Square plans to roll out support for Apple's new Tap to Pay on iPhone feature in its Square Point of Sale app later in 2022 and launches an Early Access Program
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple had framed Tap to Pay as a US merchant-payment feature delivered through partner-enabled iPhone apps, with Stripe and Shopify named among the initial partners in Apple’s partner-app rollout. Square’s Early Access Program brings its Point of Sale app into that model after its earlier Apple Pay-ready NFC and chip reader effort.
The program is the transition point from Square’s reader-based Apple Pay support toward accepting contactless payments directly on compatible iPhones; related coverage shows Square subsequently made the feature available to US sellers.
First-order effects
- Square sellers admitted to Early Access can test contactless payment acceptance through the Square Point of Sale app on an iPhone, rather than relying solely on Square’s separate payment-reader hardware.
- Square gains an early channel to validate Tap to Pay inside its existing seller workflow before its planned broader rollout.
Second-order effects
- Stripe and Shopify, also identified by Apple as Tap to Pay partners, face a more direct comparison with Square on the merchant app and service experience, not just on compatibility with contactless payments.
- Square’s payment-reader business faces a changed product mix: sellers able to use an iPhone for acceptance have a lower need for dedicated hardware in the use cases Tap to Pay supports.
Third-order effects
- If partner apps broadly adopt Tap to Pay, merchant-payment competition shifts further from proprietary acceptance devices toward software-led seller platforms running on the iPhone.
- Apple’s partner-enabled approach positions the iPhone as shared payments infrastructure while leaving Square, Stripe, and Shopify to differentiate through their merchant software and services.
The trend: Contactless merchant acceptance is moving from dedicated readers toward phone-based software integrations controlled by payment-platform partners.