Plastic for me, thank you

Who has two thumbs and doesn’t give a rat’s backside about any new Apple phones?

I did, however, take notice of the most recent attempt to add millions more members to the iCult with the launch of Apple Pay.

Apple Pay will allow users to buy goods and services by waving their iPhones. So go ahead and start linking your debit and credit card accounts and start buying!

Doing what I do and hearing what I hear on an almost daily basis, I immediately thought of cybersecurity. There must be some concern. Just a little, right?

But Apple is Apple. Breaches of naked celebrity pictures on the iCloud be damned. It makes no matter. Apple is Apple.

This new technology is not something I’ll rush to embrace. I don’t think I’ve made a mystery thus far of my suspicions and curiosity of Apple fanaticism. I don’t get it.

If Apple does succeed—and I assume they will—and others follow, I can’t jump on the bandwagon because 1.) I’m scared to death about cybersecurity and 2.) this doesn’t solve a problem for me.

My wife bought a special pitcher from Pampered Chef. The top has this pinwheel plunger to mix the sugar (or whatever else). This doesn’t solve a problem. A spoon has worked just fine since the beginning of mixing history.

As Bloomberg’s Paul Kedrosky sarcastically put it, Apply Pay can put an end to the “huge nuisance as you drop plastic all over the place inside of stores.”

I loved that line. I’m ok with pulling out my actual wallet and swiping a card.

And quite frankly, there’s enough risk in that. I’m not asking for more by uploading my payment card information to a cell phone. We haven’t solved the payment card security dilemma. I’m not trusting anything else. And this isn’t just an Apple thing. I’m not into this new technology. Each day is a gamble as it is, I’m not adding to the odds. I hesitate to bank on my phone and only do so in a serious pinch.

The fact that credit cards are insecure too is not a reason to engage in another practice of equal or greater insecurity.

I also find it semi-ironic that the same society who scream about their privacy are terribly eager to give it away. Apple Pay is yet another way to gather more data about you. Where are you? What potato chips do you like the best? Do you have the flu? What websites do you frequent?

I’m all ears. Convince me this is really a great, safe innovation.