The iPhone has captured significant market share since its launch in 2007. In particular the application development model and the iTunes App Store which has over 100,000 applications available for download. Initially the apps were games and 'fun type' applications but recently we have seen a move towards business enterprise applications.

On December 2nd Enterprise Ireland held an iPhone information and networking event in Dublin focused on the iPhone as an emerging enterprise platform. This free afternoon event had a variety of presentations ranging from Irish iPhone developers, Tapadoo, to businesses who are using the iPhone platform as another way of reaching their target market.

Will Byrne from WorldNet TPS gave a presentation relating to Online Payments and the iPhone. The title of the presentation was - 'iPhone - a new frontier for payments'.

Will looked at how the iPhone can be used as a payments delivery channel and provide operational efficiency for businesses. WorldNet have now announced that they will be promoting the iPhone as a card payment device and launching a new payments iPhone application in January 2010. The application will act as a Virtual Terminal and allow payments to be processed over 3G or Wifi. Here are some screenshots of the app in action:

It is already technically possible to accept payments using the iPhone - the Safari web browser is capable of running the Virtual Terminal web applications, however these web applications were not designed with the iPhone screen size in mind so small-screen usability can be an issue. As you can see from the screenshots above the WorldNet iPhone app has addressed small-screen usability with its clear and simple interface.

There are a number of other applications in the app store geared towards online payments but these are all focused towards the US market. The WorldNet application should work with Irish acquirers providing a viable alternative to expensive GPRS units currently supplied by acquiring banks for those who wish to accept online payments on the move.

Dave

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