, Columnist
Apple Tightens Hug, Reaching for Wallet
Its services are designed to make devices harder to ditch.
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Apple is like a gracious dinner party host who makes everything so comfortable and inviting that the guests never want to leave.
That is a useful framework to view reports that Apple is talking with banks about creating a service that would let people send money to each other to split a dinner check or pay the plumber, according to the Wall Street Journal and other publications. Person-to-person payments aren’t in widespread use yet in the U.S., but Apple has a knack for mainstreaming habits that once were fringe.