This Thursday, the American multinational technology giant Apple released 4 short commercials unveiling the new ‘Apple Pay Cash’ feature. The 15-second commercials feature Apple’s in-house payments solution, enabling its users to send money to their contacts via text message.
These commercials constitute a new ad series titled ‘Just Text Them the Money’, which, just like the title suggests, indicates the integration of Apple Pay Cash with the text message service.
As evident from Apple’s ad spots, the main overlying themes underlined are speed and easy usability, with each commercial showing the example of real-time message conversations in the familiar bubble format as they appear on iOS or Mac, granting a realistic touch to the ads so that the huge audience base can connect with them. With no backtrack, the messages are shown to pop up with just the default notification sound corresponding to the incoming and outgoing messages.
These ads highlight the efficiency of the Apple Pay Cash feature as a speedy, easy to use pay solution as a viable alternative to the occasionally faulty P2P systems where users have to log in to carry out their transactions from a standalone app or web interface. But with Apple Pay Cash, smooth authentication with Face ID or Touch ID and integration in Messages simplify and enhance the payment mechanism as the users can now easily send or request money without leaving the messaging interface.
The ads cover different day-to-day situations that require us to send money to our loved ones, such as when one ad shows how roommates can send each other cash to pay the rent, or a mother sending the child grocery money after receiving a picture of an empty refrigerator etc.
The 4th ad importantly brings up how a more advanced Apple Pay Cash feature enables users to request money from a second person. As shown in the ad, the payment is done by tapping on “Pay” within the Apple Pay Cash text bubble.
Apple Pay Cash was postponed for its release for more than 2 months from its initial release schedule with iOS 11 last September. So, it was introduced in U.S. iPhones and iPads only in December.
The person-to-person payments mechanism introduced by Apple, integrating Messages and Siri integration brings in greater ease and efficiency in digital money transactions for its users as a whole, which is an impressive positive added to its string of technologically-advanced features added to its devices every now and then. Moreover, Apple Pay Cash also allows the user to put the money received toward Apple Pay purchases or get it transferred from an Apple Pay Cash card to a bank account.
So, there’s enough reason for all the Apple fans to rejoice as the next time they want to send/receive money to their friends and family, all that needs to be done is, as the title of the ad series suggests: ‘Just text them the money’.
