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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,289
30,364



Square has updated its very popular credit-card charging app for small businesses and released the Square Card Case, announced this past May.

The Square app has been updated to improve transaction speed, add support for $0.00 price points (so merchants can keep track of notes on orders like 'no cheese') and stopped requiring signatures for purchases under $25.

square_card_case-500x245.jpg



As for the new Square Card Case, it's designed to enable quick and easy repeat purchases at businesses that support Square. It allows users to browse menus, see specials, store receipts and pay without needing a credit card. Users can open a "tab" with a business and allow their saved credit card information to be charged without ever needing to physically hand the card to the merchant.

For users who frequent businesses that support Square, the Card Case can save a bit of time checking out. For businesses, the standard Square app is an extremely popular tool to enable quick and easy credit card purchases.

Square is now processing more than 1 million transactions and $100 million in mobile payments per month, and the company expects to double this volume by October.

Both the Square app and the Card Case are available free on the App Store.

Article Link: Square Updates App, Releases 'Card Case' for Consumers
 

jamesryanbell

macrumors 68020
Mar 17, 2009
2,171
93
Got my square in the mail a week ago, and it's pretty much the coolest thing ever for what I do (music). Trying to figure out how to dump the crazy expensive machine I bought last year from First Data. :/
 

sick z33

macrumors 6502
Sep 20, 2008
295
4
I set up my girlfriend with Square when they first started for her hair salon business and it has been awesome!
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
I'm kind of surprised I've yet to see anyone use one of these at their store or kiosk. Hopefully we see more and more of it for small businesses, non-profits, etc.
 

ProwlingTiger

macrumors 65816
Jan 15, 2008
1,335
221
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

The Square card reader is wonderful. It's great to see more innovative products from the company.
 

nagromme

macrumors G5
May 2, 2002
12,546
1,196
I always see these at art festivals. Pretty neat.

They look like they’d stress the headphone jack, though!
 

xdhd350

macrumors 6502
Mar 9, 2010
367
74
I set up my girlfriend with Square when they first started for her hair salon business and it has been awesome!

There's at least one stylist at the salon I go to, using the square reader. It is perfect for this and other small biz applications.
 

kingtj

macrumors 68030
Oct 23, 2003
2,606
749
Brunswick, MD
Cool!

I love Square.... Not only are they a locally developed business (St. Louis, Missouri) but they solved a real problem for small business owners like myself.

Doing on-site computer service and consulting work as a side job, I run into the occasional need to accept someone's credit card, but most people still pay with a check (or even cash, occasionally). I only need to process as few as 2 credit cards per month, depending on how business goes. It makes NO sense to pay one of the card processing services out there, with as little volume as I do. The only practical option used to be billing people via PayPal or Google Checkout and letting them sign in over the web to pay me. That worked, but wasn't nearly as professional as just accepting/swiping their card upon completion of a job.

One reason (besides a simple lack of awareness) Square isn't being used more often? I think some people are turned off by the picky nature of the readers. If you don't swipe a card through one just right, it doesn't read properly. It makes customers really uneasy when they watch you swiping their card 3 or 4 times in a row to get it to go through. (They're always afraid it'll lead to getting double-billed somehow.)

The Square reader actually generates its own electricity to transmit the card data by spinning a small electric motor inside it as you swipe the card through. That keeps its cost down and eliminates the need to put a battery in it. Unfortunately, I think that's also why it doesn't swipe so well.
 

2 Replies

macrumors regular
Apr 26, 2010
180
0
Having an account and the adapter as well,
I kinda find it humorous when I visit a business that doesn't accept Discover.
It's like, ...really? You're a retail business, and I MYSELF can accept more types of payment than you do? :rolleyes:
 

pdjudd

macrumors 601
Jun 19, 2007
4,037
65
Plymouth, MN
Having an account and the adapter as well,
I kinda find it humorous when I visit a business that doesn't accept Discover.
It's like, ...really? You're a retail business, and I MYSELF can accept more types of payment than you do? :rolleyes:
My guess is that Discover's fees can be higher for different businesses. Square obviously feels that having discover is worth it - some retailers might not feel the fees are worth it based on how many cards they process.
 

montclaire

macrumors newbie
Aug 3, 2011
20
0
Wasn't there some issues about privacy agreement you have to sign with them? It overtakes your contact information or something and you must give em your social security number. read the reviews in itunes.:rolleyes:
 

Snowy_River

macrumors 68030
Jul 17, 2002
2,520
0
Corvallis, OR
I, too, love Square. However, I do have some gripes.

I have customers sign using a nice stylus, as in my experience people just aren't all that comfortable signing with their finger. But when using a stylus with your right hand and signing on the line in the iPad app, you naturally rest your hand right on the 'Done' button. I brought this issue up to them quite a while ago and received an email assuring me that they were going to address this issue, but there have now been at least two updates since then and the button is still in the same location. Is it really that hard to move a button when its position has been reported as a UI issue? Really?

The Square reader actually generates its own electricity to transmit the card data by spinning a small electric motor inside it as you swipe the card through. That keeps its cost down and eliminates the need to put a battery in it. Unfortunately, I think that's also why it doesn't swipe so well.

This amounts to my one other significant gripe with Square. I realize that they originally designed their reader to make it essentially device agnostic, which allowed them to keep their costs down as a start up, but now that they're going gang-busters, is it so much to ask that they put out the effort to create a reader that connects to the dock connector? That way, they could even draw power from it, have a sturdier connection, provide better read reliability, and make the whole thing seem much more professional.

Wasn't there some issues about privacy agreement you have to sign with them? It overtakes your contact information or something and you must give em your social security number. read the reviews in itunes.:rolleyes:

Uh... well... yeah... You have to give your SSN to a bank, too. Square is functioning as a financial institution, and as such is governed by certain rules. In order to obey those rules, they have to ask for your SSN. If you don't like it, then don't accept credit card payments.

Just my thoughts on this...
 

DiSTURBED-oNE

macrumors newbie
Jun 27, 2011
18
2
My two cents:

1. They need to make it available to people outside of the US, ie. Australia.

2. It would be awsesome if they could make a reader (like a case) for reading NFC enabled credit cards, like PayPass.

In Australia, nearly all retail outlets, fast food etc now support PayPass, so it would be great for us down here. I was acutally suprised when visiting the US, I didn't find one store (even McDonalds) that has a PayPass enabled card reader.

PayPass ad in AUS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27m7k20Pag4&feature=related
 

billchase2

macrumors 68000
Feb 28, 2006
1,821
111
Ann Arbor
Is there a need to have both the Square app and the Card Case app? It appears that the Card Case app also accepts payments, therefore, eliminating the need for the Square app.
 

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
Square is rolling out additional features today. The feature offers a totally hands-free payment for sellers to whom you opt in, as a sort of competitor to NFC. Once you opt in, you just carry your phone into the establishment, give them your name so they can find you on their roster of opted in customers in the store, and then you get an alert on your phone confirming the purchase. Not bad.

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19246989

Mercury News said:
On Wednesday, the San Francisco company is rolling out an update to its Card Case app for users of Apple's (AAPL) iPhone4 and iPhone 4S. With the app running and configured, consumers can use it to pay for items at local retailers without having to take their phone -- not to mention their credit card or wallet -- out of their pocket. The service sends an alert to users' phones when they have completed a transaction.
"This is truly the simplest way to pay," said Megan Quinn, director of product for Square.

The service is available at some 20,000 merchants nationwide who have signed up to accept Card Case payments. In the South Bay, retailers include Satori Tea Company in San Jose, G:m:me Bakery in Mountain View and Luscious Yogurt in Santa Clara.

Card Case takes advantage of a new location-based service in iOS 5, the latest version of Apple's operating system for handheld devices. Thanks to the service, the app can detect when a users' phone is within 100 meters of a participating merchant. Once within range, the app will automatically open a virtual tab with the retailer, if a user opts into the hands-free payment service.

Square's payment app allows merchants to see which nearby customers are able to use Card Case to pay their bills. To help prevent people from using someone else's name to pay their bills, the merchants' app shows a picture of the person who is using Card Case.
"You opt into it," Quinn said. "You can argue that it's more safe than a credit card."

For now, the new Card Case feature will only be available for iOS devices. Quinn said the company plans to soon update its app for Android devices so that they too can be used to make hands-free payments.

Card Case is one of a growing number of payment services that are linked to mobile phones. Some of the latest Android phones contain a near-field communications (NFC) radio that can be used to pay bills at certain merchants that have the right equipment to detect the transmissions.
Square's original product was a small credit card reader that can be plugged into the headphone jack on an iPhone. It allowed small merchants to accept credit and debit cards without needing to buy a pricey standalone card reader.
 

Surely

Guest
Oct 27, 2007
15,042
11
Los Angeles, CA
For those of you using Square:

I'm thinking about using this service. If I do, I would have to leave an iPad/iPod touch plus the reader with my receptionist, as she is the one that processes payments.

Will she have access to the account information on the app? I'm wondering if someone got their hands on the device, would they be able to change the bank account info or divert funds to another account or something like that. Or would she need to know my password in order to change information like that?

Also, are they true to their word.....are deposits into your bank accounts as fast as advertised?
 

AlanShutko

macrumors 6502a
Jun 2, 2008
804
214
Will she have access to the account information on the app? I'm wondering if someone got their hands on the device, would they be able to change the bank account info or divert funds to another account or something like that. Or would she need to know my password in order to change information like that?

Here's the way I understand it (and did a quick test, but didn't really dig in).

You would need to sign into the app before you gave it to her. Once signed in, she would be able to run cards, as well as see the sales history in the app. However, she would not be able to log into the website without knowing the account password.

So, I _think_ it would be pretty safe. However, I would recommend you contact them directly (https://help.squareup.com/customer/portal/emails/new?q=Contact) to make sure.
 

Surely

Guest
Oct 27, 2007
15,042
11
Los Angeles, CA
Here's the way I understand it (and did a quick test, but didn't really dig in).

You would need to sign into the app before you gave it to her. Once signed in, she would be able to run cards, as well as see the sales history in the app. However, she would not be able to log into the website without knowing the account password.

So, I _think_ it would be pretty safe. However, I would recommend you contact them directly (https://help.squareup.com/customer/portal/emails/new?q=Contact) to make sure.

Thanks for checking, it is appreciated. I will contact them directly as well when I get a chance. I wish they had a 1-800 number.

One thing I find strange is that I'm not fully able to edit my business info, either on their website or on the app. I registered my Square account using my name and the last 4 digits of my SS#, but there is a possibility that I will be registering a DBA, getting an EIN, and then conducting business under that name. I see that I'm able to change my business name, but I cannot see the option to be able to add an EIN to my info (when I registered, it gave an option to enter your EIN or to select "no". That option doesn't seem available anymore). I guess it's just another question to email them.....
 

kingtj

macrumors 68030
Oct 23, 2003
2,606
749
Brunswick, MD
re: speed of deposits

I've been using Square for my small on-site PC service business since pretty much the first day it was available to the public. (I was on the waiting list for a long time to get one of the first readers in the mail, but my account was already established with them and waiting on the reader.)

My experience with their speed of deposits is that you'll generally get a deposit in about 3 days from the time a card is swiped. I'm sure this could vary by a day or so (slower or faster) depending on your bank or credit union and the priority they place on completing those types of transactions? But generally, Square is in my experience, a little faster completing deposits than other services I've used like Google Checkout.



For those of you using Square:

I'm thinking about using this service. If I do, I would have to leave an iPad/iPod touch plus the reader with my receptionist, as she is the one that processes payments.

Will she have access to the account information on the app? I'm wondering if someone got their hands on the device, would they be able to change the bank account info or divert funds to another account or something like that. Or would she need to know my password in order to change information like that?

Also, are they true to their word.....are deposits into your bank accounts as fast as advertised?
 
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