QuickTip Sundays: iTunes Enables Easy Purchases
I just purchased an iPhone a month ago and after a month, I understand why they’re calling it the crackPhone: it’s addictive, much too easy to spend too much time with it. It’s really easy to use, and after a few modifications find it a device that I’m using in the way some people use personal organizers.
The best of it is buying the applications. No matter where you’re at — in an airport, in Canada, on the road — you can go through the purchase process for applications with the greatest of ease.
This is a screen shot from the iTunes store (because I’m too lazy to get it from the phone). All they ask for is the password, using a credit card that you have stored on file. For the purposes of limiting fraud, Apple actually errors on the side of not working about charge backs because the purchases are so small, and I imagine they have some kind of limits in place if you go past a certain number of purchases or a certain amount.
For the purposes of purchases, you can actually argue there’s probably more security in place here than at the supermarket, because there is a password involved.
The phone is even easier: all they ask is for your password.
If you have an application or website that has a significant ecommerce component, look at how often the user has to make a purchase; if it’s repetitive, consider this approach because six form entry fields is much more troublesome than one, and all it takes is security on your server.
Make it easy, and watch revenues go up!