order & pay w/your phone

As TechCrunch writes, Apple has recently filed a patent application for a feature that would allow iPhone users to remotely place orders via their phones in stores and get notified when the order is ready. Frankly, I’m not quite sure what exactly it is that Apple wants to have patented (and Mike Masnick at Techdirt even argues that they shouldn’t have the right to have something like that patented), but the bigger implication, as Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch notes, is something else: “[...] this points to is a larger opportunity for mobile devices to automate commerce in physical stores by connecting the consumer directly with a store’s order-processing system.”

The patent application suggests that you could order your coffee remotely from your phone and be notified when it is ready. I’m not sure if this is a genuine customer need (although the waiting time at Starbucks is annoying). But I could imagine a lot of other applications for the feature. You could make reservations at a restaurant via your phone, either for a a specified time or just as soon as a table is free. In the latter case, the restaurant would notify you as soon as the table is ready, allowing you to get something done in the meantime instead of just waiting in the restaurant. You could even submit your food order before arriving at the restaurant, additionally reducing waiting time.

The concept can be taken even further: Consider a clothing store where every piece of clothing is equipped with a unique RFID tag, and customers have mobile phones with WiFi access and some sort of scanning feature (either the phones can directly read the RFID tags, or the items have a barcode with the same information that can be scanned with the phone’s camera). If you see an item that you like, you scan it with your phone, which then connects itself to the store’s database via WiFi and shows you additional information on the item that you’re holding in your hands. If you decide to buy, you can perform the financial transaction directly on your mobile phone. As soon as the transaction is completed, the status of the item in the database is set to “bought”, preventing the RFID scanners at the door from setting off an alarm when you leave the store with your purchase.

Image: stock.xchng

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .