Pretty soon you may be able to pay for lumber and framing hammers with your iPhone. The Home Depot says it wants to offer Apple Pay across all of its nearly 2,000 locations in the U.S., according to Bloomberg Business.
The company doesn’t have a deal in place with Apple so don’t plan your iOS-enabled home renovation just yet. Nevertheless, it appears Home Depot does want to get a deal done with Apple at some point—it’s just not clear when that might be. The Home Depot also told Bloomberg it could add other mobile payment systems in addition to Apple Pay.
If Home Depot does add Apple Pay across its stores it would be one of the largest retailers yet to support Apple’s mobile payments system. Apple Pay works with a number of other big name retailers including Walgreens, Bloomingdale’s, Footlocker, Nike, Office Depot, Staples, and Toys ‘R’ US. Check out Macworld’s ultimate guide to using Apple Pay for a complete breakdown of where you can use it.
Home Depot’s confirmation that it wants Apple Pay comes after rumors surfaced that it had given up the service. Although not an official partner, the company was accepting Apple Pay at select locations equipped with near-field communication (NFC) terminals.
That service recently stopped working at some locations, however, leading people to wonder if Home Depot had dropped its unofficial Apple Pay support.
The Home Depot told Bloomberg Apple Pay stopped working due to upgrades to the company’s point-of-sale system.
The impact on you at home: It took a long time, but NFC-based mobile payments are finally taking off in the U.S. The main drivers behind the push are the mobile device and software companies. Android has Google Wallet, which works at Mastercard PayPass locations, iOS has ApplePay, Samsung is working on Samsung Pay, and Microsoft is expected to introduce a payment service for Windows 10 phones. Although the mobile industry is driving NFC payment services a group of retailers are hoping to popularize their own solution with Merchant Customer Exchange backed by Best Buy, Target, Walmart, and 7-Eleven.
Author: Ian Paul, Contributor
Ian is an independent writer based in Israel who has never met a tech subject he didn't like. He primarily covers Windows, PC and gaming hardware, video and music streaming services, social networks, and browsers. When he's not covering the news he's working on how-to tips for PC users, or tuning his eGPU setup.