesting.
I was confused by that. Is it something the merchant has to specifically offer? Or is it something that Apple just offers as part of Apple Pay, without the merchant needing to be involved?
I think that 4 payments, landing every 2 weeks, doesn’t do a much to make things more affordable. I mean…if you’re buying an espresso machine (their example), paying over a month and a half is nice - but I find it hard to believe that the six-week payment timeframe is going to make that much of a difference.
If I understand how it works, a credit card is required to make the 4, every 2-week payments? If that is the case, it would spread the payment due dates to the credit company over two or three billing cycles, depending on when the purchase was made in the credit card current billing cycle. I suppose that could be helpful to take 2-3 months to pay without interest. That would be very similar to how PayPal’s pay later service works.
I don’t understand this, if you have a credit card already, why would you want a pay it later service? You already don’t have to pay for 30 days if you use a credit card to purchase something. What am I missing?
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Not everyone uses credit on his credit card. You can use a debit card as well, I guess.
Apple Pay in combination with a credit card: there might be a difference in the interest rate. Apple’s solution does not demand interest.
Apple Pay in combination with a debit card: a credit function without the card having a credit function.
Because you would not have to pay (out of pocket) the entire balance for 60 or 90 days instead of 30.
You’re going to be able to use this without an Apple credit card (though under the hood, it’s perhaps the same payment/wallet system.) This type of payment is called BNPL and it’s about 10% of e-commerce spending, mostly by younger buyers who don’t have credit cards yet or who can’t qualify for good credit cards, though adoption is starting to move up in age.
Apple will now have something to offer these young people and won’t miss out as BNPL grows to ??? percent of all consumer spending over the next several years.
My feelings are mixed. I think it’s good to have a no-interest-rate competitor in this area. Because BNPL increases average purchase price, it should become competitive enough that buyers save money using BNPL, rather than paying interest for it through Affirm and Klarna. But, this is a major legitimizing of a payment method we know overextends low income buyers.
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Indeed… average purchases are higher with BNPL than without. Low monthly payments make high-end purchases seem more affordable… but the money still has to be found out of ever diminishing surplus income.
Unfortunately, should a consumer default on any payment it will impact on their credit rating for all future (and possibly more life-essential) purchases like a mortgage.
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Precisely, which is why I’m not a fan of delayed payments or credit card debt for most things. I recognize that for homes, cars, etc., debt may be the only option but for many other purchases it can be a financial trap, especially, as you point out, for lower income individuals. I’d rather see people wait and save for the purchase rather than fall for instant gratification.
This from the UK:
More than two in five recent buy now, pay later (BNPL) shoppers relied on credit cards or other forms of borrowing to pay off what they owed, the charity Citizens Advice has said. It said the figures showed that shoppers are “piling borrowing on top of borrowing” and underlined the urgent need for BNPL to be regulated.
I understand BNPL services for certain things. Financing a MacBook for school over the course of a year, for example, can actually bring it into the realm of affordability by allowing monthly budgeting over a defined period.
The thing about Apple’s offering is that it’s 4 payments - but those payments all come due within a month and a half. Quite literally, your last payment is six weeks after your first one.
So it’s not just a BNPL - it’s a short-term BNPL that comes due almost immediately. It would be one thing if it were over some useful period (six months, a year, etc.) that actually would bring something expensive and theoretically necessary easier to afford for somebody, but it’s just not.
If this particular program substantially drives up retail purchases, that seems concerning to me.
That’s a tactic that has been used for decades by late night TV to sell Bamboo Steamers and Ginsu knives to insomniacs. They hear “payments” and think “months”.