After a decade, Apple’s Joint Venture support program for small and medium-size businesses appears to be coming to an end. Apple is sending emails to customers about how the program will wrap up, that refunds will be issued, and how a new AppleCare offering will be filling the gap going forward.
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Earlier this year around WWDC, Square announced that it would be selling new hardware that will allow small businesses to easily accept Apple Pay later this year. Now Square is setting up 100 small businesses around the US with their new Apple Pay-ready contactless card reader. These allow customers to pay merchants using Apple’s mobile payment service through iPhones and Apple Watches securely and without sharing credit card information.
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Apple this week has expanded its Apple Maps Connect service to five additional regions in Europe: Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, and The Netherlands. The additions were noted in an email to users of the platform and on the Apple Maps Connect website. For those unfamiliar, Apple Maps Connect allows business owners to both manage existing Apple Maps listings and add additional listings to the platform. This service works closely with the Apple Indoor Mapping feature, which aims for businesses to help Apple build up a portfolio of indoor mapping data. Apple earlier expanded Apple Maps Connect via service updates in January, February, and March. Thanks Chris!
Apple has notified Apple Maps Connect for Small Businesses users that the service has expanded beyond the United States into the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, and Singapore. As we detailed in October of last year, Apple Maps Connect is a web-based tool for businesses to either add or edit their listings to the Apple Maps database. The site is also used to bolster Apple’s indoor mapping data for future iOS Maps features. Thanks, Matt!
Ad Age reports that Chase is running its first TV ad for Apple Pay, focusing on use in small businesses, and featuring Fun lead guitarist Jack Antonoff’s side indie band Bleachers.
The ad, out of creative agency Saatchi & Saatchi, features members of indie pop band Bleachers roaming Los Angeles in the hours leading up to a performance. The musicians make purchases along the way using their Chase Freedom credits cards — but through Apple Pay on their iPhones, not the physical cards.
Chase said that Apple was heavily involved with the ad …
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6YXllIqD_E]
Small businesses looking to take occasional card payments without paying monthly fees now have a third option as Amazon has launched Local Register to compete with Square and PayPal Here – as we predicted last month. The $10 card-reader is compatible with any iPhone from the iPhone 4 onward, as well as any iPad or iPad mini.
Amazon is undercutting both competitor services with a flat fee of 2.5 percent per transaction (vs 2.7 percent for PayPal Here and 2.75 percent for Square). Not enough? Amazon is sweetening the deal with a special introductory rate of 1.75 percent until the end of 2015, and will also credit the $10 cost of the cardreader in full against transaction fees …
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