Apple Pay Support Rolls Out at First NBA Stadium

Apple Pay is now available at Amway Center, the home of the Orlando Magic, making it the first NBA stadium to support Apple Pay.

Apple Pay support will officially launch on Friday during a game against the Utah Jazz, and it’s a partnership with Chase that is making this happen. Spectators will be able to use Apple Pay at concessions and at team fan shops around the stadium.

The MLB was the first sport to launch and support Apple Pay, which isn’t too surprising considering that the MLB has had a close relationship with Apple recently, as the league worked closely with the Cupertino-based company to launch iBeacon in MLB stadiums across the country earlier this year.

AT&T Park and Kauffman Stadium were the first sports stadiums to begin accepting Apple Pay, which spectators were able to use during the World Series.

Apple Pay launched back in October alongside the iOS 8.1 update for iPhone and iPad users. The new payment platform already has a handful of major banks that support it, as well as a growing list of retail stores. However, one big roadblock has been bank support overall, with only a few big-name banks supporting Apple’s digital wallet service, but that has been quickly changing.

Just recently, a handful of new banks rolled out support for Apple Pay, including Associated Bank, BB&T, Black Hills FCU, Commerce Bank, Dupaco Community Credit Union, Idaho Central Credit Union, First Tennessee Bank, TD Bank North America, WesBanco, and UW Credit Union.

This comes shortly after another wave of banks began supporting Apple’s new digital wallet platform, including USAA, US Bank, Navy Federal Credit Union, Barclaycard, PNC, L&N Federal Credit Union, UW Credit Union, and M&T Bank.

Only a handful of major banks supported Apple Pay when it initially launched, including Bank of America, Capital One, Chase, Citi and Wells Fargo.

Apple Pay is essentially the company’s own digital wallet platform to take on the growing market of digital payment systems that already released by companies like Google.

Apple Pay allows you to store your credit card information on your iPhone and use it to buy stuff at any store that supports Apple Pay. The iPhone 6 has an NFC chip that allows you to tap the pay terminal at a store to instantly buy goods. Furthermore, doing this doesn’t give the store your credit card information, so you’re less susceptible to store hacks that steal credit card information, similar to the recent Home Depot and Target hacks.

Apple Pay also works with mobile shopping apps, allowing you to pay with a single touch of the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in shopping apps that support the feature.

Furthermore, Apple says that 220,000 store locations accept Apple Pay as a payment method, and that number will no doubt continue to grow into 2015 and beyond.

The company lists a handful of national chains that support Apple Pay, including McDonald’s, Panera Bread, Staples, Walgreens, Subway, Whole Foods, Macy’s, Bloomingdales, and the Disney Store.

As for apps that accept one-touch payment with Apple Pay, there are plenty that are already on board with it. Some notable shopping apps include Groupon, Panera Bread, OpenTable, Starbucks, Sephora, Target, and even Uber.

Of course, the new payment platform hasn’t launched without its issues. Many users reported being charged twice for one transaction, while other people claimed that they had trouble getting Apple Pay to work in the first place. We reckon Apple, banks and stores will work together to fix these issues, but for now it seems early adopters aren’t having a fantastic time with it.