Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Visa has announced that its official iPhone application is available for free in the iTunes App Store. It's completely in step with other popular consumer apps, as it's heavy on deals and location-based technology."

This app, available now in iTunes [link], allows you to customize it so you get offers that only interest you. It also gives you a map where you can redeem the offers. If you have a Visa Signature card, you get even more offers. It appears there are only 50 or so merchants signed up for this service at this time though, and you can find out more at the Visa mobile site.

"DeviceFidelity's mobile twist on Visa's payWave system is a nice little solution to the fact that nobody's bothered to build contactless payment chips into US mobile phones just yet -- DeviceFidelity just stuffs the Visa smart chip circuitry into a microSD card and lets you on your way. Of course, this supplants the much needed additional storage on an Android handset, and requires a chunky add-on case for the iPhone, but at least it's a start."

Indeed! This is like those terminals that we have around here in convenience stores and some fast food places, where all you have to do is wave your card in front of the device and it pays the charges. Too bad it does require a case for the iPhone 4, but perhaps with iPhone 5 some options will be built in to allow the chip?

"This morning, Visa and DeviceFidelity Inc., issued a joint press release annoucing that they'd built - and received Apple's much-coveted blessing in the form of accessory certification - an iPhone case that acts as a tap-to-pay Visa credit card."

This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I was hoping for some Visa integration, but small steps. The device is built into a case for the iPhone (works on 3G and 3GS) and works in conjunction with an application so you can use it to make purchases with your iPhone. The press release was pulled so I can't link to it, perhaps it will be out today or tomorrow.