In the rush to release hundreds of publication specific apps as quickly as possible, every media dinosaur is desperately trying to claw money from the cashed up iPad owners with micropayments and pay walls. This is a recipe for disaster – and it’s going to be a gold mine for security consultancies, and nothing but tears for users.
Why?
All of these apps have to implement their own pay wall, subscription model, and store regulated financial data. Whereas before Apple did all the hard yards, now Flash web designers are going to be cutting code in Objective C for the first time to handle credit cards.
Are they going to get it right every time? Absolutely not. Will some of them get it right? Yes, those that get code reviews or have a skilled financial services development team. How many media outlets meet these requirements?
Mark my words, there’s going to be a lot of folks making money out of the poor decision to not create a secure micropayments service for iPhoneOS.
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