macserv

@Derp Sandwich Post witty comment.

@Mal F4cti0n Though, you'd be unable to perform any action for as long as it takes to do your penance.

This is amazing, and reminds me of why I'm looking forward to the release of the Alesis iODock (http://alesis.com/iodock).

I also love that the spirit of entrepreneurship and craftsmanship are still alive right here at home— Blackbox is located in Golden, Colorado. On my quest to find an awesome iPad 2 case, I also found the guys at grove (http://www.grovemade.com/pages/team) who are based in Portland, OR; and Rustic Case (http://www.rusticcase.com/pages/ourstory) which is in Templeton, MA. It's also nice to know that I have some truly beautiful options designed and hand-built by happy workers, with genuine quality and safe materials, by companies right here in the USA.

I bought a grove (http://www.grovemade.com/collections/ipad-2-case-features) case for that very reason. It covers the back with bamboo, and the front with a leather smart cover, which you can laser-inscribe with your own art. My current wait time of 7–9 weeks is going to kill me, but it'll definitely be worth it.

This is all really insightful, and you're right... Square is continuing their pattern of introducing new, fanciful payment solutions that fly in the face of convention, but aren't particularly well thought-out, with several critical flaws that are sure to cause long-term problems.

Still, I'm sure plenty of geeks will continue their own patterns of assuming NFC and existing processing systems are just old, evil, and rigid for no reason, and eat this stuff up with a spoon.

Seriously. You mean to tell me that your success in this market depends on your ability to come up with a great idea, implement it well, and package it attractively? Crapware won't cut it on the App Store? Quelle suprise!

It actually wasn't a perfectly clean drop... it hit the corner first.

But what the hell are people expecting? A device made of glass cracks when dropped on concrete. Color me shocked.

Verifone's PayWare Mobile reader, I believe.

That dinky looking plug-in sends raw credit card data straight into the phone, unencrypted, where it can be captured. Without modification to the hardware, there's no way to change that.

In theory, Square could add encryption to their existing dongle, or one that plugs into the Dock connector, but in its current form, it's just not robust enough for deployment at a major retail outlet.