Here’s just a of the stories that mobile app testers are talking about these days…

CNET: Microsoft’s mobile fortunes tied to app developers:

Microsoft understands the importance of the developer community in terms of the overall success of Windows Phone 7. And the company has devoted a significant amount of resources to getting developers on board with the platform.

“Honestly, it’s the only thing that matters,” Watson said. “That means we must give developers what they need to develop for our platform. And if we don’t, we lose.”

Many large to medium-size app developers are putting Windows Phone 7 on their roadmaps because they see the potential in the platform.

TechCrunch: VeriFone Takes The Gloves Off, Accuses Square Of Serious Security Hole:

In an “open letter,” VeriFone CEO Doug Bergeron warns consumers and the industry of a serious security threat with Square’s card reader and calls on Square to recall its devices (we’ve pasted the letter below). Bergeron claims that anyone can “skim” or steal personal information off of a credit card’s magnetic strip using the Square card reader with a hacked app and to illustrate the vulnerability, VeriFone wrote a test app that can “skim” to prove their assertions.

SFGate.com: Apps on smart phones nearly as popular as texts:

Smart-phone owners spend almost as much time using apps as they do sending text messages, a recent report said.

Zokem, a mobile analytics company, found in a January survey that smart-phone users spent 667 minutes per month using mobile apps, 671 minutes sending texts, 531 minutes making phone calls and 422 minutes browsing the Web.

Read more…

Readers of mobileapptesting.com should, by now, be aware of our fascination with mobile payment systems and the various testing challenges they present. On this front, no company is pushing the boundaries more aggressively than Starbucks. Here’s the most recent update on their mobile testing progress from Northwest Innovation:

Seattle-based Starbucks said today that it has extended a mobile payment test it is conducting into New York City and Long Island. The firm–which has been allowing users to pay for coffee using BlackBerry, iPhone, and iPod touch devices in select stores since last fall–said the expansion will add around 300 stores to its testing. Starbucks’ application allows users to load up money on their Starbucks Card, which is then used to buy products at its stores.

We’ll keep an eye on this story, but if YOU have been involved in a similar type of testing project, we’d love to hear from you.

Visa, Discover and other giants of the consumer credit world have begun testing a payment system via mobile phones. Quick question though: When your mobile phone is lost or stolen, how will you call to cancel? This is one of many questions we have about the future use of mobile phones as payment mechanisms. We’ll keep an eye on this story.

Here’s the skinny from Self-ServiceWorld.com:

The major payment networks and several telecom giants joined with some of the largest banks in the country recently to test payments through mobile phones in a number of pilot projects. Kiosk industry experts have predicted a consumer switch to mobile could impact such successful kiosk applications as DVD-rental kiosks, airport self-check-in, retail self-service and other uses.

The bankers and payment networks include such giants as Bank of America, Visa, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.

Earlier this summer telecoms AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA, a division of Deutsche Telekom AG, joined to pilot a contactless smart phone payment system at stores in Atlanta and three other U.S. cities, according to a report in Bloomberg.

Discover Financial Services and Barclays plc are the bankers and networks involved with the Atlanta test, Bloomberg reported.

In a separate pilot that began this week, BofA, U.S. Bank, Visa and Wells Fargo teamed on a smart phone payment project in New York City, with plans to complete the trial by the end of the year, according to a BofA spokesperson.

Read more…

From ABCnews.com: “The so-called digital wallet is about to get a big test. Bank of America and Visa plan to begin testing a program in New York next month that lets customers use their smart phones as credit cards.

Customers will install a small chip in their phones, and then wave their phones in front of a scanner when paying, similar to contactless credit cards.”

Of the millions of apps that have (or will be) released, none will require more extensive testing than mobile payment systems.

Make an argument against that. I dare you.

Yesterday, I blogged about the emergence of mobile payment systems and how they will require highly-specialized testing over the next few years. Today, I’d like to direct your attention to an fascinating article from Advertising Age, titled “Is This the Dawn of the Facebook Credit Economy?” Tomorrow, I’m going fishing.

Back to today. Written by Ian Schafer, the article speculates on Facebook’s future plans to create an international credit system – where virtual “Facebook credits” would be redeemable for actual stuff and things (two pillars of our modern economy).

How would this work? Here’s part of Schafer’s explanation:

Read more…

Sure to be one of the mobile testing hot spots over the next few years, mobile payment systems are, for the most part, still in their infant stage. Presently, developers appear to be more concerned with getting their apps to work properly. You’ve gotta have priorities, after all. But make no mistake, as the mobile universe expands, consumers will find themselves increasingly reliant on their mobile devices to pay for everyday items – not just applications.

On that note, here’s a post from MobileCrunch on PayPal and Android’s latest endeavor.

Read more…