Square, the company that has brought the ability to accept credit cards for transactions to individuals and small businesses with a card reader dongle for iOS devices, today announced its next venture: "Square Register" for iPad. Seeking to replace traditional cash registers with iPads equipped with the new Square Register application, Square notes that the app will allow businesses to easily customize the register interface with their full list of products.
Analytics tools will allow businesses to see up-the-minute details on sales performance, broken down by any number of metrics to help businesses study sales trends. The Square Register functionality comes as an update to the iPad version of the company's universal App Store app.
From the customer perspective, Square is rolling out "Card Case", virtual business cards that allow customers to view details on their favorite businesses, directly accessing live-updated menus and product listings from the card as well as transaction histories with item-level detail.
Replacing loyalty cards and credit card payment methods, Square Cards will allow a customer to establish a relationship with a business and pay for goods without having to carry a wallet, a mechanism Square CEO Jack Dorsey likens to having a permanent tab opened with the business. Transaction confirmations and receipts are pushed to users' phones for record-tracking. Users can initiate a payment by activating the business's Square Card on their phone when within range of the business and then simply giving their name at the register to have the purchase charged to their account.
Square Register and Square Cards are rolling out now through 50 merchants located in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, St. Louis, and Los Angeles, with further expansion coming soon.
Friday December 12, 2025 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Macworld's Filipe Espósito today revealed a handful of features that Apple is allegedly planning for iOS 26.4, iOS 27, and even iOS 28.
The report said the features are referenced within the code for a leaked internal build of iOS 26 that is not meant to be seen by the public. However, it appears that Espósito and/or his sources managed to gain access to it, providing us with a sneak peek...
Monday December 15, 2025 3:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Software from an iPhone prototype running an early build of iOS 26 leaked last week, giving us a glimpse at future Apple devices and iOS features. We recapped device codenames in our prior article, and now we have a list of some of the most notable feature flags that were found in the software code.
In some cases, it's obvious what the feature flags are referring to, while some are more...
Monday December 15, 2025 2:05 pm PST by Juli Clover
Last week, details about unreleased Apple devices and future iOS features were shared by Macworld. This week, we learned where the information came from, plus we have more findings from the leak.
As it turns out, an Apple prototype device running an early build of iOS 26 was sold, and the person who bought it shared the software. The OS has a version number of 23A5234w, and the first...
The first foldable iPhone will feature a series of design and hardware firsts for Apple, according to details shared by the Weibo leaker known as Digital Chat Station.
According to a new post, via machine translation, Apple is developing what the leaker describes as a "wide foldable" device, a term used to refer to a horizontally oriented, book-style foldable with a large internal display....
Monday December 15, 2025 4:23 pm PST by Juli Clover
Apple is testing iOS 26.3, the next version of iOS 26 that will launch around January. Since iOS 26.3's testing is happening over the holidays, it is a smaller update with fewer features than we've seen in prior betas.
We've rounded up what's new so far, and we'll add to our list with subsequent betas if we come across any other features.
Transfer to Android
Apple is making it simpler...
Friday December 12, 2025 10:10 am PST by Juli Clover
Apple today released iOS 26.2, the second major update to the iOS 26 operating system that came out in September, iOS 26.2 comes a little over a month after iOS 26.1 launched. iOS 26.2 is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and later, as well as the second-generation iPhone SE.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones over-the-air by going to Settings >...
Thursday December 11, 2025 8:49 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple seeded the second iOS 26.2 Release Candidate to developers earlier this week, meaning the update will be released to the general public very soon.
Apple confirmed iOS 26.2 would be released in December, but it did not provide a specific date. We expect the update to be released by early next week.
iOS 26.2 includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, such as a new...
Monday December 15, 2025 7:41 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple released the AirPods Max on December 15, 2020, meaning the over-ear headphones launched five years ago today. While the AirPods Max were updated with a USB-C port and new color options last year, followed by support for lossless audio and ultra-low latency audio this year, the headphones lack some of the features that have been introduced for newer generations of the regular AirPods and the ...
This is awesome news! I LOVE my Square app on my iPhone4. It has been great for everyday life and the occasional yard sale.
When everyone in the office wants to order lunch or flowers for a sick coworker, I can be the one that places the order and I can take debit/credit cards from the other workers for their share of the total and the same goes for office lunch. I always make sure that I tell them to add on a buck or so for the hit I take from the percentage Square takes but for the convenience no one has objected.
And you wouldn't believe the looks I get from people who are going around to the yard sales and come to ours and see that I can take a credit card! We have sold a lot more objects and some bigger ticket items because of this option. People are much more apt to spend $50 for TV on their credit card than to have $50 in cash extra on their person.
Wow talk about out of date technology. Transactions are now declined by banks if the card are swiped like this image suggests. Surely they have an updated device supporting chip reader (and PIN entry)?
Not in the US - which is why this system wont work outside of it.
No. But my imac can. Via the Delicious Library App. So I am sure the ipad 2 can scan bar codes if someone was to write a little software to do it.
Ah, of course. The iPad (and iPhone) can do it that way through software (using a camera), but it's nowhere near as efficient as using a dedicated barcode scanner.
Sales staff in supermarkets are rated on how many items they can scan per minute.
It would be MUCH lower with an iPad. i.e. slower
It would be difficult to have useful data on the screen at the same time that the camera was being used to line up a barcode scan.
Having worked with various retail POS systems from IBM et al I hope this finally allows a departure from the draconian interfaces which look as if design and operator usability were not allowed to be discussed in the development phase.
