As I wrote yesterday, Apple is rolling out several enhancements to Apple Wallet. That represents technological progress so of course the new Luddites have taken offense and have rushed to publish articles denouncing it. The problem is that it’s hard to criticize things that make your life easier and that are useful to and depended on by many people so the new Luddites have to make up problems with digital wallets. Their conclusion: Apple Wallet is too useful.
I’ve written before about some of the problems with putting all your documents and keys on your phone and why I don’t think they represent serious issues for me. Of course, people have different habits and needs so let’s look at what the new Luddites are saying. First up is Andrew Couts writing for Gizmodo. He says It’s About to Really, Really Suck to Lose Your iPhone. Of course, it always sucks when you lose your phone but now it’s worse because the new Apple Wallet will let you store your house and car keys in it as well as your credit cards.
The thing is, nothing’s changed. You can already open your car or house door with your phone. The only thing that’s different is now the keys can be stored in the wallet rather than being standalone apps.
Couts’ main fear is losing his iPhone and therefore, he says, becoming stranded because he has no phone, car keys, credit cards, or even house keys. But that’s not the inevitable consequence he makes it out to be. First of all, you can always carry a $20 bill in your pocket or hidden in your car. Doing that reduces the problem to losing your keys, which is easier to do than losing your phone.
But there’s an easier solution. Wear an Apple Watch. It can, right now today, do all the things that Apple Wallet can. It can store your credit cards, let you in your house, and open/start your car. It’s also almost impossible to lose. If you have one, you have a backup to your phone. If you’re depending on your physical wallet and keys, you have no backup.
Brett Molina also has an entry in the New Luddite Sweepstakes. His fear is not getting stranded but exposing the information in his wallet to thieves or hackers. In USA Today, he writes, iOS 15: Why I’ll keep my driver’s license in my wallet and not my iPhone. He doesn’t want to risk letting his private information get compromised. That argument is beyond silly. First of all, he has to lose his iPhone, which is much less likely than losing his wallet. Then the thief or hacker has to break into the phone to get at the data which is famously difficult. If he loses his physical wallet all the thief has to do is take out the cards and read them.
Both of these articles are, I suppose, click bait but they’re still annoying. Rather than address whatever problems the new technology may have they make up silly new Luddite objections to it. Sadly, it’s what we’ve come to expect from the Tech Press and why it’s not worth paying any attention to them.