Apple Pay To Debut Oct. 20?

Apple Pay training documents are now again pointing to Monday (Oct. 20) as the date when Apple wants retailers to start offering shoppers Apple Pay, according to a MacRumors story.

This seems to be verified by a 9to5Mac story that quoted from a memo from Apple Pay retailer partner Panera Bread, which also said Monday was the day. “An online training course for employees has been published that includes instructions for the VeriFone readers, including the Apple Pay functions. Stores that don’t have the appropriate hardware to support the technology will receive further information on the 20th about how the company plans to handle payments those locations,” the 9to5Mac piece reported. “The memo also notes that the NFC terminals will support not just Apple Pay, but several other tap-to-pay systems like Google Wallet and SoftCard as well.”

The MacRumors piece acknowledged that Walgreens has said Oct. 18 is the launchdate and predicted that the actual date may be revealed Thursday (Oct. 16) when Apple rolls out its new payment-enabled iPads.

“Apple Pay’s exact debut date will likely be revealed during Apple’s October 16 media event, which will see the company introducing a new iPad Air, a new Retina iPad mini and a Retina iMac,” the MacRumors story reported. “Both of Apple’s new iPads include support for Touch ID and will allow users to make purchases within apps using Apple Pay.”