*By Alisha Haridasani*
Apple wants to turn its Pay function into a bigger revenue stream by expanding the use of its cashless payment tool to include a wider range of transactions.
At its annual developers conference this week, Apple announced partnerships with six American universities to incorporate their students' IDs into the Pay and Wallet system.
“When you look at students, if you’ll remember, you use your ID to do so many things ー to get into your dorm room, to go to the library, to pay for your food and your meal plan, to check in to the work out facilities,” Jennifer Bailey, head of Apple Pay, said in an interview with Cheddar’s Hope King. “Now having it in their phones in a secure way, we think students are going to love it.”
Apple Pay also launched a transit payment system in four Chinese cities earlier this year, allowing users to pay for train and bus rides using the Pay tool.
“People love to use it for everyday commuting,” said Bailey. The feature is available in cities in Japan, as well as Moscow, St. Petersburg, London, Chicago, Portland, Ore., and Salt Lake City. There are plans to integrate it with New York’s MTA system.
Apple’s efforts to expand the Pay and Wallet tools are part of its wider strategy to boost its services unit, which includes Pay, Music, and the iCloud. As iPhone sales start to slow, the company's services business become more important.
Revenue from Apple’s services accounted for around 15 percent of revenue in the [second quarter](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2_FY18_Data_Summary.pdf), bringing in $9 billion. While Apple doesn’t break down how each unit fares, the CFO Luca Maestri told [Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-01/apple-paid-subscribers-grew-by-100-million-from-year-ago) there are 270 million paid subscribers of its services.
The company is also investing more than [$1 billion](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/25/business/media/apple-hollywood-streaming.html) building out its entertainment unit. Details are sparse, but so far the company has courted the Hollywood stars Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Damien Chazelle, and Steven Spielberg for a dozen projects that are slated to be released next year.
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/apple-pay-vp-jennifer-bailey-on-future-of-mobile-payments).
Investors were on edge on Monday following bitcoin plummeting below the $40,000 dollar mark, hit its lowest price since September. The world's largest crypto has had months of hot and cold streaks, hitting a record high of $69,000 just months earlier in November. The latest drop now has analysts wondering just what 2022 will have in store for bitcoin and crypto as a whole.
Budd White, Chief Product Officer at Tacen explains what’s next for bitcoin and what other cryptos should be on the lookout for.
For the first time since September, Bitcoin fell below $40,000 early Monday. The currency's average short-term price has now dipped below its average long-term price, which is known by a rather dramatic term, a death cross. According to analysts, the indicator appears to be a result of mounting concerns of faster liquidity withdrawal by the US Federal Reserve. The crypto slump also follows a week of rough trading for equities overall. CEO Snickerdoodle Labs and Co-Founder of the Stanford Future of Digital Currency Initiative, Jonathan Padilla, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
With the record highs in pet ownership in recent months, there is a huge emerging market in pet technology. The new halo collar isn't just a smart collar; it's the next-generation dog safety system. Cheddar News sits down with the co-founders of Halo, Cesar Milan and Ken Ehrman, to discuss.
With no end in sight to supply chain snarls, some companies are reconsidering the way they manufacture goods. Harry Moser, founder and president of Reshoring Initiative and Jennifer Smith, logistics and supply chain reporter for the Wall Street Journal, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss some of the ways companies are trying to solve their supply chain problems in the long term.
Bitcoin dipped below $40,000 this week amid a broader slump to begin the year. Some speculate that as cryptocurrencies correlate closer to traditional assets that factors like the Federal Reserve tightening monetary policy will weigh on digital coins. Jalak Jobanputra, managing partner at Future Perfect Ventures, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss why crypto markets are feeling pressure from the Fed's potential 2022 rate hikes, broader crypto market predictions, and more.
A.I. startup Fractal has raised $360 million in funding, officially entering the unicorn club. Pranay Agrawal, CEO and Co-Founder of Fractal, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss what the company plans to do with the fresh capital.
