Apple Pay, n;

A wallet-like feature that stores your credit cards to allow iPhone 6 and Apple Watch users to pay with a tap. Announced Tuesday at Apple’s new product demonstration, Apple Pay is a feature that will be available in the upcoming iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus, both running iOS 8. It’s similar to Google Wallet and other digital money storage apps and devices.

Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, described their creation of Apple Pay as the solution to the problem that is plastic credit cards. iPhone 6 and 6 plus users can store their credit cards on their phone using Passbook. The credit card number(s) and personal information is all encrypted, so Apple doesn’t keep record of it and it isn’t passed along to stores when you make a purchase. When you’re in a store that accepts Apple Pay, you can tap your phone to the NFC readers and pay in an instant. Apple Pay has also integrated with vendors online, so if you’re purchasing from places like Target or Uber with your phone, you can now choose to pay with your phone.

If you lose your iPhone, you can freeze Apple Pay and not worry about getting new credit cards, as none of the information is actually stored on the phone. Basically, it’s a fairly secure digital wallet — not much different than what has hit the market before (like PayPal and Google Wallet), which haven’t been able to popularize digital payments.

Read more about Apple’s product announcements on our blog soon!