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Square Register introduces gift cards and invoices to iOS app
Apple Pay may be making waves at major retailers, but Square Register continues to be the go-to source for small businesses looking to take payments from customers. With point-of-sale interfaces and a handy portable card reader, Square is one of the easiest ways for small businesses to take their clients' money. Today the company released a new update for their app that introduces some new features that should make business owners very happy. With the update, all iOS users gain the ability to send invoices directly from their mobile device, making it easier for freelancers to use the app for personal work billing. The biggest addition to this update comes for iPad users, the main device used for working with Square in small business settings. With the updated Square app, iPad users can now sell and redeem gift cards. While you might think this means your customers will simply get a gift card number to redeem, Square is actually making physical gift cards for clients. You can order custom cards for your business now directly from your Square dashboard. The update is available for free in the iTunes Store.
Former Apple accessories engineer is behind Square's new svelte credit card reader
Square yesterday unveiled its next-gen credit card reader, set to be released in 2014. The new design is super thin, with the peripheral's thickness being slashed by an impressive 45 percent. As it turns out, there's a strong Apple connection to the new, super-svelte Square reader. Shrinking down a device that's already quite thin is no small feat. It requires an incredible amount of engineering acumen, a complete re-thinking of the original design and, in Square's case, even custom designing some of the device's components. The man at Square tasked with slimming down the popular card reader was Jesse Dorogusker, the company's VP of Hardware. Before joining Square in 2011, Dorogusker, an electromechanical engineer by training, spent eight years working as a director of engineering in Apple's accessory division. While there, Wired reports that Dorogusker helped spearhead development of Apple's ultra-compact Lightning connector. The Wired article describes, in fascinating detail, the amount of work that went into improving a device that really only has one task -- reading credit cards. By tweaking the design of the spring to which the magnetic read head was attached, the team was able to fine-tune the friction customers feel when swiping their card. At one point in development, they found that the level of contact they needed to successfully transfer data from a card resulted in a swipe that felt too loose. And when the swipe felt too loose, it felt like it wasn't working, and would thus require another swipe. So they increased the friction above what was actually needed–an adjustment that was overkill from a technical point of view, but resulted in a swipe that felt perfect to the hand. The entire article is definitely worth a read if you're at all curious as to the design and engineering efforts that often accompany making an already small device even smaller and, more importantly, more functional.
Daily Update for December 9, 2013
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for daily listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen. Subscribe via RSS
Square reveals thinner and more accurate mobile credit card reader
As Square spreads its wings to Japan, starts a new cash-by-email service and retools its mobile apps, the humble credit card reader that started it all hasn't received much attention of late. That changes today, however, with the unveiling of the brand new Square Reader. It's 45 percent thinner than the previous iteration, which Square says makes it the "thinnest mobile card reader on the market." In order to keep the design slim while boosting its performance, Square had to custom-design several of the reader's key components. They include the magnetic readhead and spring that were specially designed for more accurate card-swiping. It also has custom electronics in a single chip so that it simply relies on the plugged-in device for power, negating the need for a separate battery. Last but not least, the audio plug has been redesigned with better communications protocols so that it'll play nice with a wider array of products. The new Square Reader will be in around 30,000 retail stores nationwide starting next year, but if you want it now for your burgeoning small business, you can get it for free from the company's website. To see just how skinny the new reader is, you can check out the side view after the break.
Square Market brings ecommerce to neighborhood businesses
Online payment processing system Square has launched a new expansion called Square Market, a webstore that allows users to set up their own digital shops. Each store makes its own page that includes the business's important information, from hours of operation to location, along with a cleanly designed storefront to display and sell items online. The page becomes a mini-webpage of sorts with links to social media like Twitter and contact information. Stores are free to create, with the company taking a percentage of each sale, similar to the model its epayment system has. Its cut ends up being 2.75 percent from every sale, lower than many private credit card process payments and lower than the flat fee some other online stores charge per item. The clean and photo-friendly design of the stores will appeal to Pinterest fans, and the low percentage rate is sure to sway a few business owners who don't want to splurge on a full online store. It will be interesting to see if the company's built-in network of stores that already use its credit card readers to process payments will give it a head start against the established competition.
WWDC 2010: Square's first steps
Square has already made a big splash with its launch -- the company, founded by Jim McKelvey, Jack Dorsey (formerly of Twitter), and Tristan O'Tierney, has created a system for accepting credit card payments through the iPhone. After a lot of secrecy and hype, the app launched on the iPad a while back. While the Square Reader (a little doohickey you can plug in the headphone port of an iOS device to swipe credit cards in) is still hard to find, we got one directly from O'Tierney himself at WWDC last week. It wasn't free -- he charged us a buck for it (and for the privilege of seeing a demo), taken by swiping my card through the reader, having me sign on the touchscreen, and emailing me a receipt in a process that was quick and painless. Well, mostly painless -- you have to hand it to a company whose demo is dependent on you giving them a buck. But I guess O'Tierney paid me back with his time -- you'll find an interview after the link below in which he tells me the weirdest use of the reader he's seen, what their biggest fraud issue has been so far, and what the company plans to do next.
