Apple replaced it in September 2009, with its own iPod Touch-based “EasyPay touch” POS (Point Of Sale) system.

Details here:
http://tinyurl.com/ye2v7uv
http://tinyurl.com/ydawk2e
http://tinyurl.com/yah6qtg

Yea I made a comment to the manager about this one, all she did was just laugh and just said “of all places, huh”.

This kind of article shows the level of some Apple nuts’ corporate loyality (to marketing?) in buying a phone. It would not hurt to look at the product itself rather then the name so that we consumers get better products instead of brand name bragging rights. Let’s hope that the recent waves of excitement do not collapse completely but instead force the company to innovate (the product).

If Guy Kawasaki is still alive he is in the corner crying – 1980′s are over – fads hit hard and die fast except for the few straggler evangelists.

Is Microsoft even allowed to make a phone?
Is Apple too geeky to make a game console, heck, why can’t the Mac do games or even web games (swf)?

Heavens!
You mean to say that a company that doesn’t develop POSS software actually used a competitor’s product?!
What can we expect to see next?
MacOS running on the same hardware as Windows?!
A Two button mouse?!

C’mon, cut me some slack. Welcome to 2008.
It’s a competing OS, not holy scripture.

That’s not ironic, it’s just coincidental!

Not even an Apple guy at all (don’t own any of their products), but I’m not sure what the big deal is here. Do you really think they’d use a new product (iPhone 3g) to process transactions for the very same product? Do you think anyone plans on using a smart phone as a POS device? So if not the iPhone, what do you expect them to use? The iPod Touch? Once again… not exactly a POS device. Apple has never claimed to be a one-stop shop for every IT need in the world…

Exactly — I second Martin. If anything, it’s another jab at Microsoft: “Thanks for the point-of-sale software, Microsoft! Without it, we simply wouldn’t know *how* to deal with all these sales….”

So what?

18 years ago programmed IBM S/38 and AS/400 machines for Apple back-end business processing

these are the same machines which were also used by Microsoft (and then hidden for years – you can only work on ‘em under non-disclosure) to track shipments of their products

while both companies may have moved on since, the IBM i platform lives on, for good reason, and services your transactions way more often than you know

and don’t kid yourself…

when it comes to processing huge lucrative business transactions, you’re probably not going to do it with brand new consumer technology

watch and see where it goes, and for a little foreshadowing which might help with connecting some dots… check out Steve Gillmor’s prescient post “The Enterprise iPhone Twitter Connection” at

http://www.techcrunchit.com/2008/07/11/the-enterprise-iphone-twitter-connection/

Yes, yes, very amusing. Does anyone seriously suggest that Apple should waste time developing a custom hardware and software solution to make a few thousand POS terminals for its 187 stores? As a shareholder, I’m perfectly happy to see them buy a turnkey solution for POS and get on with the business of developing their next multi-million selling consumer product.
On the other hand, I don’t suppose it is beyond the realm of possibility that Apple might one day license it’s mobile version of OS X to developers who want to create niche market products like this.