Partly true I guess. The HomePod is unavailable. Apple Watch was released in the fall after US release. iPad in December 2010. iPhone not until 3G. On the other hand, nowadays Norway is without exception on the comparatively short list of countries (short compared to the number of countries in the world, at least!) to get iPhones on launch day.
I wonder if the delayed launch of Apple Pay in this country – where payment with debit card on terminals was standard payment at a time when the US still mostly used checks and taxi drivers in continental Europe would only accept hard cash – has to do with an extremely popular payment service called Vipps. You create a user on your telephone number and connect a payment card to it (all - literally, all - Norwegian banks large and small are connected). Any time you want to split a bill at a restaurant, want to pay back or collect any small or large sum of money to or from someone, want to contribute to a charity on a stand outside the grocery store or pay to enter your local school band’s lottery or pay at any flee market, buy a waffle or stay the night at one of the national hiking society’s mountain cabins, 3 out of 4 Norwegians use Vipps. You can connect and switch between any number of connected cards from any Norwegian bank. You can pay with it on web shops and in-app. You can pay bills with it if your creditor connects to the service. Your complete journey, by ferry, train, air, taxi can be payed using Vipps. You create a user group for all activities on your weekend trip or vacation and let the app calculate how much you owe each other as you add expenses over time. In short, you use it to shift money any time there would be no terminal involved, or you have the choice between the terminal and Vipps, or when the service provider has ditched the terminal altogether (that is, payment cards) and uses only Vipps (that is, your telephone number). Using it is free of charge. It is ubiquitous.
I haven’t touched cash in a decade and a half.
