University of Oklahoma Becomes First School to Accept Apple Pay Across Campus

applepayoklahomaAs of this week, the University of Oklahoma will begin accepting Apple Pay across its entire campus, becoming the first university to widely embrace Apple Pay. Students attending the University of Oklahoma can use Apple Pay at any of the campus's 400 point-of-service locations, including bookstores, restaurants, and more.

Starting this week, Sooners are now able to pay for items at any one of OU's 400 point-of-service locations -- everywhere from Couch Restaurants to the One University Store and the OU Bookstore. That's right: Buying textbooks, technology and food on campus has never been easier -- or more techy.

In a quirky post announcing Apple Pay, the university created a list of reasons why "having Apple Pay campus wide is so awesome," ranging from being able to pay without a wallet to the security of the transactions.

The University of Oklahoma appears to be the first college to begin accepting Apple Pay campus wide, but in the near future, more than 700 universities and colleges will adopt the payments service. Apple CEO Tim Cook made the announcement during the company's third-quarter earnings call, specifically naming the University of Oklahoma, the University of Kentucky, and Auburn University, Cook's own alma mater.

Since its October 2014 debut, Apple Pay has steadily grown in popularity. Apple Pay works with hundreds of debit and credit cards in the United States and it is accepted at more than 1 million locations across the country.

(Thanks, Joshua!)

Related Roundup: Apple Pay

Popular Stories

iOS 18

Apple Expected to Release iOS 18.3 Next Week With These New Features

Thursday January 23, 2025 6:41 am PST by
iOS 18.3 should be released to the public next week, following beta testing since mid-December. While the software update is a relatively minor one, it still includes a handful of new features, changes, and bug fixes for iPhones. Below, we recap everything new in iOS 18.3. Notification Summary Changes Examples of inaccurate Apple Intelligence notification summaries Apple Intelligence...
iOS 18

5 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.3

Friday January 24, 2025 1:55 am PST by
Apple is set to release iOS 18.3 next week, bringing further refinements to Apple Intelligence features, a couple of neat new capabilities to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 devices, and bug fixes. While not quite as packed with new features as Apple's preceding iOS 18 point releases, iOS 18.3 still introduces capabilities that aim to make your iPhone smarter and more intuitive. Below, we've...
Generic iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Beta Coming Soon With These New Features for Your iPhone

Friday January 24, 2025 8:16 am PST by
iOS 18.3 is expected to be widely released next week, and that means the first iOS 18.4 beta for iPhones should be just around the corner. Apple has previously implied that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, as that is when it promised to make Apple Intelligence available in even more languages. Below, we outline what to expect from iOS 18.4 so far. Apple Intelligence for Siri Siri ...
Apple Pay Walmart Feature

Walmart Stands Firm on Why It Doesn't Accept Apple Pay in the U.S.

Thursday January 23, 2025 7:32 am PST by
Walmart still does not accept Apple Pay or other NFC payments at its more than 4,600 stores across the U.S., and it stood firm on its reasoning for that today. A spokesperson for Walmart today informed MacRumors that its position on contactless payments has not changed since we last reached out about the matter in 2022. The big-box retailer said it remains focused on its own convenient...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Launching This Year With These New Features

Wednesday January 22, 2025 6:01 pm PST by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year. In this article, we recap rumored features and changes for the device. The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports Wi-Fi 6E, which would be an upgrade over the current Apple TV's standard Wi-Fi 6 support. Wi-Fi 6E extends the...
iOS 18

Here Are Apple's Full Release Notes for iOS 18.3

Tuesday January 21, 2025 4:31 pm PST by
Apple provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 18.3 today, and with it comes release notes confirming what's new. While we knew about several of the features that are in the update, there are some lesser known tweaks and bug fixes. The update adds new Visual Intelligence features for iPhone 16 models, it tweaks Notification summaries on all...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Horizontal Single Feature

Kuo: iPhone 17 Models Won't Have Smaller Dynamic Island

Friday January 24, 2025 9:09 am PST by
The upcoming iPhone 17 models that Apple plans to release this year will not feature a smaller Dynamic Island, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today. On social media, he said that he is expecting the size of the Dynamic Island to remain "largely unchanged" across the iPhone 17 lineup. His statement is contrary to prior rumors that we've heard about planned changes for the iPhone 17 models. ...
iPhone 16 Apple Store Levels

Gurman: Apple Stores Receiving 'Merchandise' Updates Next Week

Saturday January 25, 2025 5:07 pm PST by
Apple's retail stores will be rolling out "merchandise/floor marketing updates" next week, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman did not explicitly say if the store updates are related to any upcoming product announcements, but he did mention that next week is around the time that Apple rolls out its annual Black Unity watch band for the Apple Watch. In each of the past four years, ...
apple power beats pro 2

Apple's First Product Announcement of 2025 is Imminent

Thursday January 23, 2025 2:48 pm PST by
It's also time for Apple's first product announcement of the year. Last year, Apple said it would be launching Powerbeats Pro 2 in 2025, and the wireless earbuds are expected to launch very soon. Powerbeats Pro 2 images found in iOS 18 code In his Power On newsletter last weekend, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said the Powerbeats Pro 2 are "due imminently." In addition to Apple filing the...

Top Rated Comments

Roessnakhan Avatar
123 months ago
400+ locations on campus......good god.....are those vending machines?
Working at a University, 400+ isn't that wild to think about. You have printing stations, vending machines, bookstores, athletic shops, theatre box offices, places where you pay your bill in person, food & drink vendors, etc.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kylebshr Avatar
123 months ago
UT Knoxville has been accepting Apple Pay (or any NFC payment) all summer, at every on campus location. I guess they need to up their marketing game.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
bradl Avatar
123 months ago
Former Sooner...Boomer Sooner!
I'm of 2 minds of this.

Not because of Apple Pay being accepted in Norman, but the fact that all my relatives are from Oklahoma (name a town east of OKC to the MO and AR border, all the way south to TX, and there's a good chance I have relatives there), and my parents live in (and I was born in) Nebraska, and that some of them moved to Texas.

For those not in the know, when it comes to college gridiron, this 3-way rivalry is brutal, like Ohio and Michigan; NE doesn't like OK, OK doesn't like NE, TX doesn't like either NE or TX! Now, imagine those Saturday afternoons during a family reunion, and the Sooners are playing the Cornhuskers, or the Longhorns are playing the Sooners.. and I'm the one stuck in the middle!

In short, expect both TX and NE to accept Apple Pay in the next 2 weeks, and good luck in those games! I'll just watch the brutality from over on the west coast. :p

BL.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jonblatho Avatar
123 months ago
Former Sooner...Boomer Sooner!
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Andres Cantu Avatar
123 months ago
This should help increase the "cool factor" for Apple Pay :)
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Saucesome2000 Avatar
123 months ago
I love using Apple Pay, I've used it at Walgreen's, Subway, Wegman's, and Rite Aid.

I believe this technology is awesome and will pick up more as time goes on, but like with every new payment method, there's just no teaching certain people because they don't care. I doubt you'll see grandma at the checkout counter with her iPhone 6 plus initiating Apple Pay. It's bad enough that we'll have to deal with naive people during this whole transition period.

I can't wait for the wide option of this and the EMV deadline in October. Also can't wait to wait to get some good laughs at people trying to figure out why the machine says, "use chip reader," when swiping their EMV card on a terminal that has the chip reader enabled. I figured this is how it would go:

1.Grandma swipes her EMV BankAmericard at a Wegman's terminal.
2.Terminal says, "use chip reader."
3.Grandma goes, "huh?!?"
4.Grandma says, "this fricken technology, why does it always have to change, I swear!?"
5.Grandma has to get shown where to put the card in the slot.
6.Grandma pulls the card out as soon as she puts it in.
7.Grandma has to be instructed to leave the card in the terminal until prompted to take it out.
Actually it's more like this:

1.Grandma takes out checkbook to pay. Clerk think, "Is she serious?"
2.Grandma is told that the store doesn't accept checks.
3.Grandma gets huffy and asks why not? Rambles about forced change, not trusting debit cards, etc.
4.Clerk tries to avoid saying, "Because it's 20-fricking-15 and any idiot knows that checks bounce higher than a pogo stick, everyone is given a debit card with their checking account, and debit cards are way more secure for the customer and retailer.
5.Clerk makes funny anecdote blaming corporate to act like their siding with grandma.
6.Grandma pulls out debit card.
7.Clerk thinks to self, "Why the f*** was that so hard? You had it all along."
8.Grandma swipes her EMV BankAmericard at a Wegman's terminal.
9.Terminal says, "use chip reader."
10.Grandma goes, "huh?!?"
11.Grandma says, "this fricken technology, why does it always have to change, I swear!?"
12.Grandma has to get shown where to put the card in the slot.
13.Grandma pulls the card out as soon as she puts it in.
14.Grandma has to be instructed to leave the card in the terminal until prompted to take it out.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)