I cannot wait for Apple Pay — but not for the reason you think

iOS 8.1 is out right now and if you’re an iPhone 6 owner who’s lucky enough to live in the US (and be a customer of one of the banks that have signed up so far) you can be one of the first to experience Apple Pay.

I cannot wait for this feature to be rolled out to the rest of the world. I’m the kind of guy who has already ditched his Oyster Card in favour of using my contactless debit card for all my journeys around London and I still get a little annoyed when a shop’s card terminal doesn’t support this technology when I’m buying my lunch.

But while paying for something with my phone will be insanely geeky cool, I find the in-app payment element of Apple Pay much more interesting.

Inputting card information on a phone keyboard is basically a pain. No matter how many times you’ve used that 16-digit number you almost always tap it in wrong (especially if the developer decides to offer you a keyboard rather than a numeric keypad). If you think you’re in the clear once this ordeal is over and the app has remembered your details, just wait until you have to change your card.

Every service you completely forgot had your details is now screaming for you to put them in all over again.

For me Apple Pay will become a single place where my card details are stored (securely) that I can easily access when I’m paying for things using apps on my phone. I make a change once, and I’m never bothered by it again. In a similar way changing passwords is made so much easier with apps that integrate 1Password.

The waving of my phone like a magic wand in order to buy a cheap sandwich will be fun the first time it happens, but the real benefit of Apple Pay will come when I don’t have to go searching for my wallet when I want to buy a train ticket online.

Now if someone could just sort out the rest of paying on the internet…