I know it seems obvious, but for a long time, you couldn’t choose Apple Pay, Apple’s own payment system, when setting up your Apple ID. I needed to update my card yesterday and have noticed the new option. I am attaching the screenshot, have you noticed the Apple Pay icon? It used to say “App Store”.

App Store screenshot showing the Florence game confirm with Touch ID payment sheet, the price is £2.99

This could bring new possibilities:

  • User can provide payment details only once, configure default, and choose a different card for each purchase.
  • Hopefully, if your app supports In-App Purchase, your customers now can pay with Apple Pay. Before that, Apple Pay was only allowed for physical goods, and required complex setup. I think 30% cut remains, but it potentially can allow Apple to switch to a 0% cut and just have much smaller commission they get from banks when you use Apple Pay.
  • User can use Wallet app settings to set a default card, instead of iOS payment settings.

Putting simply, if you can use Apple Pay to pay for your commute, buy a loaf of bread, or any web purchase, you now also can use the same technology when buying software on the App Store, wonderful.

Running iOS 13.7, UK App Store. I don’t see this on the Mac.

Update, October 8

I was billed for my iCloud Storage and the payment went through my card as usual. When I tried to remove this card from Apple ID payment settings, iOS told me I have to have at least one payment method available, despite that I have a second Apple Pay option configured in the list of payment methods. I am not sure is because I am a family organiser, but, most likely, you still have to have card details entered into your Apple ID. Apple Pay won’t be used for iCloud storage billing, and, possibly, subscriptions.

I have changed the post tile from “App Store now Supports Apple Pay” to the new one and changed “This brings new possibilities:” to “This could bring new possibilities:”.