By Jason Snell

October 20, 2014 10:49 AM PT

Local man uses Apple Pay to buy groceries

Note: This story has not been updated for several years.

So I updated my iPhone 6 to iOS 8.1, typed in my credit card number (my iPhone wouldn’t recognize the nonstandard design of my card—the number’s printed on the back), and walked over to my local Whole Foods to try out Apple Pay. In a sign that this is truly a brave new world we’re living in, it rained the entire way. I know, rain in California seems like an impossibility, but I assure you it’s true.

After a visit to the Honey Roasted Peanut grinder—50 percent off in late October!—and to the meat counter to pick up some chicken breasts for dinner tonight, I went to an empty checkout line that was being attended to by a nice young guy named Tyler.

I pulled the iPhone 6 out of my pocket and before I could even move it closer to the payment terminal—newly festooned with a Now Accepting Apple Pay tag—Apple Pay appeared on my phone and asked me to verify my purchase via Touch ID.

“Oh, you’re going to try that?” Tyler said.

“Yep, I’m one of those people,” I said, and habitually placed my thumb on the phone, as if I was going to unlock it. Which was what I was going to do, but instead of doing that, I paid for groceries.

“Whoa, I don’t know what just happened,” Tyler said as the paper receipt popped out of the cash register’s printer.

As I left the store and walked home with my iPhone-purchased items, it wasn’t raining. Brave new world indeed.

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