10 years ago today I posted this somewhere -

American Express card acquired. Apple Pay ready to go. Must go buy something. Be right back.

Apple Pay - and the ability to pay by tapping your phone or your watch on the payment terminal - had just come to Canada and it only worked with an Amex card. Of course I rushed out to get one. (Now it works with all the cards, but it was a neat Amex exclusive for a while.)

I think my first transaction was at the local Petro-Canada, or possibly Tim Horton’s.

I can recall the early, glorious days of Apple Pay when you’d tap your watch on the thing to pay for something and the clerk, and other customers, would gasp in amazement. Wait, how did you do that? With your WATCH? Just like that? You didn’t have to get your wallet out? You didn’t give your card to the waiter and have them wander off to the back with it? What, are we living in the FUTURE now?

And sometimes, if the clerk happened to be distracted, I would deliberately fumble the operation so they’d have to reset the payment terminal, giving me a chance to do it over with the clerk watching.

I loved the reactions.

Thank you, Apple Pay team, and thank you to the People of Canada who had ALREADY rolled out tap-to-pay terminals and gas pumps and everything so that it all Just Worked. It’s still a delight to use.

(And it still feels like we’re a decade ahead of the USA on this front.)