Two hot new iPhone dongles are about to hit the market: Squareup – a small dongle that accepts credit card payments using the iPhone and Eneloop Stick Booster, a usb dongle that can power-up our iphones.
(…. dongles, squareups and eneloops! New stuff require new names and the new way is just to make them up!)
The Squareup is probably the hottest new dongle as it has the potential to revolutionize the way we will pay for our goods. The dongle is in beta at present and so we won’t see it in widespread use till 2010 – but, trust us – this is gonna take off. Because it offers a super easy way for retailers to accept credit card payments.
The dongle just plugs into the audio socket of the merchant’s iPhone. As you can see in the above pic, the dongle is actually a credit card swiper. The squareup system allows the merchant to do a visual ID check with a photo sent to their iPhone. What adds to its appeal is that the system is paperless – receipts are sent by email! This new dongle may mean that all those stores (and market stalls) that currently and annoyingly don’t accept credit cards, will now be able to with this easy to adopt system.
And if its great concept is not enough to convince you this is gonna be the next big thing, then let us mention its pedigree: this thing was developed by Jack Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter!
OK – next big Dongle is the Eneloop Stick Booster by Sanyo. It has just been released in Japan, but its not clear when it will be released to the ROW. The dongle requires two AA Eneloop batteries and has the ability to power up our iPhones for an extra 90 minutes.
If you want more – easy, just pack more batteries. These are pretty cool batteries, as well – as they can be recharged some 1500 times! Looks like the Stick will sell for around $35 (based on the yen price) and a set of 8 Eneloop AA batteries plus recharger also retails for around $35. Well worth it for the back up it offers – and a great stocking filler for Christmas (or would be, if we could get it!!)
PS: See our next post for the lowdown on pirating of Apps!